My wife Jayne and I are just home from a wonderful trip around Europe in what we have termed “a Kon-Tiki for mature people.”

We started in London, making our way by train to Taunton to visit a dear friend. We had dinner together in The Farmers Arms at Combe Florey, the epitome of an English country pub.

After meeting up with our neighbours and very close friends in London, we made our way by Eurostar to Amsterdam to join with the bus tour.

See also: OSR bounces back, with good yields and fresh optimism

About the author

David Clark

Farmer Focus writer

David Clark runs a 463ha fully irrigated mixed farm with his wife Jayne at Valetta, on the Canterbury Plains of New Zealand’s south island. He grows 400ha of cereals, pulses, forage and vegetable seed crops, runs 1,000 Romney breeding ewes and finishes 8,000 lambs annually.

Read more articles by David Clark

We then set off across the Netherlands, Germany, down the Rhine, Colmar in France, across Switzerland, into Austria and down to Italy, back up round the French Riviera, before finishing up in Paris.

We took in the quintessential sights of Lucerne, Venice, Carpi, the Amalfi Coast, Rome, Pisa and Monaco by coach, train, boat and one heck of a lot of walking.

At 40C in Italy, we both just about melted into a puddle on the footpath.

At the end of the tour in Paris we picked up a rental car and drove back down to friends in Medoc, north of Bordeaux, who worked on a neighbouring farm in New Zealand.

We then went on to visit my cousin who lives in Nice. We returned to Paris by train and began the long flight home and back to reality.

From a farmer’s view, we were shocked at how dry southern England was. The crops in northern France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany were impressive.

I loved the precision and care of Switzerland, but was shocked at the unkempt nature of the landscape further south.

Talking to locals, I was surprised at the lack of livestock grazing outside and the wasted opportunity of vast areas of ungrazed grass, that in New Zealand would be all utilised with animals.

I also got an insight into the perverse outcomes caused by subsidies and the overburden of regulation.

It was a fantastic trip, for which Jayne and I are extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to do.