Canterbury shearers Ant Frew and Liam Norrie showed just about the ultimate commitment to their sport when they drove the earthquake diversion route across the top of the South Island to support the Marlborough A and P Show on Saturday.
For Open-class shearer Frew it was more than a seven-hour, 600kms drive from Pleasant Point in South Canterbury, and not much less for Intermediate Cheviot shearer Norrie, the two meeting "half-way" before hitting the highways across to St Arnaud and up through the Nelson Lakes National Park.
While they weren't so much paved with gold, it was a successful mission as they won their respective finals, at a show which with its continued isolation caused by the closure of State Highway 1 since the Kaikoura Earthquake 12 months ago attracted just 14 shearers across four grades.
Frew pocketed $400 for an important win ahead of the Canterbury Show's Canterbury All-Breeds Circuit final and NZ Corriedale shearing and woolhandling championships this week and Norrie won $150, but possibly more important were his points in the H D Dawson North Canterbury Development Circuit which provides the best young shearers from the region with trips and accommodation to the New Zealand championships in Te Kuiti in April.
While Frew was one of seven entries in the Open, Norrie had just one opponent, in Blenheim-based Havelock shearer Duncan Higgins, who along with sister, competition organiser and Senior runner-up Sarah Higgins has done more than his share of kilometres keeping up with other shows also made more distant by the State Highway 1 closure.
