Country Life's Cosmo Kentish-Barnes was very thankful for his gumboots when he visited the extremely muddy South Island Field Days (SIAFD) in Kirwee.
The event has been running every second year since 1951 when it was held at Motukarara.
The South Island Field Days is the only agricultural show in New Zealand to feature side-by-side demonstrations, with up to 100 tractors, headers, mowers, seed drills and other machines being put through their paces each day.
"A lot of voluntary man hours go into this. The organising committee should be very proud of what they achieved, and it hasn't been easy over the last few days with that rain. It's made a good job blooming difficult, but all we need is a couple hours of sun today and it'll be drying up good" says the executive chairman of the event, Hamish Maginness.
This year, the show moved to Kirwee from its earlier home at Lincoln. The Field Days Society has purchased 82 hectares there to allow for expansion.
In the first Kirwee event, 18 hectares of the site were used for trade stands and 12 for paddock demonstrations where farmers could see state-of-the-art agricultural machinery in real life situations.
Another onsite attraction was the Top Tractor Shootout. The goal was to find the best value for money modern tractor.
