Day 13

 

Kallie presenting her group's cattle
ranks after Gray had us judge
his cattle.

Today, students returned from each of their farm stays to Roxburgh. Once everyone was back and loaded on the bus, we embarked onto our first location, Limehills Herefords. Here we met Gray and Robyn Pannett, the owners of the property. A quick history lesson. The Melutha Valley where the property is located was settled in the 1890s. It was communal land owned by the government, which meant all the original settlers could utilize the land together. After World War II, the land was leased out by the government to whomever “drove” their livestock there first. This led to six stations being created and operating up and down the valley at that point in time. Today, there are more stations with smaller herds. The Pannett’s station was originally one of those six. Today, they run about 4,500 hectares which stretches 28 kilometers total from one end to the other. They have 7,000 crossbred Romneys, 350 purebred Hereford, and 350 commercial black cross cattle. Gray has been farming for 46 years and breeding Herefords for quite some time as well. We were lucky to see some of his sale bulls as his 46^th annual bull sale this Tuesday. Today’s activity, picking our top three bulls from the entire sale. Gray and the students all found the best bull, but from there, we varied slightly on preference. Gray and Robyn were very kind and great to learn from.

Limehills Hereford official sale catalog

Kyle, channeling his inner Captain Cook

Historic church in Dunedin

We left Limehills Herefords Station and began our journey to Dunedin (pronounced duh-knee-den) where we found a spot for lunch. While exploring Dunedin some, we enjoyed the architecture of the historic churches and buildings from when the area was first settled. It was an artistic, quaint, beautiful city. After lunch, we traveled to the Moeraki Boulders, where we scaled the boulders and raced along the sand. Some of us enjoyed feeling the sand and frigid water on our bare feet, soaking up the last time we will explore the shores of an ocean on this trip.

The orb at Moeraki Boulders

Enjoying the sunset at
Moeraki Boulders

Moeraki boulder eroding

Next, we headed to Oamaru to watch the blue penguins come shore to roost. We excitedly leaned against the metal fence when we saw what looked like a school of jumping fish following the incoming waves. To our surprise, they were small, battered, blue penguins. We took our seats in the bleachers and waited patiently for the penguins to come ashore. They clumsily and gingerly made their way onto the rocky shore. Sitting all around the boulders were unbothered, sleepy seals. In group after group (groups of penguins are called a raft), more blue penguins climbed and hopped their way up to the soil to find their nests. It was a treacherous journey for them. Larger birds flew back and forth closely watching the penguins. As we waited with bated breath to see the penguins make safely it back to land, the larger flying birds seemed to wait until right before the penguins made it safely to cry out and assert their presence. Many times, the penguins rushed back down the boulders in fear of the obnoxious flying birds. Eventually, the colonies of blue penguins, often lead by one brave soul, made it onto the soil in front of us. It was there that they knew there was no turning back, and where they began to run as quickly as their little two feet could carry them into their nests that the facility provided them. After we saw most of the penguins make it to safety, we headed back to the bus and to our hotel in this quiet ocean town. Fat Sally’s was for dinner, and we headed back to the hotel to prepare for our final day!  

Blue penguins on the move