A Student Reflection: Kaikoura Homestays

SOUTH PACIFIC--

Stacey (Westmont '12) writes: “Why do sheep grow so much hair?” I asked farmer Kevin Topp as we grind our way, zigzagging across a bulldozed trail through the grass and manuka scrub, up the side of a grassy wacky-greyrock ridge on his bright red Suzuki ATV. Ordinarily, he’d be using the vehicle—a modern replacement for horses which, while not so trail-savvy, revs up much quicker on foggy early mornings than sleepy animals demanding a saddle and a harness and a nosebag—to round up his herd of beef cattle ranging across the steep limestone hillsides, created by continual tectonic pressure on the geological fault line running through the river below. Today, though, we’re hitching a ride up to the backcountry “hut” that he built back in the 80s for quiet wilderness retreats and a starting point for ambitious backpackers (“trampers”) bound for the gray, scree-sided peaks jutting proudly towards the clear sapphire sky above his farm. Kevin goes on to tell me about how in Biblical times, people used sheep skins more than the thin hair that the animals carried then. Even in the dead of winter, the sheep really only need about an inch of wool to stay warm—but thanks to generations of breeding and careful selection, the domesticated animals grow a surplus of thick wool several inches long.

Small wonders, like the fact that sheep grow absurd amounts of hair—fortunate for me, being able to don my wool jersey (sweater) in a sudden cold “southerly”—were the highlights of our homestay weekend with the Topps. Slowing down and tasting the honeydew on a blackened birch trunk, the product of a parasitic bug that extends silk-fine fingerlets from beneath the bark, or the embracing the absurd joy of running Sandy’s herd of aging Labradors (and a terrier named Ant) down to the river for a rough-and-tumble game of fetch in the clear cold water running into the Puhi Puhi (pronounced “pooey-pooey” in Kiwiland, to our continual amusement) beneath gnarled old trees and the afternoon sun glittering off the water.

Small joys like stopping, while on the rounds of never-ending farm chores, and smiling at the antics of the hens (and my continual confusion with the “chickens,” who are not the hens and aren’t yet allowed to eat kerneled wheat) pecking at each other in the race to reenter the musty, dusty dark of the coop before dark. Small pleasures like a tennis lesson in the last dying minutes of a fiery 360 degree sunset over Kaikoura town far below the sloping valley walls, or standing before an ancient totara tree that might have been a sapling when Jesus walked the earth. Small blessings like fresh cherry tomatoes (“that’ll put hair on your chest!” Kevin says, to my dismay) or clear cold spring water or the way a contented cat rubs its velvety ears on the backs of your hands.

Or stopping, dropping all the chores, the unfolded laundry and unwashed dishes, to watch the Sevens Rugby World Cup championship (in which the All-Blacks soundly beat the English). In New Zealand, the world stops, sheep go unsheared, and chickens go unfed for two things: rubgy, and a good pavlova. 

But sometimes, it even slows down enough to show two American students the everyday hospitality, courtesy and occasionally sarcastic wit characteristic of Kiwi whanau (family) life.