Down on the farm

The lovely Andrew and Julie Muller invited us to stay on their dairy farm in Taranaki. Locally known as the 'white gold' region. This is prime dairy country.

We met these two Kiwi's on the 6am bus on route to the Tongariro Crossing. They were also staying at the same base camp ground as ourselves. We were undecided on what and where to head next, whether
to go right or left, east or west coast. But with the crossing complete and beer in hand after a bit of light banter an open invite followed to work out west on the farm. We didn't take too long in accepting this kind offer and a deal was sealed. We had already looked at farm stays but as we'd committed on the van we couldn't really afford both.

We arrived around 4pm in time to make the afternoon milking shift. Eventually we found some overalls and gumboots that actually fitted, gee whizz these farmer types are big. Two of us could have fitted into one pair, gumboots and ovies! So with the kids work wear on and spare socks rammed into our boots we were off into the paddock to round up the 160 Frisians. Us keen apprentices got straight to work thinking all the while how big these animals were up close. We also couldn't help wonder why all the sleeves of the overalls had been cut off to the shoulder, maybe the heat, maybe it was to enhance the look? Oh it was a no to both, we soon witnessed why when at the business end of a cow!

Muller Farm is a member of a co-operative. They milk twice a day (5am & 4pm) and a tanker collects the milk around midnight. Standing in that milking pit with 32 cows bottoms facing you is pretty daunting. A standard rule applies to all, basically if any tails lifts move out the way pronto. To put each milk sucker on you had to feel for each teet which gets you pretty up-close to the back end. We found it funny that both A & J knew each cow from its behind!

As you can imagine we were both pretty nervy. It takes about 8 minutes to milk each cow then you whip off the suckers and rotate to the opposite cow. There was a bit of kicking and twitching going on but we were told we weren't being firm enough and instead we were more than likely tickling them. In no time though we were into it and what struck us more than anything was just how calm the whole process was, not a moo to be heard. 1 1/2 hours later all done and happy cows back out to pasture. Then the clear up begins (firey Deano you would have been impressed with Fe's 2" hosing skills). This is one hose you do not want to loose control of!

Eager to see more we headed out for a tour of the farm on the bikes, the kind of which we'd never rode before. I had to have a quick lesson and practice in a soft grassy paddock with little to crash into while
Fe opted for pillion on Andrew's. Once away I felt like Steve McQueen in the Great Escape or was it a case of Wallace and Grommit ?!

As a trial feed Andrew had opted to grow some turnips for the herd to graze on as well as grass. With the electric fence repositioned from the morning feed it was time the cows had another go on these huge
vegetables. We'd never seen nips like it !

Some quick cow facts: - the average cow weighs 80 stone whilst a calf weighs in at around 7.  Each cow eats around 16 stone of grass per day, per day!  They have 4 stomachs - well you would need them for all that grass!

Julie cooked us a lovely supper including rhubarb (from the garden) crumble. Was great to have a family home base with some real home cooked food. Nicole, their daughter, joined us too and the two rookie farm types sat back and felt pretty good about the days events and our new skills.