Farm Diary

Arriving hours before the flight in order to check-in (not available in this instance on-line), we found that we were not the only ones to arrive really early in order to avoid long queues.

It did get much worse later, but as our queue was shorter, they only had three people checking us in (later they had seven), so it took just as long. Thanks for that.

Next came the security check, with more queues. The fraught family in front of us with the small baby were subject to an intense search, including the inevitable question about liquids.

The baby's bottle was shown, and to my astonishment the father was made to drink some of the baby's milk! Now two things sprang to mind immediately; a 'suicide bomber' would not be too fussed about a mouthful of any liquid, and all this harassment might be worthwhile had I not read European reports stating that all this security has no meaningful effect at all, and seems to be there to put citizens at ease.

Furthermore, did I not see a group of scruffy youngsters standing on top of a plane recently with a bloody great big 'Greenpeace' flag? How did they get there?

As we were two and a half hours late leaving 'Heathrobinson' airport, we were allowed only 35 minutes in Hong-Kong, which meant that there was only enough time to leave the plane and walk the length of this considerable airport before taking the escalators to the first floor and walking back again, joining the queue for security checks in order to board the aircraft again.

The only difference was that Chinese ladies in bright red coats shouted as us a lot, telling us to queue in single file. Pictures of women guards in prisoner of war camps came into my mind, and I kept my eyes down and stood very still.

The flight was very pleasant and we are lucky in that we are both good travellers, and could have comfortably carried on much further if necessary, despite being in 'cattle class'.

However, our arrival at Melbourne presented us with a government that values bio-security, and huge posters warning of avian-flu and other diseases covered the walls. We were very honest and declared the groceries that Elin (our eldest daughter now working in Sydney) had asked us to bring.

The airport staff had seen this stuff before and are very familiar with it (OXO cubes, Marmite, Cadbury's Chocolate, Jaffa cakes and so on), but I had also ticked the box 'farmer', and a different queue with more questioning and checking of footwear etc took place. All this took a fraction of the time taken at Heathrobinson, and one could relate to the relevance of it all

It was wonderful to see our friends Frank and Barb Tyndall with their son Mark at the airport, and it was very good of them to pick us up considering that it's a two-hour drive.

Having arrived at Heathrobinson at 8am Sunday, flown out at 3pm (!), we were now in Australia Monday, local time 11.00pm. It was 3.00am by the time we got to bed and I have slotted into my usual pattern of getting up at 4.00am with no trouble at all.

This means that I have done all my emails and checked UK news and weather, listened to my messages and made any necessary calls before the day starts. The weather is very pleasant, and as Frank and Barb's house is 50 meters from the beach, this is a very good place to be.

I have seen many dairy farms with Frank (who is a farm consultant), and in this area of Victoria (Central Gippsland) with irrigation plentiful after a cool wet summer (in their terms anyway) the dairy industry is booming.

Fantastic grass production, and although grain prices are through the roof at $450 per tonne, the milk price is 26p, which is close to double their average price. I have yet to see South Gippsland dry country (no irrigation) and Northern Victoria where the effects of the drought is still very much felt.

Much discussion on farms and in the car have taken place already, and I am just fascinated by this industry and its application in various areas of the world.

Irrigation is an interesting subject in itself and some farmers do it reasonably well, while others don't. Frank and I have been looking at local farms on 'Google-earth', and due to the advanced state of this technology in Australia we could see very clearly where there was inadequate overlap, inadequate water, and even blocked nozzles!

Frank runs the Macalister demonstration farm, which is growing an amazing amount of grass, harvesting (grazing) up to two and a half tonnes per hectare with the cows at each feed (every 30 days).

These high covers (over 4 tonne per hectare) look like silage fields, and yes there is some wasted grass (fixed by running the mower over the paddock when necessary), but the amount of feed consumed by the cows is enormous. Stocked at 5 cows to the Hectare (2 cows to the acre) this farm is really going gangbusters.

Sitting outside this little restaurant in this rural town with a big plateful of 'reef and beef', looking across the road at a little fishing tackle shop 'Rod Bending's World of fishing and beach stuff', you could only be in Australia.

However, there are familiar political themes here; food prices, retail investigations relating to what farmers are paid versus retail prices, the general slowdown of the economy, inflation, credit crunch and so on.

Quite a lot is written about food, obesity and exercise, and of course the conflict at sea between Japan's whaling activity and the protesters receives much greater coverage here than in the UK

More next week. Hooroo!

This feature was first printed in the West Sussex Gazette on March 12. To read it first, buy the West Sussex Gazette every week.