December 2016 -- For my sabbatical, I scheduled one week in Australia and two weeks in New Zealand: one week on the North Island and one week on the South Island. For the Australian part of the trip, I chose the Northern Tablelands, about 8 hours away from Sidney. Armadale was the main city. I was looking for a university in each region to connect with. In Australia, it was the University of New England.
At the top of the hill
Welcome to Taylor's Run
Our accommodations: the shearer's hut
Office or pub at the top of the hill
I used the internet to find accommodations. I was looking for farm stays, if/when possible. In Australia, I found Taylor's Run (Uralla) in the village of Kentucky. It was a sheep station that offered accommodations in one of its shearers' huts. The hut was nice. It had three beds, a kitchen, and bathroom. There wasn't any cell reception unless we climbed to the top of one of the hills.
5000 Merino ewes
Pasture land
Coming in
Most of the sheep in the Northern Tablelands were Merino. Taylor's Run ran about 5,000 Merino ewes. Ultra fine wool was the production goal. The proprietor (Michael) was a strong advocate for trees and silvopasture, especially for dealing with drought. Australia was in the midst of a multi-year drought. Michael was very personable. One of his hobbies was white water kayaking (serious).
Merino sheep
On one of the days we were there, Michael was processing some of his tail end lambs. Backpackers who were staying in the other shearers' hut were his helpers. Australian farmers frequently use backpackers as labor. Processing included docking and castrating. He was also deworming all the lambs (with Zolvix®) since he was advised to do so based on some recent fecal egg count data. The counts didn't seem very high to me. There was/is no targeted selective treatment in Australia, nor application of the FAMACHA© system. It was a barber pole worm area and Merinos are a highly susceptible breed. I guessed the flocks were too large to evaluate individually.
Processing lambs
Kathy loves sheep.
Sheep grazing
Not a good picture, but proof that we saw a kangaroo
One of our favorite memories from Taylor's Run was when Michael took us in his truck for a romp through the pastures looking for kangaroos. We were in the front of the truck and the backpackers were in the back. We saw a few roos, but didn't get close enough to get any good pictures of them. They're fast, plus they probably know they're being chased. Farmers were allowed to shoot a certain number of kangaroos because they were considered a nuisance animal. Ironically, we didn't see any other kangaroos in Australia. We certainly didn't see any Koala Bears. We did see a wallaby.
Shearing shed
Bale of fine wool
Wool brand
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