Carey Potae reaches shearing milestone

Carey Potae shearing outdoors in Austria about 4months ago.

Growing up in Napier, Carey Potae really only had one view of the woolsheds.

"I did not like it one bit," she says of her school holiday experiences working with her mother in local shearing gangs.

But how times have changed for the now 28-year-old, who having at times decided there were much better things to do with her life, last week reached one of the budding shearer milestones - 200 in a day.

But it wasn't just any two-hundy, for the big moment came in the Falkland Islands, where she figured in Port Howard gang's local record on December 9.

One shearer, John McKay, shore a Falkland record of 379 wethers, Potae shore 204, and the gang of seven clocked-up 1790 for the day.

It was snowing this week in the southern Atlantic UK territory, and there was a bit of phone reception to keep everyone up-to-date via facebook, from what is the 9th country or territory in which she's shorn.

Having work off-and-on in New Zealand and Australia, it's only eight months since she decided to take-up shearing fulltime, her passport since acquiring the stamps of Germany, France, Italy, Austria, The Netherlands, and Britain.

Last month, before heading to the Falkland Islands, she managed a couple of weeks back in Napier, and early in the New Year she'll be in North America, before returning to the UK and Europe.

"Since I was young, I always wanted to travel everywhere," she said. "Being a shearer you get to travel the world and make money at the same time."

Potae was born in Hastings and grew-up in Maraenui, living with grandmother Mere Ratima and going to Richmond School and then Colenso High School (now William Colenso College), as she learned the ins-and-outs alongside her mother who was working for Napier contractor Brendan Mahony.

"I wasn't very good, I did not like it one bit, but I eventually improved."

She also didn't much fancy school, left at 15 and started working at KFC, but having one dream from the days in the woolsheds she always wanted to learn to shear. It was about 2006 when she learnt to crutch a sheep while working at Mahony's Middlemarch base in Otago, and then she went to a shearing school, but worked mainly as a woolhandler following the season around.

"Then I stopped altogether ... had a break from the sheds," she says. "I've really only started back at the start of this year."

One thing she hasn't done is shear in competition. But she'd like to and is having "a jam" at the Falkland Shears, which according to the Penguin News are at Goose Green on the weekend between Christmas and New Year's Day.

"Of all the places I've been, the Falklands has to be the best." she says.

"I am really enjoying the experience of all the different breeds, and how every place you go around the world it is never going to be the same as shearing back home or over in Australia," she says.

"There are some massive people out there that are way better than me.

"I honestly think the shearing industry is one of the hardest jobs out," she says.

"You have to really love it to do it."

And loving it she is. She upped the tally to 215 on wethers a few days ago, and seems to have added the number 300 to the itinerary.