I have some video clips that I have now added below that show some of the competitors. Worth a look.
I am in Masterton NZ a small farming community about 90km from Wellington and 90 minutes on the train.
I am here for “Golden Shears” which is the premier sheep shearing competition in the country. How could you come to New Zealand and miss something as iconic as this!
There is a variety of competitions including shearing, wool packing wool sorting, and for some strange reason bull handling. The mind boggles at what “bull handling might entail. I did not see this, but there are some people at the hostel that are competing including teenagers and some girls.
The crowd and venue was much smaller than I had anticipated so it is different than I had expected.
Wool packing is either a team of two men or two women, or singles events. It looks like VERY hard work. The marks are awarded based on a combination of time, neatness of the bale and work area, and weight accuracy. The target weight for the bale is 165kg. It looks like the leading competitors can get within 5kg of that.
The wool press has two halves and the wool is dumped into the press and tramped down by foot (not unlike squashing grapes). When both sides are full one side is mechanically swung up on the other and locked in place and then the top is winched down onto the bottom half and the top of the bale pinned with steel rods and eventually sewn together. There are some pictures and a video clip that may describe it better.
Wool Packing competition
The competitors look incredibly fit and I am sure they must be. I am sure there are some aspects that have been mechanized today but apparently the basic press and method are still used today.
The shearing competitions and judged on an aggregate of four criteria, speed, accuracy of the shearing (which is judged after the animal is dumped down the chute) and two others that I fail to remember at this point. I will revise the post if I remember or find out!!
The competitors grab a sheep out of a pen and there is then a couple of well defined techniques used to shear the sheep. The whole secret seems to be restraining the animal and having a free hand to stretch the skin and get a clean shear without any cuts and bruising. The number of sheep a shearer can handle in a day is dependent on the type of sheep or wool and the best can shear over 700 a day with a record of 866 in 9 hours!
A sheared sheep disappears down the chute
School kids on a field trip to Golden shears
It has to be a combination of strength, stamina and technique. The most popular “Bowen method” was developed in the 1960s. There have been attempts to further mechanize the process but it seems like hand shearing is still the most popular. The market for wool is in slow decline because of synthetic fibers but wool is still popular.
Golden Shears was interesting in that it is competition and an opportunity to socialize for people who sometimes live in remote places. No doubt lots of boys and girls meet up and fall in love and marry based on meeting up at Golden Shears. This ensures the future of farming as a side benefit.
There are lots of young competitors, and this year is the 50th anniversary. As I have said it was not as big as I expected but without doubt worth the trip.
I managed to lose my prescription sunglasses at the event, but they turned up at the local police station and the lady there said that a wallet with a lot of money in it had also been turned in. Honest folk these sheep farmers and shearers.
The train ride up here was great, and included a 7.3km tunnel, which then burst out into some awesome scenery. It gradually transformed in to more normal farmland and when I got to Masterton and started to walk to the hostel I could easily have been in South Africa in some little dorp (town) that is probably substantially unchanged today, even after majority rule. I suspect that there are many US, and Canadian towns that are similar also.
The town is, I believe quite prosperous and has quite a few stores and small cafes, all the way from fish and chips and the inevitable McDonalds, to nicer more local places. There is a Thai place a sushi place and at least two Indian restaurants as well as a couple of pubs.
There is a very well kept municipal park and a sports center.
In general New Zealand is not as inexpensive as I had believed. Food in restaurants is pricey and not too much better in the grocery store. Bottled drinks (even water) seem very expensive and beer and wine is certainly expensive. I suspect high taxes on the beer and wine.
Transportation seems reasonable. The train fare from Wellington to Masterton was about USD$12 one-way and the ferry to South Island (three hours) is USD$40. I have not bought plane tickets but they appear to be cheap as well.
The hostel is on the second and third floor (American terminology) as opposed to the first and second floor in English (or Kiwi) English.
It is basic but adequate and reasonably quiet.
There are some young Kiwis staying here (the bull handling competitors) that are Maori I believe, and it is interesting to hear them talk among themselves as it is English (or mostly) but very difficult to follow, Is it dialect or accent? I am not sure.
I am somewhat perplexed in that I am enjoying the relative peace and serenity of the NZ way of life but an integral part of that is places like Masterton rolling up the sidewalks at 9 pm like any small town, with the notable exception of the worldwide standard boy racers in their Honda Civics with coffee can exhausts! They must all have a cheap source for tires!
Places like Masterton are a part of the conservatism that comes with rural life, but also the potential breeding ground for inflexibility and narrow-minded values. I cannot sort the contrasts out in my mind, at least right now.
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It is now early Friday afternoon and getting quite hot. I have decided to go back to Wellington tonight and try to see some of the city tomorrow. It will help me determine how much time to spend here when I return, as I will be flying out of here to Brisbane.
There are about 5 trains a day with a late service coming back on Friday nights.
I have just been reading the detail and the train stops in 12 places but only 5 for sure. The others are “On Demand” and the instructions make it clear that you have to wave at the driver and he will stop the train!
