If you asked any farmer, he'd say we were a bunch of tourist city kids giving fright to his sheep, but all we wanted were some pictures of New Zealand's cream fleeced friends.
"Wow! Look at all those sheep! Pull over! Pull over!" It was tough for me to stare in one direction because I was driving and Brian was navigating. Katie, Matt and Jim were in the back seat gawking out the window as if aliens had just landed in the field next to us.
The sheep-herder--a guy driving a beat-up truck--was waiting patiently for his flock to funnel through the open gate. It was like watching a white cloud of smoke being sucked into an empty room.
Our five-door, silver chariot slowed to a stop on the shoulder of the two-lane road. "Camera! Where's the camera?" I asked frantically.
By the time we got out of the car and crossed the road a majority of the sheep had already passed through the gate's mouth. But as we got closer the herd stopped in their tracks and changed their direction. They ran back into the field away from us. We knew this couldn't be good so we withdrew our forces for another encounter.
Unfortunately the next showdown was less successful. The sound of our wagon's rubber tires against the gravel shoulder signaled the sheep to run before we came to a complete stop. There was no point of even getting out of the car, especially since my f/2.8 70-200mm was parked at home in our 26th-floor apartment in Singapore.
A few more attempts left us empty handed, and by now it was just Brian and I left to duel. As we drove we noticed that some fields were surrounded by waist-high hedges crowded with thorns. It was the perfect plot: walk below the hedge until the fluffy, four-legged animals were in shutter-release range.
We parked the car about 70 meters down the road and walked as if we were Quasimodo in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Giggling like children we drew closer. Small holes in the thorny hedges allowed us to calculate our distance to the confrontation. Slowly we observed the view above the hedge and the curly-haired mammals froze. Our heads popped back, below the hedge as we gathered ourselves for our last chance to capture a digital image of these shy creatures.
"On the count of three..one..two...three!" I whispered as we jumped standing tall seizing as many frames per second as we could. First the sheep stiffened as if frozen in time. Then every muscle in their body screamed, "release" and out came the liquid and solid waste of a grass-fed farm animals. Despite the slight delay the white-faced cowards took off running to the opposite side of their home front and we walked back to our hatchback gleaming with victory.
It's not what I had visualized in my mind, but it is such a good picture of the immense stare before the flee.
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Sorry the sheep were so elusive for you. When dad, or as you know him Uncle Jim, was driving around we got caught in a herd on the road and were litterally surrounded while they crossed. It was weird and a little gross; to paraphrase you the "solid waste" was smearedabout the car. Your picture is beautiful enough to make me reconsider my thoughts on the whole species.
ReplyDelete~Suzanne