Hii,
Thanks to everyone who wrote back with a guess about what the dickens we were doing freezing our asses off. The correct answer was a). actually. Just a bloody cold as night, woke up in the morning and all our water was frozen, our bicycles and the tent were covered with thick frost. Only night that was cold like that so far. We were camped in a deep canyon where the sun never got in. Wasn't the plan to spend the night there but we'd had such a headwind all day that was a far as we could make it. Good experience though, freezing your ass off, for real, next time you see me you will notice i no longer have the huge ass i used to. Ha
Ok...this is a long one, read it if you can, if not don't worry!!
Pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, mind wondering, pedal, pedal some more, touch the breaks, have a glance at the mountains, still pedaling, swirve to miss another perfectly flat sun dried possum road kill, thinking, "i bet the chinese would pay a fortune for one of those, it looks just like the wierd driend stuff you see in asian markets." Pedal, pedal, Pedal, pedal, shift gears up a couple notches, stand to let some blood back into my groin, everything including my ass keeps going numb as a rock, maybe not such a good thing, shift hand positions. Silent until we're just next to a flock of sheep and shout, "ARRR SHEEPIES!!!" as loud as i can. Immedialy every one of em looks up just before it starts to run for its life, a sheep stampede, my favorite, gets em every time.
Mind wondering some more..."hey Rachael, ever seen a sheep getting sheered?" "Nope, have you?" "No but i'd like to! lets stop at the next farm that looks like it is sheering and see if they'll let us watch."
Pedal, pedal, Pedal, pedal, Pedal, pedal...8 hours and 120km later we finally arrive at our destination, "Fox Glacier" a town who's solo existance is due to tourism generated by the...yes you guessed it, Glacier 4km up the valley.
Cute little town, its got a couple cafe's, a take away shop, little supermarket, 1, 2 no three pubs..holly shit!!!!(have you ever wondered if it is possible to will something to happen??) Outside 'The Mountain Goat' pub is a sigh reading, and i kidd you not, 'Sheep Sheering Comp. Tonight, Live! Beer! Food! Fun!' Jesus!!! isn't that kind of a coincidence?
O hell yes we went! got there early to get a good seat and a beer before the place packed out.
FIrst up was the open division, anyone who had any sheep sheering experience could enter, maybe you had some sheep of yor own, maybe your uncle had some and you'd given it a go, maybe 50 years ago you had a sheep farm and you were hannkering for that old feeling, hell if there wasn't an entry fee and i wasn't afraid i'd accidently cut the sheeps throat i'd a entered. There were 15 year old girls, mum's, dad's, farmers, and even an 87 year old man, who the announcer, jokingly, or possible not, declared the oldest sheep sheerer in the world.
Mind you, this event wasn't happening outside in teh parking lot or even on the pub veranda, it was happening INSIDE, yes INSIDE the pub, sheep were being dragged into the pub, up onto a podium and sheered infront of 3 or 4 hundred fired up drunk spectators, while the also drunk announcer shouted over the speaker, "22,23, 24 seconds, he's onto the longblows, now he's onto the neck, commmmmeeee onnnnn Foxxxx Glassssiiiieeerrrr giiiittt iinnnnnn be hinnnnnnddd himmmmm!!! Brrrringggg himmmmm hommmmmeeeee!!! This is a local boy!!!!!" I'm pretty sure the screaming wasn't helping to calm the sheep any but it sure was entertaining!
The sheerer would grab the sheep, plop it on its ass, squeeze the sheep between their own legs, pull the cord that simeltaneously started the clock and the electric clippers and then go like hell to sheer the sheep as fast a they could, possibly a little fast as sheep were being cut up here there and everywhere, a lot of sheep blood was spilled that night, we were reassured by some locals that the sheep didn't even mind, (yah right!) and that the cuts would heal up quick, 2 or 3 days.
After watching the open division it really didn't seem as there was any room for improvement, most competators stripped their sheep naked in under 2 minutes, i mean how could anyone possibly do it any faster?
A 20 minute break for everyone to down a few more beers and it was onto the 'pro' devision. You heard me 'pro' division. Like the Tiger Woods of golf, these guys sheer sheep, they don't own any of their own, they don't even have a farm, all they do is sheer.
So you have a flock of 6000 sheep and they all need sheering. At 5 minutes a piece which it would probably take you with your old shitty equipment and rusty sheers that 30,000 minutes which is 5000 hours, and at 8 hours a day that over 60 days to sheer your flock, you'd better get started now!! Better yet give a 'pro' team a call.
We were pretty exhausted from riding 8hrs that day, not to mention 8hrs a day for the past 14 days but we figured we had to stick around and see what all the fuss was about.
The pros stepped up, like men possesed they were getting times of 58, 49 then 46 seconds. It didn't seem like there was any possible way to do it any faster. Then 2 guys, apparently on the same team with mullets and matching outfits had their go, the first guy did it it 28 seconds and then the second guy topped him with a time of 23 seconds. What the fuck?? it takes the barber 10 minutes to shave a human's head and these guys were sheering an entire sheep covered in 6 inches of wool in 23 seconds, it takes me longer then that to tie my shoes!
If you've got 6000 sheep now you know who to call, the dudes with the mullets!
In a country where there are 10 sheep for every person and given these guys had come from all over NZ i'm quite certain we'd just wittnessed the worlds best and fasted sheerers in the universe!
......The next day.....
Pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, "hey Rachael, have you ever found a pot of gold on the side of the road?"................
