Dairy on the Ocean

The Gilmore’s are the kind of people you meet once every blue moon if you’re lucky.  They are the most generous and caring couple I have meet since Leighton and I rented our van in Melbourne, and their generosity is only surpassed by their story telling abilities.  We happened upon them by pure chance early in the morning of February 3, 2011 as we crawled out of our van from a night spent on the edge of their pasture.

As we got ready for another day Tricia drove up on her trike (three wheel ATV) herding three calves in front of her.  She stopped by the van and conversed with us for a bit about our adventure and how the calves were notorious for escaping their paddock to roam the roads.  She than invited us down to her and her husbands dairy for a bottle of milk which, being poor traveling folk, we quickly agreed to.  When we reached her dairy we found that they were right in the middle of their morning milking so we asked if we could learn a little about the dairy trade.  Tricia explained, that on the Gilmore Dairy there are around 150 heifers (female cows) that need to be milked twice a day.  When it is time for the milking the cows are brought into the milking shed in two lines and are than hooked up to the automatic milkers (nice invention I’m told, since it saves your hands and lots of time) which collect the milk from each cow and transport it to the processing room.  In the processing room the milk is filtered to remove any particles and than passed through a refrigeration unit where it is chilled to a storable temperature. 

It is than sent into a large holding tank that regulates the temperature and frequently stirs the milk.  The milk will stay in the storage tank until one of the big milk tankers comes by to pick it up, usually every evening. 

This storage tank was where Tricia decanted us a bottle of the freshest, sweetest most amazing milk you can get this side of squeezing the utter yourself (which I have had, but that’s another story).  As we admired their operation she went on to explain that each cow would produce between 25-30 liters of milk a day when they were with calf so if you do the math that means that their little family dairy produced around 4500 liters of milk per day, which really blew my mind.

After the tour we continued to chat about our families and experiences and how they loved living so close to the ocean (it is less than a mile from their front door to sand).  It quickly became apparent that we had stumbled into one of the Crawfish capitals of the world and that Byran and Tricia were some what fishing gurus when it came to setting their pots (they may laugh when they read this, but that is only because they are to modest to admit that they are good).  I mentioned to her my desire to get some really good Crawfish from the nearest town if it was not to expensive when she again showed that characteristic generosity that Leighton and I were beginning to see in her by giving us two of the largest and most succulent Crawfish that I have ever seen.  We took these with a slight reverence since they were the freshest food we had seen in a few days and thanked them so much for their kindness.  It really was a wonderful, wonderful gift.

The Gilmores gave us so much and it was upsetting that we could give nothing back to them.  I hope this little story gives some credit to those two amazing people and shows how much their generosity means to us.  You will always be the best thing about South Australia Byran and Tricia.

Ooo, and we cooked up that Crawfish with butter and garlic than put it into a lentil soup with carrots, potatoes, and zucchini that we were stewing.  It was amazing, definitely the best meal we have had on our journey.