Farm Stay: Midnight Mustering

Friday, March 3, 2000:  Farm Stay: Midnight Mustering

This morning’s big breakfast was:  3 eggs, 2 bacons, 3 potatoes and tomatoes.

We walked it off by walking to Sealy Tarn.  A beautiful hike through alpine meadows and more snow draped mountains.  From the top of Sealy Tarn, we were treated to views of the golden valley with silver streams running through it.

On the way back, we ate our packed sandwiches outside The Hermitage.

From 4 to 4:45 pm we used The Hermitage spa to soak in the hot tub.  We hadn’t sign up for using the spa, not even sure if it were an extra charge, but someone exiting the spa held the door open for us to enter.

On our drive toward Queenstown, Doug thought he saw a road sign that indicated there was a farm stay nearby.  I had just read in the Lonely Planet guide that farm stays entailed free or cheap room and board in exchange for farm work.  I’m on vacation.  I don’t think I want to work on a sheep farm for a day.  It was getting late, what work would they assign us to earn our stay?  So when Doug asked, “Did that sign say ‘Farm Stay’?” I replied, “I didn’t see any sign.” which was the truth, because I was looking in the guidebook.

Doug turned the car around and followed the signs to the Rose Briar Cottage owned by Gerald and Mary.  The cottage was available.  We didn’t have to work the farm for our stay.  Mary, while showing us the cottage kitchen, noticed the refrigerator contents was bare, so she went to her kitchen and returned with a few extra vegetables for our dinner.  No worries, we had some groceries of our own we could supplement for dinner.

I started making dinner around 8:15 pm.  Doug came in with a little bouquet for our table.

Around 8:30 pm, Gerald honked his car horn to see if we wanted to join them (with Mary and their 70 year old friend Margaret) at the Musterer’s Hut where Alan (Margaret’s 84 year old husband) was staying.  I was tired, started dinner and wasn’t up to going.  Doug suggested I finish or restart dinner when we come back.  This’ll be fun, so let’s just go with them.  Aw, alright.  I turned off the stove, grabbed my jacket and jumped into the backseat with Doug.

Mary was all excited when we entered the car.  Just as Gerald put the car in drive, Mary told Gerald, in her very posh English accent, “Gerald, stop the car!  We forgot Mindy!”

Gerald, much annoyed by the request retorted, “Mary,… Mindy is … a dog.”

“But she wants to come!”

“No.”

“Come on Mindy!”  [Mindy:  Yap, yap, yap]

Doug opens his door to let Mindy, a Jack Russell terrier, into the car onto his lap.  He rubs Mindy’s neck before Mindy bounds over the front seat onto the center console, placing her paws up on the dash yapping away.  Doug laughs uncontrollably and Mary is joyously telling Mindy “We’re going for a ride!” while Gerald puts the car in drive.  We drove through the property on a narrow rocky dirt road bouncing up a dark hill lit only by the headlights.

On the drive of .8 km off the dirt road we drove by an old willow tree.  Margaret had fond memories of Margaret and Alan camping with their kids under that very willow tree before the hut was built.  After the hut was built, Alan made an annual stay at the hut to help Gerald and Mary keep the rabbit population down.  In fact, we were on our way to the hut because Alan made a large batch of rabbit stew and wanted to share it with us.

We stop in front of a wooden hut, not much bigger than a double wide tool shed.  We sit on wooden stools as Alan greets us with a smile and a handshake.  On the way in, Alan says he wished he knew we were coming.  All the stew is eaten.  Alan takes out 2 bottles of red wine (Shiraz) to share: The first is Australian and the second is New Zealand.  Both are good.

Alan talked about his and Margaret’s travels and Margaret would amaze us with details such as the year they visited, the name of the mountain and its elevation.

By the end of the second bottle, Alan looks at Doug and says, “I know what we have that you haven’t:  The Southern Cross!”  We leave the hut to look at the stars.  Alan points out the Southern Cross.  Satisfied he’d given us a gift no one else gave us.

On our way back, whenever rabbits and opossums crossed in the headlights, Mindy would go crazy yapping away.  Then suddenly 50 to 100 sheep were on the road.  Mindy went crazy.  Mary was howling with laughter and so was Doug.  Gerald looks over to me and says, “Nothing like a little midnight mustering.”  The sheep were in a frenzy running out of the way and literally jumping over each other.  It went on for long minutes as the car crawled along the path careful not to hurt the sheep.  Talk about a three ring circus….

Gerald delivered us safely and solemnly back to Rose Briar Cottage.  We thanked them for a memorable evening.

Back inside, we debated whether it was worth it to finish/restart dinner.  In the end, I reheated dinner and we ate very late.