Visions of the Lower North Island (Visions of New Zealand series) by Donna Blaber

Author:Donna Blaber
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: travel, holiday, new, new zealand, guide, guidebook, nz, kiwi, tongariro, zealand, masterton, wanganui, taranaki
Publisher: Donna Blaber

Tuatara at Nga Manu

My favourite places to stay

Country Patch

18 Kea Street, Waikanae

04 293 5165

www.countrypatch.co.nz

Hiwinui Country Estate

465 Ashhurst Road, Hiwinui

06 329 2838

www.hiwinui.co.nz

My favourite places to eat

The Red House Café

885 State Highway 1, Otaki

06 364 3022

The Herb Farm

Grove Road, Ashhurst

Palmerston North

06 326 8633

Ruahine Ranges

7. Feilding to Rangitikei

Feilding saleyards

"Ladies and gentlemen, pen number 32. Thirty bullocks from Puketiro Farm — big, framey, hill-country bullocks. How much to start me here? $1000 to start … 980, 960, 950? At $940, and we're away to business…"

Farmers crowd in, their impassive faces hiding their thoughts. To my unpracticed eye, no one appears to be interacting with the auctioneer, so he seems to be making a sale by some miracle of telepathy. Before I know it — Bang! It's "Down they go!", and the bullocks sell for $1050 each to a farmer from over Dannevirke way.

David Stroud, an experienced ex-cattle-and-sheep farmer who now offers insider tours of the Feilding saleyards, helps us break the code. As we move to the next pen, I study the casual-looking throng intently, and try to follow the auctioneer's eye. Slowly it becomes clearer: a wink here, a nod there, a pull on the ear; sometimes it's just a long, hard stare to sustain the bidding, and then a casual glance away when the price gets too high. While the auctioneer rattles off the animals' vital statistics, spotters scan the crowd; once you've made a bid, they keep you within sight all day. I try hard to keep my hands in my pockets and avoid making eye contact — lest I unwittingly find myself the proud owner of a pen of sheep.

Located right in the middle of town, the saleyards seem crowded to me, with standing room only and bidders packed two deep around the auction pen, but we're told that the 4,000 sheep here today is nowhere near the 35,000 capacity. With a turnover 1.2 to 1.3 million beasts per week, these yards do more business than any other in the Southern Hemisphere.

David is an entertaining and informative guide. We learn that the first sale on this site — 100 head of cattle — was held here on 24th May, 1880. To reach their market, drovers would negotiate mobs of 500 to 600 sheep over a journey that took several days, and as flocks from different parts of the surrounding countryside converged on the yards, things became a logistical nightmare.

"Water would have been their greatest challenge," says David. He describes how he used to bring cattle from Himatangi to Rangiwahia in a six-day round trip. "It wasn't unusual for drovers in the early days to herd up to 100,000 cattle. It'd take them up to three months, with one helper and a handful of dogs. They'd fatten the cattle up on the side of the road, but this had to be stopped when traffic was affected, and water tables and drains became damaged."

While transporting the stock is now a one-day operation, it's still a massive undertaking. As far away as Raetihi

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