Monday, July 27, 2009

Journey to Agrodome

Here comes the New Zealand's visitor attraction that you must not miss! Speaking of New Zealand, what comes through your mind? Like duh, sheep lah! So when you come to Rotorua, it's a must to visit Agrodome.


The journey to Agrodome, Rotorua was indeed long and bored cause all you can see are farms, cows and farms...and cows...and farms..*yawnnn*

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Kiwi Bird isn't this big actually, it somehow looks like a weird creature to me. No idea why is it called Kiwi Bird. Does it look like a bird?

After an introduction to New Zealand farming, we then joined an hour tour around the farm with informative commentary on the many aspects of agriculture featured on the Agrodome farm.

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We were given opportunity to walk around amongst the animals and feed sheep and emus by hand.

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Yummy yummy meat :)

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Sheep dog is trained to herd or guard sheep.

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Nice booootay :)

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A 5 years experienced shearer explained how to use the blade shears.

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Big fat sheep.

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Initially, I was excited to get inside to grab knitted wear as I thought it'd be cheaper than city. However, those are hand knitted made so I can't expect it to be fairly cheap.


Get the wool wash first and let it dry before proceed to next step.

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Carding is the processing of brushing raw or washed fibers to prepare them as textiles. A large variety of fibers can be carded, anything from dog hair, to llama, to soy fiber, to polyester. Cotton and wool are probably the most common fibers to be carded. Carding fibers was used to be by hand in which hand carders that looks similar like dog brushes were used to brush the wool. Obviously, it would probably take years and hence technology had solved the trouble. Although Platt wool carding machine (the picture above) was made in UK in 1906, it is still working as well as it did the day it started.Much stronger than your grandfather.

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The last process, spinning wheel. Spinning is an ancient textile art in which synthetic fibers are twisted together to form yarn.



A short clip of shearing sheep. Enjoy :)

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