Free TRAVELING AROUND THE WORLD: Our Tales of Delights and Disasters by Shelley Row Page A

were fluffy with curly wool. Still others had so much wool that their stick legs and faces stuck out from a round ball of fluff. The sheep were everywhere – field after field of them. It had a peaceful feel – the white dots against the green fields. The fields of sheep were captivating. I wanted to know more about the sheep and this industry that is so important to New Zealand.
     
    We stopped by the Queenstown tourist office to inquire. The tourist office is swimming in activity brochures. There’s rafting, jet boating, bungee jumping, hiking, mountain biking, hand gliding, parasailing and more. The staff seemed a bit perplexed with an inquiry about sheep shearing. They only knew of one place – in Glenorchy – a small town up the road. There was no colorful brochure; just a phone number scribbled on a scrap of paper.
     
    The man on the phone told me that he runs a morning and afternoon “tour.” He still had room on the morning tour so all we had to do was drive along the lake to the village (250 population) of Glenorchy and meet him at 10 am. How do we find the meeting place, we inquired. Well, he explained, Glenorchy is very small. Turn left at the roundabout and there will be a “wee shed” on the right. He’d meet us there. And, there was, and he did.
     
    We drove quickly up the road from Queenstown past stunning scenery to make it by 10 am (we found out later that this is one of the top ten scenic drives in the world). We didn’t want to miss the tour. The “wee shed” was called The Wool Shed and was definitely “wee” at only a few feet square and filled with wool garments for sale. John, the owner, operator and tour guide, was inside. When I told him we were there for the 10 am tour, he said great and let’s go. It seemed that I and Mike were the tour! We followed him – like sheep – to his truck. “Hop in,” he said. It was his farm truck, just like one from back home in Texas. The floor was covered in mud and dust, and various tools and garments were scattered about. I immediately felt at home. This was going to be a special event!
     
    John drove about ten minutes up the road to part of his farm. We pulled up to a gate and he scampered out to unlatch it. Mike and I took in the scene. There were truck and tractor parts lying under a tree lounging next to scraps of lumber from old fences. Just past the gate was a three-sided barn assembled from sheets of corrugated tin – some silver and some red – whatever was handy. Junk was everywhere. As the three of us climbed out of the truck, a welcoming party of one sheep and six chickens came trotting (with the chickens clucking). The lot of them followed John through the barnyard. It seems that this particular sheep had been bottle-raised and was now a pet – and it knew the routine. John found an old, red, plastic bucket and got a scoop of feed from a tin shed. Soon, with the help of the feed, we had the sheep literally eating out of our hands. There was no hand sanitizer, no napkins… just sheep slobber between my fingers. It was just like Texas, except that sheep drool less than cows. And there was a pig, too. The small, spotted pig was in a muddy pen next to the barn. John told Mike to feed him from the bucket of mealy pears by the fence. The pig turned up its little, pink nose with interest as Mike held a pear. With a toss, the pig was after it and woofed it down with a little mud and straw.
     
    According to the tour “program,” John was to show a film to us about sheep shearing, so we walked to the barn trailing a string of sheep and chickens behind. This was definitely not your typical, choreographed tourist experience. We walked into the open end of the tin barn to find yet more junk. John – completely unconcerned – said, “Take a seat.” We looked around and at each other. Finally, I said, “Where should we sit?” There, on the ground in front of us, was an old bench seat from a truck with a couple of sheep skins thrown