EC-Rider Travels

The weather was not kind today and it has poured, almost without ceasing, since we got up. Heartbreaking, as I cannot tell you how beautiful it is here and I was just longing to get out and explore. However it did provide a lot of catching up time with Rachel and she kindly took Mum and me to Cambridge where we had a mighty fine eggs Benedict overlooking the lake where her boys used to row!

Cambridge is a small town, surrounded by the most beautiful paddocks full of brood mares and their foals which was lovely to see. It is also suddenly very flat, which is quite a surprise after the steep, rolling limestone hills of Rachel and Denzil’s farm. Having seen almost no arable farming in New Zealand, there is an element of this in the flatter low-lands and many, many dairy cows as this is apparently the very best land for dairy farming with no hills for them to expend their energy on.

We returned mid-afternoon and, determined to see Denzil’s farm, we braved the weather and got very wet as he drove us round in the mule. But it was still fun to see it and hear about the challenges they face which indeed are plentiful, not least the unprecedented amount of rain they have had over the last six weeks. All the valleys (of which there are many) are under water and the few maize crops Denzil has are having to grow in ‘paddy’ fields. In his forty plus years of farming here, he has never seen anything like it, but remains remarkably sanguine.

In the evening (6.30pm!), Jo and Al Robertson, the most charming friends of Rachel and Denzil’s came to dinner. They are also farmers and had just won a major competition for their meat and been flown around the world to talk to their ultimate customers in Japan, US and Korea. They would have been great ambassadors for New Zealand meat production which really does seem to be the most humane it can be. Jo used to live in the South Island and knew many of our Todhunter cousins and had recently been on holiday with Ben and his wife, Donna. Rachel cooked the most delicious dinner – I am not sure when! – and we could not have had a nicer evening.