Wild Cattle

Yesterday we contributed to island economy by attending a 'flower show' and craft stalls event with 'food stalls' that turned out to be a sausage sizzle and some iced biscuits.  I'm not talking it down - I remember events like this in the village hall of our youth (Morven in South Canterbury): displays of garden produce, flower arrangements, baking and preserves, artwork, and various textile crafts like knitting and sewing.

With a total island population of around 600 (and taking into account a generational move away from handcrafted clothing, or gentle arts like flower arranging) the diversity of entries is perhaps not as great as we drew to the village hall in Morven in the 1960s.

Community events like that are as important for the gathering and contact as they are for the displays themselves.  Our host invited us.  We found them there and realized as they chatted how island communities are inter-related (even though all move to NZ in their teens for schooling that is not available here).  This one is a cousin, or that one a grandchild, another an in-law of some description.

Mrs Host showed us examples of hand-drawn cards made by her 9 year old grandson. Truly amazing. And he turns out to be an entrepreneur - sold out of original artwork so was taking orders and commissions, all meticulously recorded in a notebook (I had thought he was selling raffle tickets 😂🙄).

Mr Host is going to Pitt Island today, with his adult son, to round up some wild cattle to stock a farm on this, the main island.  My father used to work for Lands and Survey (government department) about 65 years ago, rounding up wild cattle in undeveloped lands round Te Anau and working on the process of turning the land into farms.  His tales about those wild cattle were hair-raising.  They did the job on horse-back, tracking the beasts through tall scrub in which the wily beasts could hide (standing qietly) within feet of the passing horse. Dogs were essential and needed to be tough and fearless to face down determined beef with horns and hooves.

One dog Dad had used to jump the cattle beast from behind biting on where tail met spine. It would hang on, high enough up to avoid being kicked, until the beast tired - dragged through scrub, ploughing a furrow across swamps, and bouncing over tussocks.

The best fun apparently was accompanying the crated animals to the freezing works where the stockmen at the yards would be warned these were wild cattle.  So assured were they of their ability to draft anything that came out of a stock truck that they declined to clear the holding pen before the truck was opened. Gates opened, the wildlings charged down the ramp snorting, heads swinging, feet stamping. Dad reckoned you've never seen men and dogs clear tall stockades as fast as those guys got out of the pens.

From Pitt the wild cattle will have to be transported by boat.  I can only assume those rounded up today (Sunday as I write this) will have to be tranquillized. Horses have been traded for quad-bikes but dogs are still essential, and a gun will go with them - an essential bit of insurance I would imagine.

There are no vets in the Chathams. Sick or injured dogs have to be flown to New Zealand ($600 each way). If you know a farm animals vet that wants a remote island lifestyle they could do worse than to consider applying to set up shop out here.

Other reasons exist for a vet here too - locals can't set up any meat processing facility out here without a resident qualified vet to inspect and certify the meat. (Weird I know but dems de regulations.)

Anyways as sun was shining Bro and I tackled a 'walk' in a bush filled gully between our cottage and the sea (Awatotara Walk). It is a well marked, if somewhat under-used, trail. We did clockwise, which turned out to be fortuitous as it avoided a lung-busting climb up a very steep hill. We just had the scary slip-slide descent of it. Right at the bottom a rope walk helped descend the last few yards. There were several crossings of streams so brown with peat it was like wading through expresso (or gravy). Bro rock hopped. I took off my footwear and waded cautiously. They weren't deep and the bottoms were mostly continuous rock worn smooth - nothing sharp, no jumbled rocks.

Parea (Chathams wood pigeon) were sighted, along with a pair of Tui (they are reportedly only on Pitt but clearly no one had told these Tui that), and a couple of very chatty little Chatham Islands Pipits

Seen all round the island - peaty streams emptying into the sea making the waves into macchiato (expresso with white foam on top).