Love US
Thanks to everyone who wrote back with a guess about what the dickens we were doing freezing our asses off. The correct answer was a). actually. Just a bloody cold as night, woke up in the morning and all our water was frozen, our bicycles and the tent were covered with thick frost. Only night that was cold like that so far. We were camped in a deep canyon where the sun never got in. Wasn't the plan to spend the night there but we'd had such a headwind all day that was a far as we could make it. Good experience though, freezing your ass off, for real, next time you see me you will notice i no longer have the huge ass i used to. Ha
Ok...this is a long one, read it if you can, if not don't worry!!
Pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, mind wondering, pedal, pedal some more, touch the breaks, have a glance at the mountains, still pedaling, swirve to miss another perfectly flat sun dried possum road kill, thinking, "i bet the chinese would pay a fortune for one of those, it looks just like the wierd driend stuff you see in asian markets." Pedal, pedal, Pedal, pedal, shift gears up a couple notches, stand to let some blood back into my groin, everything including my ass keeps going numb as a rock, maybe not such a good thing, shift hand positions. Silent until we're just next to a flock of sheep and shout, "ARRR SHEEPIES!!!" as loud as i can. Immedialy every one of em looks up just before it starts to run for its life, a sheep stampede, my favorite, gets em every time.
Mind wondering some more..."hey Rachael, ever seen a sheep getting sheered?" "Nope, have you?" "No but i'd like to! lets stop at the next farm that looks like it is sheering and see if they'll let us watch."
Pedal, pedal, Pedal, pedal, Pedal, pedal...8 hours and 120km later we finally arrive at our destination, "Fox Glacier" a town who's solo existance is due to tourism generated by the...yes you guessed it, Glacier 4km up the valley.
Cute little town, its got a couple cafe's, a take away shop, little supermarket, 1, 2 no three pubs..holly shit!!!!(have you ever wondered if it is possible to will something to happen??) Outside 'The Mountain Goat' pub is a sigh reading, and i kidd you not, 'Sheep Sheering Comp. Tonight, Live! Beer! Food! Fun!' Jesus!!! isn't that kind of a coincidence?
O hell yes we went! got there early to get a good seat and a beer before the place packed out.
FIrst up was the open division, anyone who had any sheep sheering experience could enter, maybe you had some sheep of yor own, maybe your uncle had some and you'd given it a go, maybe 50 years ago you had a sheep farm and you were hannkering for that old feeling, hell if there wasn't an entry fee and i wasn't afraid i'd accidently cut the sheeps throat i'd a entered. There were 15 year old girls, mum's, dad's, farmers, and even an 87 year old man, who the announcer, jokingly, or possible not, declared the oldest sheep sheerer in the world.
Mind you, this event wasn't happening outside in teh parking lot or even on the pub veranda, it was happening INSIDE, yes INSIDE the pub, sheep were being dragged into the pub, up onto a podium and sheered infront of 3 or 4 hundred fired up drunk spectators, while the also drunk announcer shouted over the speaker, "22,23, 24 seconds, he's onto the longblows, now he's onto the neck, commmmmeeee onnnnn Foxxxx Glassssiiiieeerrrr giiiittt iinnnnnn be hinnnnnnddd himmmmm!!! Brrrringggg himmmmm hommmmmeeeee!!! This is a local boy!!!!!" I'm pretty sure the screaming wasn't helping to calm the sheep any but it sure was entertaining!
The sheerer would grab the sheep, plop it on its ass, squeeze the sheep between their own legs, pull the cord that simeltaneously started the clock and the electric clippers and then go like hell to sheer the sheep as fast a they could, possibly a little fast as sheep were being cut up here there and everywhere, a lot of sheep blood was spilled that night, we were reassured by some locals that the sheep didn't even mind, (yah right!) and that the cuts would heal up quick, 2 or 3 days.
After watching the open division it really didn't seem as there was any room for improvement, most competators stripped their sheep naked in under 2 minutes, i mean how could anyone possibly do it any faster?
A 20 minute break for everyone to down a few more beers and it was onto the 'pro' devision. You heard me 'pro' division. Like the Tiger Woods of golf, these guys sheer sheep, they don't own any of their own, they don't even have a farm, all they do is sheer.
So you have a flock of 6000 sheep and they all need sheering. At 5 minutes a piece which it would probably take you with your old shitty equipment and rusty sheers that 30,000 minutes which is 5000 hours, and at 8 hours a day that over 60 days to sheer your flock, you'd better get started now!! Better yet give a 'pro' team a call.
We were pretty exhausted from riding 8hrs that day, not to mention 8hrs a day for the past 14 days but we figured we had to stick around and see what all the fuss was about.
The pros stepped up, like men possesed they were getting times of 58, 49 then 46 seconds. It didn't seem like there was any possible way to do it any faster. Then 2 guys, apparently on the same team with mullets and matching outfits had their go, the first guy did it it 28 seconds and then the second guy topped him with a time of 23 seconds. What the fuck?? it takes the barber 10 minutes to shave a human's head and these guys were sheering an entire sheep covered in 6 inches of wool in 23 seconds, it takes me longer then that to tie my shoes!
If you've got 6000 sheep now you know who to call, the dudes with the mullets!
In a country where there are 10 sheep for every person and given these guys had come from all over NZ i'm quite certain we'd just wittnessed the worlds best and fasted sheerers in the universe!
......The next day.....
Pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, "hey Rachael, have you ever found a pot of gold on the side of the road?"................
Love US
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