The shearing sports competition season resumes on Saturday with the Peninsula Duvauchelle Shears in Bank’s Peninsula settlement Duvauchelle.
Amid the hype of a few world record attempts in the woolsheds at the peak of the shearing season, it’s the first show competition since the first weekend of December, and the first in the South Island since the last weekend of November.
In a schedule of 59 competitions on the Shearing Sports New Zealand calendar from the end of September to early April, there are nine shows this month, with a big three days on January 19-21, with six competitions spanning near the length of New Zealand from Kaikohe in the north to Winton in the south,
The features are the shearing and woolhandling of the national fullwool championships near Lumsden on January 19, the national crossbred lambs championships the next day at nearby Winton, and the Horowhenua Shears on January 21, culminating in the first Royal New Zealand Show in Levin.
The devastation of Cyclone Gabrielle in February last year means the Wairoa A and P Show is unable to take place at the showgrounds, being replaced by a fair in the town centre but with its shearing championships transferred from the showgrounds to a woolshed for the third time since 2010.