We arrived in Palmerston North, New Zealand on Monday and our hosts picked us up from the coach station and off we went to Rongotea and a small organic farm on the south of the North Island. Our accommodation is a small room in an old woolshed and very basic. For the next two weeks we are working on the farm helping to milk the cows, bottle the milk, feed the chickens and pigs as well as a few carpentry jobs and housekeeping.

The work is challenging, with an early start. Fortunately the weather has improved and we now have sunshine with the temperature reaching about 23°, so a lot cooler than we are used to. The last two nights have been quite chilly in our shed and we have had to put on our jumpers and (in Chris' case) long johns under our overalls in the morning. We have two fetching orange boiler suits to attract any s*** that's flying about as well as milk sprayed about by inconsiderate cows whose teats don't spray in a downward direction! As it's an organic farm, there is no pasteurization. Chris has been on the titty end collecting the milk from 50 odd cows, some of which are a bit grumpy and kick out when he touches their udders, so he had to be careful (and warm his hands). I am in the bottling side where the milk has been cooled and is put in the 1 and 2 litre plastic bottles straight from the tank using a hose and nozzle gun poured into each bottle by hand. We do about 80 or so bottles as well as skimming off the cream from the previous days milk that has settled and bottle this as well. The milk is rich and a creamy yellow, not thin and white like pasteurized milk. It's yummy!

This week has been busy and we have been working hard. On Wednesday we visited a local sales yard to see two of the farms young Jersey cows being auctioned. The cows were kept in pens with walkways around the top so that buyers could look down and see the condition of the cows before they bid on them. It was very interesting to hear the auctioneer's patter and trying to see who was bidding, a nod here, scratch of ear there. One of the cows made a bid for freedom by trying to get behind the escape area but most of them were well behaved.

It was a nice warm sunny day on Thursday so we biked to the coast about 9 miles away. It took us about 45 minutes but the saddle on my bike was a killer, and we nearly turned back a couple of times, but we were thought we were close so we kept going. We kept thinking the sea would be just around the next bend, but it didn't appear until we were almost on the beach and even then was right out in the distance. The beach was a surprise, it was enormous and covered with carcasses of trees that had been washed up and bleached by the sun. At first we got the impression that the beach was covered in bones! It had a stark beauty of its own in the late afternoon sunlight. Cycling back was hard, especially on my backside, but the roads around this area are very straight, fairly flat with slight inclines and hardly any traffic. The traffic that does pass you seems to be going much faster than the 100 km an hour speed limit!

We changed jobs half way through the week and are now renovating the outside of the woolshed with new plywood. (I think Chris is relieved he doesn't have to deal with the "ladies" any more).

To celebrate the end of our first week we all visited the Feilding Field days which is a big three day event a bit like a County Show with less animals. Lots of trade stands and demonstrations with tractors and diggers. The show ground was massive and yet again the sun shone and we had a great afternoon looking around and watching the demonstrations. Chris even found, surprise, surprise the stationery engine and classic tractors, with a nice little Allis Chalmers tractor that was built in Essendine at the factory next door to the cottage we used to live in many years ago when the children were young in Lincolnshire.

We are coming to the end of our second week in Rongotea and Chris has done a brilliant job of covering the outside of the woolshed with waterproof sheet and plywood. Our hosts intend to move in there once it has been renovated (rather them than me, two weeks living in a drafty smelly shed is long enough!). This weekend we travel to Nelson which is north of the South Island. Everyone says it is lovely there and always sunny - time will tell.