Wild Wild Waitaha West

I've been woofing on a dairy farm for the last week milking 197 Jersey cows. They are happy cows - very well looked after. And friendly too - especially Roz - she likes talking to me when I walk the cows in.

Milking starts early!! We get up at about 5am to walk the cows to the milking shed where they are then lined up to be milked. All the cows get hosed down first then their udders washed and 'stimulated' (a rough massage!!) to make the milk flow, then you put the machines onto to udders which act like a gentle rhythmic vacume cleaner. Sometimes their a bit kicky with the machines, especially when its cold outside, but most of the time they are easy. Then once they've given up their milk you then give the udders a quick spray with some antiseptic and glycerine and then let them out to pasture. All the time dodging pee and poo - they aren't shy about this while being milked. Then, hose down all the poo and Voila! Usually we're finished in time for breaky at 10 - then snooze/garden whatever and start all over again at 5pmish. It's quite repetative work, but you are always on the go and listening to classic hits FM so you get a bit of a rhythm going and plenty of peaceful time to thing.

Walking the cows in at 5am -


Cows enjoying the sunrise while waiting to be milked -


In the parlour -

Poo pushing -

It's nice to be working here too as there's usually at least 1 other wwoofa working. I've met Viv, a very excellent lady from Kent who speaks her mind and has a good sense of humour, Christiane, my funny dance floor partner from from Germany, Rina, a very sweet and tiny girl from Tokyo who came so well equiped with luggage about 3 times bigger than her!, and Maurice and Helen a friendly couple from Ireland full of good/bad Irish jokes.

Last weekend we all got a rest from milking and readied ourselves for the Hokitika wild food festival where I flew caution to the wind for a day and ate Shark (can't really say that it tasted any different to most other white fish), Crocodile (like very tough pork) Kokodo (very nice Fijian? recipe for fish) Crystalised worms truffles (just crunchy, nothing more to be said) and "Mountain Oysters" (ie. ram's testicles - and do you know, this was actually my favourite - very tender, slightly salty and a bit like pork).

Many mountain oysters -

Being sliced up -
I couldn't eat the cow udders though!! After milking all week I think my mind would prevail over my madness with this one. But the guy siad they were nice - just like eating the fat on a pork chop.

Fried cow udders - tasty titties!

And boy did I drink! There was some wonderful stuff on offer. Raspberry Cider, Gorse wine, Rose wine, home made Kowlua, Dried prunes soaked in gin...

Viv and Christiane enjoying some raspberry cider -


After all of that we went to digest on the beach and I had one of the wildest swims I've had so far. Crazy waves!! Still have the bruises. It was a great time on the beach - many of the festival goers ended up down there and once it was dark you could see heaps of fires all the way down the beach with people wondering from one to the other in a drunken happy haze. Before I knew it we were watching the sunrise by the still roaring fire!

Viv admiring the sunset -


Sunrise by the fire -


Juggling on the beach on Sunday morning - the best way to beat a hang over....?


We were very lucky to have such beautiful weather for the weekend. The west coast is very verdant and lush (read rain rain rain) and now it is bucketing it down outside... Stormy beautiful west coast...