Timaru, New Zealand

Monday, January 11, 2015

Our Kiwi Guide, Barry

Timaru is a stop the Cruise Lines makes because ... well, I have no clue why!  There is nothing here.  There was nothing here last year and nothing has changed.  

Our guide, James must know this because he organized a tour with a local "Kiwi" guide, Barry.  We left the ship on a bus with Barry who took us to the Timaru Botanical Garden.  The garden was beautiful albeit small.  

Chewing on the fence trying to escape the botanical garden.

But the very best part of this visit was the phone call that I received from Jeff while walking amongst the roses.  We talked for several minutes.  He is on a Semester at Sea program traveling around the world, and was calling from the Pacific Ocean on his way to Hawaii.   He seems happy and excited about his trip.  I hope he has the time of his life and can't wait to hear from him again.  

Here piggy, piggy.

We set out on our tour stopping briefly so Barry could place a call to the folks ahead to alert them of our estimated arrival time.  When the bus stopped, the pigs from a farm came running to the fence. Guess they were looking for food.  I didn't have the heart to tell them that we were looking at them the same way.

St. David's Pioneer Memorial Church

Our first stop with Barry was to visit St. David's Pioneer Memorial Church, a quaint, tiny blue stone church in Cave, McKinsey County, literally in the middle of nowhere.  

Pulpit of St. David's

Built in 1865 to commemorate the local workers, this Presbyterian church was built of stones left behind from glaciers and carried by workers from fields that were cleared for farm land.  The walls were accented with beautiful stained glass windows telling the story of the hardships encountered by local workers.  Off the beaten path, this church is the kind of place only a local Kiwi would know about and I'm so glad Barry shared it with us.    

Our next stop was a visit to Barry's daughter and son-in-law's dairy farm.  We saw the day to day workings of a  typical dairy farm.  It was quite interesting to watch the cattle march into the milking shoot, get hooked up to an automatic milker and I found it incredibly interesting to see how much milk one cow could produce.  One cow half filled a 10 gallon jug.  

One cow almost filled the white container.

The cows are milked twice a day and the milk is shipped to a processing plant where it is processed and turned into milk powder and most of it is shipped to China where the Chinese spend $100.00 for a small box of this milk powder for baby formula.  The Chinese do not trust their own dairy industry.  Go figure!!

"You lookin' at me?!"

After the dairy farm, we went to Stan and Angie Taylor's farm called Morelea, in Fairlie, New Zealand.  Stan farms approximately 4000 sheep and several hundred cattle as well as a few alpacas.  

Home cooked New Zealand Meal.

Angie was bored as a farmer's wife so she decided to open her home to visitors for an authentic New Zealand lunch in a farm house.  The veggies she served were grown on their farm.  As were the lamb chops, meat patties and hotdogs.  

Pavlova recipe on Angie's Back.

She made a dessert called Pavlova, a meringue cake topped with whipped cream and fresh kiwi and strawberries.  

Angie and her Pavlova.  YUM!!

Delicious.  I guess she was tired of sharing her recipe, so she had it printed on the back of her shirt.  Brilliant!  So I'll share it with you.  After lunch, Stan took us to the sheering barn and sheered a sheep for us.  Very interesting.  The lamb didn't seem all that excited about it.  The wool is sold for approximately $15 per lamb.  But the demand for wool has decreased over the years and now the real money is in the meat industry.  

Deer Farm.

Their sheep are all grass fed and free range and so are his cattle, which results in meat that is very lean. He sells his beef to McDonalds in the United States.  So I'm happy to report that McDonalds uses beef that is free range and grass fed in New Zealand.  

We also went by a Venison Farm.  Would have been fun to put a skillet shot on one of these.   

Tui's Ice Cream

We finished up at the farm and headed back to the town of Fairlie where we had delicious New Zealand Ice Cream at Tui's Treats, where she sells Ice Cream, Milk shakes and Loose Lollies, which is loose candy sold by the gram.  The ice cream was quite tasty.

After church, the farm visits and ice cream, we stopped at the local train station and rode a Model T Ford Rail Car.  

Model T Ford Railway Car.

Said to be the only one of it's kind in the world, the rail car, which seated 11 passengers, was in mint condition.  

Locomotive runs on firewood instead of coal.

We rode down the track about 2 miles and then switched to the steam locomotive and rode back.  This was a nice way to end our tour of "small town" New Zealand with our local Kiwi Gide, Barry.  

We returned to the ship and later had dinner at the Italian Restaurant on the ship as we set sail for Dunedin.