Fisher Flys the Kiwi Flag in France & Canada

By Anna Fisher, Silverstream Charolais

Earlier this year I decided it was time for me to finally travel overseas and see the world.  So on July the 11^th I left New Zealand to go to my first destination Amsterdam with my best friend and her parents.  It was only a short 2 day visit and then we all went down to Portugal where we spend 5 days in Lisbon and 3 days in Porto.  Both these cities were very old with cobbled streets and some beautiful old architecture.  There were many sites to see and things to do.  The Portuguese were very friendly and both places had a laid back fun atmosphere.  After 10 days of being a tourist I was really happy with my experiences but felt I had seen enough old buildings and one street started to look the same as the next so I was ready to move on to the next part of my trip.

The main purpose of the trip was to go and look at the Charolais cattle in France and look at new potential genetics to bring back into NZ  So on July 22^nd I flew into Paris where I met up with a weary Brent with very swollen feet who had just arrived from NZ (I had bought him some pressure socks for DVT but he had instead mixed them up with a pair of ankle socks from the Warehouse!?). We spent a day round Paris which was very hot and the traffic and people were very hectic.  The following day we took a train south to Dijon where we rented a car.  When you turn down a GPS and insurance offered by the rental car company you feel regretful when you find yourself lost driving the wrong way down a tram track and hour later!  Dijon is where we met up with Sebastian and Simon who were to be our tour guides for the next 24 hours. Both these guys worked for a semen company called ‘Genes Diffusion’  This Company has over 200,000 registered Charolais cows which 2,000 are classed as their elite herd.  From these Elite cows the top 70 odd bulls are selected and put together in a bull trial unit.  From this the best 15 are selected and carry on to be in a progeny test. It gives you such great confidence when selecting a bull as they are working with such large numbers of cattle and have very accurate data on each bull as a result of extensive progeny testing of their sons and daughters.

We were very fortunate to have these two great people show us around.  Sebastian spoke excellent English and Simon wasn’t too bad at it either which was fortunate as Brent and I only bothered to learn ‘hello’, goodbye’ and ‘thank you’ but nevertheless we spoke these words a lot which they really appreciated.  Every farm we visited the people were super friendly.  We would sit round a table with them and have a beer, and all we could do was say hello and smile but we could tell they were so pleased we had come to visit them.  We also had Sebastian to interpret. Because we are in the same industry we did not find the language barrier too much of an issue in the field as we just used a bit of sign language to describe types of cattle and we could talk names in pedigrees.

Over 2 days we visited 5 farms.  Brent and I were very impressed with the French cattle.  They had a bit of size, volume and frame without being too coarse to look at.  They were structurally very good and had good feet and udders.  The cattle we saw were in very good condition and even saw a mob of cows whose calves averaged over 500kg.  The French in recent times have concentrated on having more functional, fertile females who calve down easily.  They are also focusing more on the polled cattle with 10% of their herd now being polled.  The French cows were truly a pleasure to see.  We saw outstanding females sired by Pinay, Suedois, Jumper, Sidney and Magenta.  The Jumper cattle were a favourite of mine. He is very old bull who has done a tremendous job over there.

We were sad to say goodbye to Sebastian and Simon they were such great people who we have kept in touch with since being back.  If anyone intends to go to France we recommend you get in touch with these people.  We took a quick visit to the Charolais museum in Charolles and then continued our drive to southern France which proved to be very fractious.  We took the toll motorway and at every toll we either managed to get into the wrong lane, not have a ticket or not have the right payment method and on top of that everything seemed to be at a very hectic pace.  The speed limit was 130km/hr but that was only an indication because at 140km/hr we were still in the slow lane! The French countryside was very beautiful.  The country was rolling hills with hedges and little French villages only a couple of miles apart.  In the Dijon area the fields were sprawled with white cattle everywhere! It was such a great site.

Once we got to southern France we stayed in Nice for a night but did catch the train to Monaco for a quick look around.  This place was a real eye opener as there is so much wealth in this country.  The super yachts were amazing and everyone drove Bentleys, Ferraris, McLaren’s and Lamborghinis. There was no Hyundai dealership there!

From France we went to New York.  For those of you who have not been you certainly need to put this on your bucket list.  It is a truly an amazing city that is so vibrant and exciting.  We spent a short two days there but managed to go to Central Park, the Museum of Natural History, Wall Street and 9/11, go up the Empire State Building, see Times Square, walk the High Line and see a Broadway show.  It is a place that is easy to get round, has so many famous sites and plenty to do.  For a couple of people that don’t get excited by cities we both loved this place and can’t wait to go back sometime but would definitely need a week there.

After we departed New York we flew into Canada where we spent 6 days travelling to different studs from Winnipeg through to Calgary.  Canada is a huge place with perhaps not the most exciting scenery where we travelled, unless you like looking at fields of canola and oil rigs but we really did enjoy our travels there and the hospitality we received.  Studs we visited included, HTA Charolais, TRI-N Charolais, Pleasant Dawn Charolais, Wilgenbusch Charolais, McTavish Charolais, Vikse Charolais, Sparrow Farms and Harvie Ranches.  The cattle in Canada perhaps didn’t have the volume, bone and power of the French cattle but the breeders over there have to be praised for the functionality of their cows.  All these places had such lovely females.  They were very pleasing to look at as they were sound and very feminine.  The cows had superb udders and their ability to rear a good calf was outstanding.  The cattle within and across the herds were very even. They were moderate framed cattle with an easy doing ability.  We were also lucky enough to see calves by Silverstream Performer at Tri- N and Pleasant Dawn.  We also saw ‘TRI-N Prefix’ at the Vikse’s who was the Performer son who sold for $37,000 last year.  Canada was a lot easier to navigate ourselves round then France as everything is on a grid format and it’s a little bit exciting when you actually go round a corner. The size and scale of Canada is mindboggling.  Most of what we saw was cropping with no fences and no trees and the land was dead flat.  During our travels we spent a night in Regina with Helge and Candace By.  We had a really pleasant night with Helge and Candace and they toured us around their town the following day.  Regina is where Agribition is held and it is a really beautiful town with huge parks and a lake.  As we travelled across Alberta the country started to become more scenic and we spent our last night in Banff in the Rocky Mountains.  Before we could get home we had to fly from Calgary to Dallas and then a 16 hour flight to Brisbane.  After what seemed like a very rushed trip all around the world it was nice to spend time with our Aussie mates at the Brisbane Show.

After 32 days and 17 flights we were both really glad to be home. It was a very rewarding trip and we loved our experiences but we also believe in comparison to where we had been New Zealand is a pretty amazing country too.  We met so many great people on our trip, we believe we did a good job promoting our herd and New Zealand Charolais in both Canada and France and hopefully we will see some of these people come to NZ soon!