It’s the odour that hits you first at the Agrodome Farm Show in Rotorua – the smell of sheep replaces the reek of rotten eggs. If you’ve been in a shearing shed it’s a familiar aroma, if not, the smell is soon forgotten as 19 breeds of sheep run on stage and take their places on the podium.

Among them the hardy Merino, a breed that originated in Spain but now roams high country farms in the South Island, and my favourite, the Lincoln, the curly dreadlocks from Lincolns once dressed the wigs of barristers. I didn’t know there was … Read the rest