The Virtual Reinhard
Created | Updated Nov 24, 2005
A Letter from Lake Wakatipu Part 2
Walter Peak Country Farm
An hour or so into the cruise, we paused at the Walter Peak High Country Farm, an old but still operating sheepstation which also
boasts a rather splendid colonial restaurant serviced each evening
by the TSS Earnslaw herself. A few of us got off to be greeted by
our guide, a shepherd, who took us on a tour and explained what
life was like living on the station.
He had all sorts of tales to tell, particularly about the annual gathering where everybody in the homestead combed the hills with
horses and dogs in order to flush all the sheep, which live wild
all year round, back to the farm for shearing. In fact, the papers
only recently had carried stories of a sheep dubbed 'Shrek' which
had escaped detection for six years and whose coat, when finally
sheared, weighed 26 kilos, enough to make twenty suits.
We were treated to a sheep dog demonstration by some of the older,
now retired dogs, who were still fleet enough to give a very impressive display of crowd control in a small group of bewildered sheep, and were introduced to a few of the station's sidelines, in the form of deer and Scottish highland cattle, before retiring to the main house for cream tea.
The highlight of the tour was the shearing demonstration. After we
had eaten we were taken to a large barn, to be greeted by the most
appalling squealing sound, which turned out to be a couple of young
orphan lambs. Don't ever be misled that lambs bleat, they don't,
they shriek; but we found that they soon quietened down if you picked them up, and Brownyn had a fine time bottlefeeding one of them as we settled down to watch the demo.
A couple of adult sheep were milling around at the back of the
barn. The shepherd manhandled one of them towards us, and then
flipped it onto its back, whereupon it instantly went limp, and
from then on it didn't seem to care one whit either for us or for
anything that happened to it.
Out came some electric clippers, and the animal was firmly but
gently shaved. I had expected it to wriggle and fight, but it just
lay there uncomplaining on it's back as it was moved this way and
that, and before long it stood naked before us. The pelt was surprisingly greasy to the touch, and heavy with protective lanolin.
We wandered out of the barn, looking up at the forbidding steep
hills and pondered on the hardiness of the shepherds who lived in
this beautiful but lonely place. Then a steam whistle blew from the lake. It was the Earnslaw, come to take us back to the modern world.
