Time is flying

Okay, I have landed and now have some quality time for the computer and to update you all on the happenings of my life. For starters i will update you on the Wellington Shinanigans...

We ended up getting two rooms with two beds at the backpackers which took four scholars out of the equation. This left five bodies and no beds at around 1:00am friday morning. Usually this would mean that an all nighter might be on the cards but with 6 meetings staring at us for an 8:30am start, it wasn't a good option. Instead good ole' Bruce and I start to the surrounding hotels to see if they had any no shows for rooms. It ended up that the intercontenatal had two rooms which we took at 2:00am in the morning. But there was a catch...

One room had two double beds which Bruce and I took for our service fee but the other only had one king size bed. There is another catch, there were no fold out beds for the three lads. They ended up having to split the onsombeal and taking their chances. It was a night which they over came their homophobic fears, or so i was told.

So in New Zealand we visited a farm of Stuart and Allan Wright in the Canterbury plains to see a mixed farm on some very handy rain fall and soil. We then headed over Aurthers pass to visit an eco tourism business in the high lands and headed to Westport. From there we drove to Nelson were we visited Landcorp (NZ government farm) and the coal mine at Buller. We also visited a Nelson hop farm, tree nursery and wood processing plant. Around Havelock we visited a green lipped mussel factory and had a jornt on the Marlborough Sounds. From there we had some wine tasting at Allan Scotts vineyard ($120,000/acre) and then caught the ferry to Wellington from Picton.

After meeting the Federated Farmers of NZ, Landcorp Farming, Meat and Wool NZ, Dairy Insight and Horticulture NZ, we were happy when Rabobank had to cancel their presentation. This prompted a small celebration which lead to our Candian (convert Ozzie) leading us all astray to see the sights of Wellingtontown until the wee small hours.

Since leaving NZ on the 17th we have travelled to Yosemite to stay and night and headed to the Yosemite National Park. It was great to see the waterfall and the valley but nothing compared to the Mariposa Grove of Girant Sequoia Trees. World famous they are huge. Bloody huge. We ran out of time to visit the car tree but the whole experence was very humbling. We have now moved onto Fresno and visited an orange packing plant, 14,000 acre row cropping farm and an 1600 head barned dairy in the Fresno Valley.

Bruce at the National Park

I hope to have a little more up on the details soon.

Trev Mc, unfortunately i will not be able to attend the meeting and i do not wish to put and apology in (who knows what jobs you will think up for me in the mean time...)

Tonk, i think that the 4th will be the telling point and that you should only wear red socks on this day.

Cheers