There's no photos of Arthurs Pass because the weather was very poor. The drive was very long and we both felt a bit ropey and tired from so much driving in the last few days.

Stu had told us the night before that we would be house-sitting when we arrived as he had to go to a funeral. We were over the moon to return and see the gang trotting up the drive to see us again and felt privileged to have the run of the house as it were till Stu came back. There was much more snow on the mountains around the farm and it was certainly colder than last time.

We got knocked up first thing the next morning by Stu's brother, John. Because of all the rain, the cows were being fed hay for the time being and John needed our help to dish it out to them. We went down the road on the tractor, sitting on very wet hay and trundled into the boggy field the cows were staying in (they can't go in the nice paddocks when it's wet cos they just churn it all up into mud and then moan there's nothing to eat, silly girls). It was a great laugh cutting the bails and trying unsuccessfully to peel off the slabs and chuck them down to the cows from the wet slippy trailer while John slowly circled the field. It was very bumpy and Dan and i were a right sight, slipping and falling and banging heads whilst ripping at the compact bails with very cold and wet and bent-back-nailed hands!

That night Ben, Stu's friend from Christchurch arrived and we ate and drank wine and port and got to know each other. Stu arrived home early the next morning and we all settled in for a rainy week on the farm. Monday was unexpectedly sunny though and so Stu decided to take us to the Seal colony. It was an amazing walk down the beach for two hours - more obsessive driftwood searching by Dan - with the pounding and encroaching surf on one side and bush-clad cliffs with immense waterfalls on the other. The place was very remote and premordial and it wouldn't have felt weird to see a Diplodocus walking along the clifftop!

The seals were massive and in great numbers but all made off to the sea thanks to Dan bellowing "There's one!" at the top of her voice as we first approached them. Nice one! But Stu told us they were the males and the females mostly stayed up in the colony with the babies when danger came. Wouldn't you just know it?! We got a really good look and were going to climb the cliff nearby for a better view but it seemed the tide was coming in quite fast so we headed back. It was a race against time and we actually got caught in the breakers on one or two of the bluffs. Never mind. What a great walk. We all found something interesting on the beach too - mine was a seal's pelvis!

The rest of the week was spent feeding the cows and moving them around a couple of times. One of the girls didn't come with the others when we moved them one rainy afternoon and we could see her on own - a tiny brown dot in the distance. God knows how he could tell, but Stu said her tail was up and she was bloated and that she was probably calving - 3 months too early! Oh no! We walked up to see her and i was very nervous about seeing her in pain and/or aborting a calf.

As we approached we could see she was looking at her back end and mooing quietly. Stu was very concerned having recently lost a cow to casting - this means when she was lying down she will have rolled a bit too far and not been able to get up. Cows have to burp all the time or they fill up with gas. In this position she wouldn't have been able to burp and therefore died within a very short time. Tragic. He also lost 27 calves last year when they drowned in puddles, unbelievably. So we wanted to get to this one quickly and try and help if need be. As we came up to her though we could see a big hard poo stuck in her bum - she was just constipated! Phew. Too many days on the hay bungs them up and she was just trying to get one out. Bless. Within hours she'd had a poo and trotted off back to the herd happy as larry.

We also killed some chickens which was an eye-opener. Dan was brave enough to kill some herself and got very bloodied in the process. It has to be said the sight and sound of them flapping and somersaulting and CLUCKING with no heads was truly freaky and i actually felt rather unnerved by it.

One morning me and Dan were woken at 1am to the sound of mooing and said to each other "that sounds a bit close". The security light was also on in the garden which suggested one thing - an invasion! We looked out of the window to see cows - lots of cows - all happily trampling through the garden in front of the house and around Ollie.

We woke Stu who was none to pleased and we all ran down in our pyjamas and put our wellies on. About 12 cows were spread around the garden eating the new shoots on the cabbage trees and Stu said they must be the neighbours - ours were too far away. We chased them down the drive and they ran straight back through a whole in the neighbour's fence directly over the road. We ran with torches up the road and found 10 or so more munching on the grass on the verges. We managed to get them back in the field too.

Mooing was coming from all around as the herd protested against us spoiling their jaunt and in the darkness it was hard to see what was where and where the mooing was coming from. Me and Dan were sure we had seen some more run off DOWN the road too so we got the car out and drove down. Suddenly out of the gloom immerged hundreds of glinting devil cow eyes! There was literally a hundred cows all the way down the road, all mooing!

Shouting and cursing, Stu drove on the verge to get past them and then came back up the road and herded them with the car at full speed back towards the field. They really had gone miles away and as we drove behind them they ran at full pelt pooing as they went, with udders swinging in the headlights. It was a truly comical scene - a speeding car full of people in their pyjamas, laughing their heads off with the windscreen wipers going and a windscreen covered poo and milk! Unforgettable.

Dan said aren't you mad with your neighbour and shouldn't we wake him to help or at least tell him? Stu said no because he had done it for Stu before. That's the way life should be! All's fair in love and cows.

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