Dog Trails

We were leaving Te Anau in NZ heading for Gore when someone told us he used to live in Gore and said you should take the scenic route, and the scenic route is what this trip is all about. The scenery as a Kiwi would say was ‘lovely’ and we were getting hungry for lunch and there was no town on the map near us, rarely a house and hardly saw a car when we came up on this sign....

I stopped as fast as I could & backed up to find out what was going on. We drove into the parking lot (actually the parking lot was a field) to find out what was happening.  Here I am asking Dave ...........

Dave says there are dog trials going on here and that we are welcome to stay and watch. Here’s Dave and his sheep dog......

So we decided to stay and watch for a while. We walked up to where all the people were and they were very friendly and they offered us some lunch. Here’s Mary talking with some of the locals

Here’s how one of the contests works. Three sheep are released at the top of the hill, (there are three sheep at the top of the hill).

The dog owner sends his dog up the hill (there is a dog running up the hill) and the owners sends commands for the dog by voice, whistle or raising a cane. The object is to bring the sheep down to the bottom of the hill, not as fast as possible, but in a straight line to a circle hold them there. Here is Dave with the sheep almost in the circle.

We had a lovely time and enjoyed talking with the local people and hearing about their lives. We greatly appreciated the great hospitality of the folks there including the free lunch.