And on to New Zealand......

Christchurch on the South Island is just a short 3 +hour flight from Sydney. We stayed in the centre of town in order to explore the downtown area before a trip to Mount Cook.
It still has evidence of the earthquake of 2011.......

The river Avon runs through it........

Our first glimpse of sheep! Dry grazing!

....but then we reached the irrigated areas.....huge machines about 2kms long!

We had a sheep shearing lined up to visit.......first with an electric machine shearing device!

...poor lamb looked so tiny and skinny after being sheared!

Then we had a demonstration using the old fashioned shears.....these are actually still used when it is cold as it doesn't shave off the wool quite so close to the skin......

                      It looked lethal!

...but this poor lamb did look as though he had a slightly thicker coat left, at the end, than the prior lamb!

To the uneducated eye the wool looked great...but apparently this is only worth a fraction of merino wool.........

....then on to see a roundup of sheep by a sheepdog.... this dog was a little over eager and some sheep jumped the fence rather than being in close contact with him! He did not seem to be listening to his master's word!

...the sheep (lambs??) were really cute however......

......then our final visit prior to continuing on to Mount Cook...... to  Deer Genetics, a stag farm!

Every part of the stag is used .....
an antler to hang on the wall... the more points the more expensive!
young antlers are cut off to provide a drink for the Chinese market!
embryos and sperm are sold to the US!

After this we continued on to Mount Cook and were happy when we could see it in the distance!