Getting paid to show off his farming skills to visitors is a rewarding part of Bradley Riggs' unusual farming job. He also has some unusual situations to deal with. "I had some guests walk out because they were too scared to see a sheep get shorn, thinking it's going to be screaming, and some of them think we have to skin the sheep.
"Most are quite shocked at how passive the sheep are." Follow Country Life on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts. Demonstrating how to shear a sheep and use his dogs is all part of a day's work for Riggs, farm manager at Wharekauhau Country Estate.
He has spent more than 13 years working at the luxury lodge overlooking Palliser Bay in South Wairarapa, first as shepherd and latterly as farm manager. The guests are accommodated in the grand homestead which sits amid 900 hectares above the bay. Riggs is in charge of the farming operation which runs alongside the tourism business grazing Romney sheep and cattle on 530 hectares of the property.
Among the lodge's international guests are rich-listers, celebrities and even royalty, which can be "intense", Riggs told Country Life , although he's not fazed by all the activity. "I just do my farm tour the same way I always would do it. And, yeah, sometimes you do see guests walking past the yards and things like that and they'll have security with them.
"It doesn't change my day, really, you just carry on." It is a "real-life" view of farming they get too, Riggs said. "Any q.
