Week 2 roundup on Australia

This is quite ironic, sitting in Rainy NI talking about the last part of my visit to Australia. The 40 degree days are long gone now. Last night it was -4C here. It was quite shocking at the time to think that the danger of fires was so great.

The combination of high temperatures and high winds had the potential to be catastrophic if a fire started. The weather service did issue one warning to stop harvesting operations because the danger was so great although a lot of the harvesters stopped anyway as they were playing up with the heat. We drove through some of the area in Victoria that was affected by the fires in the spring, the pictures of which you can seen later.

The last two weeks in Australia were spent visiting a few more herds and the farm businesses of several of my fellow 09 Nuffield Scholars.

During the Contemporary Scholars Conference there wasnt a lot of time to get to know many of the group so it was great to have the chance and to nosey around their farms! We managed to hit 5 which is pretty good concidering the size of the country. I also manages to add another crop to the list Im accumulating which covers, maize, sunflowers, wheat, soya beans, potatoes, tomato's, lupins and now chick peas. What you might ask are chick peas? I think the easiest explanation is what we are going to be importing to the UK at a very high price to feed ourselves when the climate change freaks starve the country. Harvesting chick peas is more like sharing than combining, they dont grow very tall and have pods to the ground. It doesnt help when they are frazzeled and shed at the sight of a combine approaching.

It was great to catch up with Stuart, James and Bruce on route from Gilgandra to Parkes. What are the issues in this area other than non-existent rainfall? Pie-eyed, and Red bellied Bats for one although the later species could maybe be a yellow tailed variety too, we could figure it out as none of us had ever heard of them. The first one sounds interesting though sounds like a drunk. We also discussed at length the "Hoff-bot", ahh I hear you ask, "whats that". Well I would love to tell you but its a secret.

Fortunately I mentioned to Stuart that I was hoping to visit the Kidman Cattle Co near Dubbo to which he replied thay have a place close to us. Fortunately it was the property they kept their cow herd on so we visited and had a good tour of the herd and discussed the use of EBV's from their point of view as a breeder and as a seller.

Anyone that thinks we have it tough needs to take a good look at the grass in this picture, or maybe I should say for it.