Going Up to Cambridge

Our move from Waikenae near Wellington, to Cambridge near Hamilton (our location for the next three weeks, to be followed by two weeks at a beach house on the Coromandel Penninsula), was full of unexpected pleasures. On Sunday morning we bid goodbye to Joy and David at Saddle Creek Farm and headed northeast to Napier. This coastal city is famous for the fact that, after being almost entirely demolished by an earthquake, the whole city was rebuilt in a deliberately Art Deco style. All the downtown shops, and the pedestrian seafront buildings are examples of this lovely fashion, and they hold a very popular Art Deco weekend every year (which we chose to avoid--too many crowds for us) when everyone dresses up and drives vintage cars etc.. We enjoyed a stroll along the beach, admiring both the gorgeous blue sea and the pretty buildings.



Leaving Napier, we backtracked a little bit southwards in order to spend the night at Mynthurst, a farmstay accommodation. My American friend Sydney Eddison, the garden writer, had written asking me to look up the proprieter of Mynthurst, Annabelle Hamilton, who was a former student of hers back in her drama teaching days in the 1950's. I got in touch with Annabelle, and she graciously asked us to come for dinner and an overnight stay. Mynthurst is a large sheep farm, but the house is very luxurious and full of wonderful original paintings done by Annabelle's artist grandparents--really inspiring. We had a wonderful dinner with the Hamiltons and a couple from California who were also staying there, and slept soundly.

The next morning, however, brought a special opportunity to watch as the first of a thousand sheep were 'crutched'--the dirty wool from around their backsides shorn in order to prevent fly infection--not too elegant an operation, but fascinating to watch the shearers' skill and speed! Here are some pictures from our time there. This picture shows the view from the back terrace of the house. Although it looks as if the sheep are right on the lawn, in fact they are in a lower field, separated from the lawn by the clever use of what the English call a "ha-ha," a drop in height that is invisible from above, giving an unimpeded view of the stock grazing pastorally in the field at the bottom of the garden.


For the crutching operation, the sheep must be brought up from the fields the night before so they are not wet for the shearers in the morning. Then they must be driven, in groups of about fifty, up the ramp to the holding pens on the upper floor of the barn--that's Annabelle's husband David herding them in there.


Then the shearer opens up a door into one of the pens, bodily lifts a ewe and drags her outside the pen, gets her in sort of a headlock while he shears her bottom, then gives her the heave-ho down a ramp behind him to the counting pen (they are paid by the number of sheep shorn). All this is done at top speed (remember, a thousand sheep done in one day by two shearers) and the ewes seem completely indifferent--no bleating or panic at all.


The "dag-ends" as this wool is called, are swept up and sold to an operation that will clean and comb them, and then they are sold to be used in rugs or insulation--not clothing, as only the final fleeces are used for that. This operation is the source of the New Zealand expression "rattle your dags" (i.e. move your behind!).
And that's Frank with Annabelle.

The next morning we headed out on our way to Cambridge, but were distracted by a lavender farm along the way. We enjoyed the beauty of the fields of lavender, listened to an explanation of the distilling process, bought some lavender oil, and then stopped into the cafe where I just had to try what they called a "Foveaux Storm"! This concoction combined lavender syrup made from a lavender variety called Foveaux with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, topped by a double shot of espresso coffee! It was not only beautiful, as you can see, but amazingly tasty--quite an experience. Yum!


We arrived at our new accommodation, Antoinette's Annexe, at Chiddingfold Garden just outside of Cambridge, in late afternoon and have spent the last day settling in. More details about this locale in the next post, but in the meantime here's Frank on our balcony--it's a great apartment