I realize that sounds ridiculous to anyone who has spent longer than three minutes on a farm, or anyone who has seen a sheep, but they are. Especially if you are walking, at dusk, through paddock after paddock after paddock filled with hundreds and thousands of sheep and lambs, all baa-ing at you like crazed, uh... sheep.
I didn't realize sheep had different voices. Some sheep are deep-baa'ed. Some are squeaky baa'ed. Some stare you down like they are contemplating revenge for all the dastardly things done to them by a lonely farmer or lost, drunken tourist. Some run away, stop, stare at you, then run back to where they started, baa'ing like maniacs the whole way through. Some huff and puff like they are making an obscene phone baa'll. (I need pun-aholoics anonymous).
So, I'm in Golden Bay. It's the northwest part of the South Island. It's known for a unique feature called Farewell Spit, which is a really long strip of sand dunes between the bay and the Tasman Sea. It kind of looks like the beak of a kiwi bird sticking out from the land. I had been wandering/driving around Golden Bay all morning, seeing all sorts of things, none of which were Farewell Spit. So, I set off for that location.
It was getting cold and sunset was about an hour away, but I know you can only get about 2.5 kilometers onto the spit before people are no longer allowed to walk on it (it's a marine/bird sanctuary or something). I am not good with kilometers-to-miles conversions, but I think that's about 1.5 miles. An easy walk along the sand and back, I thought. I should have known it wouldn't be easy when I passed the dead shark on the beach.
I can't say it was difficult, but anyone who knows me knows I can get lost going in a straight line. And it may seem nonsensical (equally so to that whole "sheep are creepy" thing) that I could get lost walking on a narrow strip of sand that starts on land and finishes in water, but I managed it.
I saw a sign (and it opened up my eyes, I saw the sign! okay, ending bad 80s tunes interlude). The sign said "Fossil Point" and had an arrow. I read a little about this -- it's a bunch of fossils stuck in rocks or something. It sounded more interesting than the bit I was walking along, which was a bunch of broken shells and occasional pools of water, dead sharks or a live bird or two.
I realized that I was walking from Inner Spit (bay side) to Outer Spit (sea side). Cool. I'd see more ocean, fossils and go home. I got to Outer Spit and it was equally uninteresting to inner spit (there weren't even birds on this side, just dunes. I like waves, but there are better beaches just over the rocky outcrop). I walked along the beach, sunset quickly approaching, hoping to see some sort of indication of where the path back to the carpark (or parking lot, in American) would be. There wasn't any. After about 45 minutes I noticed a tiny little red circle sign. Surely that was marking something. It was -- "BEWARE: THERE IS QUICKSAND ALONG THE ROCKS AT FOSSIL POINT."
So, I'd been walking for like 1.5 hours to see impressions of old dead things in rocks and I'd have to brave quicksand to do it? No thanks. I've seen old dead things in rocks before. And, for that matter, birds on sand. On a positive note, I guess, the gale-force winds blowing sand into my face did provide me with a really cheap exfoliation treatment? This was definitely not the highlight of Golden Bay.
So, after tramping a while through dunes and forest, I finally reached the "carpark -- 25 minutes" sign. Through the sheep farm. This is where sheep get creepy. At first it was cute, all the little lambs frolicking in the meadows. I took some pictures, thinking, "this is so stereotypical New Zealand!" Then the sheep started looking a little ragged, like they'd been handled by deranged sheep shearers (pictures available soon, when I can upload them). Patches of bald sheep, wool hanging off their haunches. Then they started baa'ing. I think they were warning each other, or forming an attack plan.
A few sheep baa'ing isn't scary, I know. But it starts getting weird when there are a dozen sheep baa'ing. Then really weird when it's like 50. When there are hundreds of sheep baa'ing at you from near and far, the sun has set and you're miles away from anyone, walking through acre upon acre of sheep paddock -- it's creepy.
I am not talking deathly, mortifying fear here, like if someone were holding a gun to my head or the Dodgers winning the World Series, but it wasn't comfortable. I felt like I'd stumbled upon the beginnings of a really bad kiwi horror movie (I later found out there is a NZ horror movie called "Black Sheep" about evil, human-attacking sheep).
The thing is, too, you're just sort of wandering through the paddock. There's not a trail or anything, just a guess as to where the next gate will be across the way. And the sheep don't really seem to like people randomly wandering through their home. Some of them were chill, but most of them were baa'ing like I was taking my pet wolf pack for a walk. Add in the weird bird noises and the hundreds of geese and ducks calling each other, it was just all a bit off.
I can't really say anything eventful happened. Mostly just walking through being creeped out and keeping my eye out for the heavy breathing sheep moms (they seemed a bit dicey). The only time I was in actual fear was when I got to the cattle paddock. There were about a dozen cows and calves. Unlike the sheep, who baa'ed manically and ran around randomly, the cow babies grouped themselves and seemed to be running toward me. I was afraid of a full-on calf stampede. They just sort of swarmed around me while I walked through, at this point in sight of the car. I reached the car, finally feeling safe, when I rounded a corner and nearly hit an escaped cow. It grunted and moved away.
I realize this is an anti-climatic ending, but I was talking about creepy sheep. What did you expect would happen?
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