The Great NZ Muster

Saturday, April 10, we headed out early to make the five hour drive from Wairoa to Te Kuiti in the center of the North Island. Months before we had heard about the “running of the sheep” in Te Kuiti and it sounded so uniquely Kiwi that we were determined to go.
The Great NZ Muster as it is called is a combination of small town street fair, food and craft booths, games, a bandstand featuring local bands and dance groups, plus the New Zealand Shearing Championships competition with the best of the country’s sheep shearers, AND the running of the sheep down main street.

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day and the happy throngs were out. We ate junk food offerings along with the rest of the crowd, enjoyed the local bagpipe band in their orange hair wigs, kilts, and gumboots, and enthusiastically applauded three guys in shorts, gumboots, and black shearers’ singlets doing a kind of street ballet.

After lunch, we wandered over to the community Cultural and Arts Center to watch some shearing heats. We learned that speed is not the only thing that counts. The final score is adjusted by points deducted if too many strokes of the blade are taken in shearing and also if the animal is cut or nicked by the blade. The announcers sounded like they were describing a horse race and there was lots of excitement in the hall with folks cheering their favorite shearer.

Mark titled this pic, "The Studs"

By 1:30 we left the hall to find a spot on the street for the 2:00 running. Mark and I decided to split up in order to view from different vantage points and (Mark‘s addition here: to avoid both of us being trampled or maimed by the sheep). I chose the middle while Mark was nearer the endpoint. I mimicked others and picked up an edge of some black reinforced plastic sheeting on the road in order to become part of the barricade that would funnel the sheep down the road. We waited for the sheep…finally, a bunch of sheep in single file started trotting down the street and soon it was a steady stream. Delightfully, I was standing by a manhole cover and all the sheep would jump over it.

which way? which way?



Meanwhile, the spectators at the far end of the road had pushed into the street in order to see. The sheep in the lead got totally spooked and turned around and started running back into the other sheep. In short order, right in front of where I was standing, the sheep were smashed into one big pack headed in all different directions and piling up on each other. It was hilarious!! We even had to push back on the sheep. Eventually, men and dogs managed to get the sheep running in the right direction--all 1,079 of them. On Mark’s end he had to wait longer for some action but then took some very fun videos.

Finally, the sheep start running again.


After watching a few more shearing heats, we were satisfied and were very glad that we had made the effort to get to The Great NZ Muster!