Only a couple of sleeps to go and then it's off to Mystery Creek for the 48th National Agricultural Fieldays, without doubt the biggest annual event on the farming calendar. This year's theme is 'Collaborate to Accelerate Innovation'.
A quick look through the history books shows us the first Fieldays took place at the Te Rapa Racecourse in 1969 and some of the founding fathers, such as Sir William Gallagher, are still there nearly five decades later. The move to the current site at Mystery Creek took place in 1971, with the Pavilion and Events Centre built in 1995.
For reasons which will soon become apparent, I reckon my first sojourn to Mystery Creek was circa 1997, which makes this year my 20th anniversary appearance and me somewhat of a veteran.
I actually could have made my debut way back in the early 1980s when some of my northern Southland farming mates made the long trek to the big smoke of Hamilton. Unfortunately I was stuck at Lincoln College so I couldn't join them. Their stories of crazy nights out in the Tron only whetted my appetite. Hamilton sounded so exotic compared to our home village of Riversdale.
If indeed 1997 was my first trip to the Fieldays, I hardly covered myself in glory. An Invercargill-based travel agent mate of mine, Tony Laker, organised a one-day hit and run return trip to Hamilton in association with CRT Southland. Tony and I have since colluded on many successful tours including a 2003 UK and Ireland Farming Tour, a 2012 Farming and Footy Tour to South America, another to South Africa in 2014 and a wonderfully successful Rugby World Cup Tour to England and Wales last year.