The family i was staying with have two farms, yes two! And i went to their other one with Ken and the son of some friends of theirs, Kit.

We were there 4 days, and 3 of them were spent docking (cutting the tails off) lambs. 3782 of them!It was hard work! There were 6 of us doing it; we rotated but at one time 2 were putting the lambs in the cradle, 1 was marking their ears with what was essentially a hole punch, 1 was scratching them with a medicine against Scabine and putting a ring round the rams' balls (castration ring), 1 was cutting the tails off with a huge pair of heated scissors, so it quarterises the wound, and one was spraying the stump with an antibacterial spray!

I got absolutely covered in blood, urine and faeces!yum!

But it was good fun, and after 3 days docking 3782 lambs, we drank about as many beers on the last night. These farm types drink like you've never seen. They had loads at the farm afterwards, and then went off to some other party, driving of course. Along with the beers we also had bbq lambs tails which are surprisingly tasty. There is no meat on them, just milk fat, but it tastes good, quite sickly though.

The guys that helped used the English language as i have never seen before! Swear words just became adjectives for everything, good or bad!

The view from the farm was amazing, and so was the route we took over the mountains to get there and back.

Am off to Wellington tomorrow to stay with relatives and find a car. Will post new blog when I'm down there, and hopefully will be able to put up some photos!