25. Dead Leg & Mt Cook

When I choose the title for a new blog post I usually just put down what I am thinking about whilst I'm typing away.
Today I am thinking about my leg, which is dead. We were sorting out the bulls in the yard, and a particularly stupid heifer made an audacious dash for freedom. I made a run for the open gate to cut her off, my path took me behind one of the Charolais bulls, who was also running towards the gate. He didn't take kindly to my surprising turn of pace and lashed out with a brutal buckaroo kick, right to the upper thigh.
I have had a dead leg for three days now. I was disappointed not to get a hoof shaped bruise though, which is something I would definitely have taken a photo of and put on the blog.

Anyway, what have I been up to? The other day I put the Lord of the Rings soundtrack in the CD player and drove to Mount Cook, or as near to it as I could get without donning crampons and grabbing a rope. Mt Cook is the tallest mountain in NZ at 12,316 ft and is a pretty impressive bit of rock. Despite it being summer now, there was still a fair amount of snow on it.

There were some prety dramatic skies on the drive to the hill, and with the dramatic landscape make for some awesome views.

The lake is Lake Pukaki and is famous for being bright turquoise, especially when the sunlight is right, apparently the colour is due to deposits of minerals in the water.

(This photo has had no colour enhancement)

The road to Mt Cook runs along the lake for about 40km so I took a lot of photographs like this, with lake, mountains and sky.

Once I got nearer the view became less impressive when the clouds descended. They always seem to appear when ever I want to get some good pics of mountains. This is what Mt Cook close up looked like, to me anyway.

Near to Mt Cook is the famous Tasman Glacier. I have never seen a glacier before so I thought I would check it out. The Tasman Glacier is 24 km long and 92 km² in area, which is quite a lot of ice. Although there used to be much more of it, it is retreating by between 480 and 820 metres per year. And I assume that was the reason it was so far away from the lookout point the sign directed me to.

It was also a lot dirtier than I expected, not the pristine white I imagined, and the whole area looked like Mordor, with nothing alive apart from a thorny bush called 'Wild Irishman', (I actually live with one of these). I waited around for a bit to see if the glacier was moving, after ten minutes I thought I saw a party of orcs approaching so I scarpered, turns out they were just some Aussie tourists.

On my return journey I stopped off at a Salmon farm, which had a floating shop. I thought I would see what NZ smoked salmon was like compared to the Scottish kind which I could eat kilos of. But what really caused me to pull a dangerous but necessary U-turn was the big sign that said 'FEED THE FISH FOR FREE.'

Here is a clip of me making the fish go mental by chucking in the food.

The reaction was very piranha-ish and reminded me of that scene in one of the James Bonds. Here is the best pic I got of a salmon, they move pretty fast.

And here is what I bought (I have no high hopes of catching salmon, I think I am more of a trout bloke).

In other news, David and Jocelyn have gone to Ireland for Christmas, which means we are running the show for a few weeks. It is good to get some responsibility and do a bit of decision making without having to ring the boss!

Also check out last week's Farmers Weekly, you will find in this years photo competition that this photo of mine won its section and is now in the running for the big prize of £200!

Exciting times!

It is going to be very strange, Christmas time in the summer. I am a huge fan of all things Christmas, the food, the booze, the food, the presents and the food. I have been trying to get in the Christmas mood but even listening to a bit of Michael Bublé and watching 'Elf'' does not disguise the fact that I am putting on suncream before I go out to work.

We have been to quite a few BBQ's recently, as is traditional in this part of the world. Lots of Speight's, steaks, burgers and sausages and it is guaranteed that there will be a pavlova there. It is certainly different to mulled wine and mince pies, but I am not complaining. We are having a BBQ on Christmas day, obviously I am in charge of the cooking and I will definitely cook too much meat. I am trying to think of the best way to BBQ a turkey.

Thanks to everyone who has sent me Christmas presents and cards, the winner for the best card goes to my sister Charlotte with this excellent homemade piece. I might get it framed.

Have a great Christmas everyone and don't forget the farmers who graft hard to produce your Christmas dinner.