Two weeks later I arrived in Greymouth raring to go, complete with a white, automatic Subaru Legacy with a broken gearbox that meant its top gear was third. At 30 mph and 4,000 revs, it wasn’t the most economical vehicle I had ever owned. Of course, I’d test driven it, but only around the block, so the gearbox issue only became apparent on the journey back to my friend’s house, by which time I had parted with the cash and the bloke had done a runner. It had not been my finest purchase. Still, I had wheels, and they had got me over Arthur’s Pass. More importantly, I had my veterinary registration certificate, so I was official. Furthermore, I had been to a local charity shop and picked up the statutary vet’s uniform of khaki chinos, checked shirt and gilet, so I looked every inch the professional.
The alarm had gone off at 2.30 a.m. I’d had five hours’ sleep, and after months of not being on any real schedule, it was a complete shock to the system. With that nervous panic that comes from a first day on a new job, however, I found myself wide awake, and jumped out of bed, dressed and headed for the kitchen to make myself a coffee for the journey. A shower could wait. By 2.45 a.m. I was in the car and heading out of the hostel. Amber had reckoned it was no more than an hour to the farm, and the directions certainly seemed straightforward enough, but from previous nightmares as a new graduate, I had a healthy phobia of getting lost and so always tried to allow a bit of extra time for a new visit, and particularly as this was my first job for Amber.
The roads were empty save for the odd lorry, and Amber, having taken pity on me for the disaster of a car I had purchased, had lent me hers, so I made good time and reached Mawheraiti in forty minutes. It was still pitch dark outside so as I saw the sign welcoming me to the town, I slowed to a crawl to ensure I didn’t miss the turning. I needn’t have bothered because the town’s one solitary street lamp shone over the turning. At this point tarmacked road became gravel road and so, as I headed along it, headlights reflecting the plumes of dust that the car generated, I continued at a snail’s pace, so as not to miss the turning – second left, I recalled from Amber’s instructions. The first left came immediately after I turned off the main road, but it was another mile or so to the second turning. I was starting to second-guess myself. Had I missed it? Or had I got the directions wrong? But then, there it was, and I sighed in relief as I turned down it. Just drive to the end of this road and you’re there, I thought. It was 3.40 a.m. I was in good time. It couldn’t be too far down this road so I should be there promptly for a 4 a.m. start. I always like to give myself every advantage for making a good first impression. Arriving late the first time you meet a client can be a disaster. Not only is it unprofessional, it also means you have to work twice as hard to leave the client feeling satisfied and confident in your abilities.
The road wound its way through invisible countryside as I drove further and further into the blackness. It was eerie. There wasn’t a soul in sight, or any indication of life anywhere. The headlights of my car just picked out the dusty gravel track and the hedgerow either side of me. As I once again started doubting myself, I suddenly saw a light in the distance: that had be the parlour. The road brought me closer to that light, and eventually I came to a set of galvanized metal gates to the right of the track. The gates were open and led into a sizeable farmyard illuminated by the floodlight I had seen on top of the large shed, which I assumed was the milking parlour.
As I drove in, my arrival caught the attention of one of the workers who came over to greet me.
‘I’ve come to vaccinate the cattle,’ I said, winding down my window. ‘Where should I park?’
‘The manager didn’t say anything to us about it.’ He scratched his head for a moment in confusion, looking at the ground. ‘I mean, the cattle need doing, but I don’t think he told us, but then I guess he sometimes forgets. Anyway, who are you? I don’t think we’ve met before.’
‘I’m Jon, a vet from England, I’m doing some locum work over here for a bit.’
‘Nice to meet you, bro, I’m Nathan. You best grab your stuff and we’ll get you set up. Mike and Darren are just bringing the cows in so you’re in good time, we haven’t started yet.’
I grabbed the cool box and Nathan helped me with the rest of my equipment and headed into the parlour, a large, square space with the fifty-cow rotary parlour in the centre, leaving only a 2-metre gap all the way around.
A rotary parlour is a clever, but simple design. The raised central platform constantly rotates at a slow, steady pace, the cows walk onto it, facing inwards. The milker, standing outside the platform in the pit below then cleans the teats and places the clusters on the cow as she passes by. Regardless of how long the cow takes to be milked, she stays on the platform until it has completed a full revolution and then she backs off the platform and back into the yard and then out into the field.
‘Best put you about here, I reckon,’ said Nathan. ‘You’ll be out of Darren’s way, but the cows will only be halfway round so if there are any problems or you miss one as you’re reloading, you should have plenty of time to catch up.’
‘Sounds ideal, thanks.’
From one corner, Nathan found a large metal trolley on wheels and brought it over to me, putting the brake on and making sure it was pretty sturdy.
‘Will that do you, bro? Give you enough space? It should be the right height, it’s what we use if we need to do anything to the cows when they’re on the platform.’
‘Perfect, thanks,’ I said, loading my stuff onto it.
‘So how you finding New Zealand then? Explored much?’
‘Only arrived two weeks ago and just been sorting out my vet licence, but I was here in 2005 for the Lions Tour.’
‘Ha! Didn’t go too well for you guys, did it! Still, you boys were a great crack and we loved having ya. The country was heaving with you Lions fans, but it was awesome.’
‘Yeah, I travelled around most of the South Island then and knew I had to come back.’
‘Well enjoy it, bro. They call it God’s country for a reason!’
And with that he headed off in the direction of the high-pitched piping of the quad-bike horn and the mooing that heralded the arrival of the cattle.
I busied myself setting up my equipment, attaching the vaccine bottles to the pipe that fed into the injection guns. The guns could be adjusted to repeatedly inject the same volume: squeezing the handle injected the vaccine, releasing the handle drew more into the gun from the bottle. Each cow required 2 ml injected into the muscle, so I adjusted to this level, testing both syringes by discharging onto the floor. They were both working fine, I slung one over each shoulder like a veterinary Rambo and climbed onto the trolley to see if I could see how things were progressing with the cows. The first ones were just walking up the ramp onto the platform. I double-checked I had everything I might need for the next four hours and then dug out my iPod, found my favourite playlist and I was ready to go.
It took me a bit of time to get into a routine, but then I was away. Jab, jab, jab, jab, jab – it was indeed easy and tedious work, but it was nice to be back out with animals and doing some form of veterinary work, even if this particular job didn’t require five years of training. Time passed painfully slowly. There were the odd couple of minutes of frantically changing onto the next vaccine bottle and then having to move the trolley and catch up on the cows I had missed in that short delay, but otherwise it was pretty mindless work.
I kept myself amused by playing games with myself, scoring the cows on their beauty: which ones would I want in my imaginary herd? They were all Holsteins, a tall, skinny black-and-white cow, often crossed with the Friesian, which is a smaller, stockier cow of the same colouring. I generally preferred the Friesian’s characteristics to the Holstein’s, which often look very bony, but the Holsteins were absolute milking machines, often expending all their energy on milk production rather than themselves. Their diet had to be managed well to stop them having a metabolic crisis during their lactation. Some of these Holsteins, though, were stunning breed examples: good leg formation, a nice, even udder, not too bony … ‘She’d be a good addition,’ I said to myself as I studied a few more carefully. ‘She’s pigeon-toed; no good. Horrible bony hips; nope. Clearly had mastitis in that left hind quarter; nope …’ I pulled myself up: if someone could hear me talking to myself in this way they’d think I was seriously weird. With that thought, I had an urge to check behind me, making sure that Nathan or Mike hadn’t snuck up on me, laughing at my professional admiration for bovine breed traits.