17/11/2017 - Into Nature

The first night in the car was quite unusual and we had a restless sleep. We were often woken up by a rain shower that sounded quite loud in the car. But overall, the mattress is comfortable and we are confident that we can quickly get used to these special circumstances.

Before we made breakfast, we wanted to treat ourselves to a warm shower for 50 cents. Tough luck! The water remained ice-cold, so it was more of a fidgety experience than a relaxing shower in the morning. At least we were fully awake now.

The 'Sheepworld' was our first destination today. It is a farm that introduces the work of a shepherd and his dogs. We arrived at the spacious grounds around 9:30 a.m. and were the first visitors of the day. We quickly bought feed bags for the animals and dove into the fun. We were greeted by various animals that you would expect to find on a farm. Besides sheep, there were also cows, goats, horses, pigs, donkeys, and chickens. With our feed bags in hand, we quickly became popular with the mentioned animals. They were calling out loudly from all directions. One animal was particularly persistent. A duck just wouldn't get out of our way. Constantly quacking and following us, it seemed to be very hungry. At first, playing with the duck was quite amusing. We threw dry food into all the animal enclosures, and she always found her way there first. Eventually, we decided that the duck had enough food and continued our walk through the outdoor area. Currently, there are many young animals to see in the spacious enclosures. The little lambs received special attention - it was just too cute when they sucked on our finger. :) A hen with her chicks also crossed our path several times in search of something edible.
At 11:00 a.m., the big show began, which lasted 1.5 hours. We had feared that we would be the only spectators today, but there were already ten other visitors in the showroom waiting for it to start - lucky us. :)

A shepherd explained the differences between his two herding dogs and what it takes to move a flock of sheep. It quickly went from theory to practice as he demonstrated how his dogs work and the methods they use. (The 'Eye Dog' works completely silently and without physical contact, while the 'Huntaway' drives the herd together with barking and physical contact.)
A short time later, neither the dog nor the flock of sheep were visible. The shepherd told us that he blindly trusts his dogs. Only a few minutes later, the flock of sheep marched through the gate as a group towards the showroom. Once there, they sorted the animals (age, gender, health condition, etc.) and talked about the proper shearing of sheep. For this, a sheep had to repeat, which was being shorn for the first time in its life that day. After a few deliberate moves and cuts, the sheep had its summer trim.
As a finale, feeding the lambs with milk bottles was on the program. You can imagine how much fun it was for both humans and animals. :)

After this great morning at Sheepworld, we continued to Omaha Beach. The beach is especially popular with surfers. The scenery is beautiful, and the beach seems endless. Who wouldn't want to take a walk on the beach? So we took off our shoes and enjoyed the time by the sea.

From Omaha Beach, it was only a few kilometers to our final destination of the day. The 'Tawharanui Regional Park' is a bird sanctuary, where you might be lucky enough to encounter the New Zealand kiwi. We headed to the park around 2:00 p.m. The drive there was quite adventurous. The roads were mostly gravel roads. We would never encounter such road surfaces in Germany. In New Zealand, however, these road surfaces are normal in remote areas. They consist of fine and coarse stones. Every time we drive over them, we get goosebumps. The noise during that doesn't just hurt our ears! Poor Sam.
When we finally arrived at the regional park, we had to pass barriers to reach the parking lot by car. After parking the car, we packed the camera backpack and went to the beach first. The beautiful sandy beach and huge rocks in both directions impressed us from the beginning. We walked a short distance until we reached a cave that is probably underwater at high tide. The path led us further over rocks to the next deserted beach, which looked like a painting. These are the moments when you would like to take thousands of photos because it just looks so amazingly beautiful - and no picture could even come close to reflecting the reality. We wandered around the regional park a bit more and decided that this would not be our last visit.

Gradually, it got late, and we started the journey back to our campsite. Once we arrived, we dared to take a second shower for today. Fortunately, it was wonderfully warm this time, and we felt rejuvenated afterwards! Then we ran a load of laundry and took a short evening walk to the training field of a youth rugby team, which is located right next door. We took a quick look at the pictures we took before finally disappearing exhausted and tired into our campervan.