This morning we drove about 10 minutes away to the Livestock Improvement Company. They focus on dairy cattle cattle genetics and how to best improve the New Zealand dairy herds. They do 75% of all AI in the country! 75%! There is such a power for them to influence the direction of the industry here. We had four different speakers and got to learn about the breeds in New Zealand, production efficiency and how New Zealand is different, the international market, and the AI business. It was definitely my favorite site visit so far.
Our second site visit was cancelled because they milk seasonally here. The cows aren't kept indoors so they only calve during their normal time rather than any time during the year like cows that live in barns. We had the afternoon free in Hamilton so Erin and I adventured down the street to a map store and a souvenir store. The woman in the souvenir shop told us that we had to visit the Hamilton Gardens and that they were about a 30 minute walk away. So we headed off with our souvenirs and map in hand to see these incredible gardens.
We walked around the gardens for about 1.5 hours and they were stunning, even in winter. There are tons of these small themed gardens to explore besides the massive ones, special flower gardens, and forest walks. Everything was so green!
We wanted to be back before dark so we left at 4:30. We stopped at a little ice cream shop called Duck Pond. I think they make all their own ice cream. We were hoping that they had Hokey Pokey but no luck. Instead I had a phenomenal blueberry cheesecake scoop. It literally tasted like I was eating a piece of cheesecake! We finished walking back to the hostel in a drizzle of rain before spending most of the evening finishing up our dairy case study.
We wanted to be back before dark so we left at 4:30. We stopped at a little ice cream shop called Duck Pond. I think they make all their own ice cream. We were hoping that they had Hokey Pokey but no luck. Instead I had a phenomenal blueberry cheesecake scoop. It literally tasted like I was eating a piece of cheesecake! We finished walking back to the hostel in a drizzle of rain before spending most of the evening finishing up our dairy case study.