South Island, New Zealand

This scene is an original illustration set in South Island, New Zealand. It lies in mid-latitudes, where the climate is oceanic — mild, wet through the year.

A dense mob of woolly sheep flows diagonally across the foreground. A long straight shelterbelt of dark planted conifers crosses the midground, and a corrugated-iron shearing shed stands beside timber yards. Tussock hills roll away behind, bleached gold by late summer, under a high clean sun.

Why is the shelterbelt planted dead straight across open country?

A shelterbelt planted dead straight across open country is a windbreak, and nobody plants one unless the wind is relentless — this is a landscape shaped by westerlies coming off an ocean. Sheep at this density on unirrigated tussock means low rainfall but no real drought. The gold of the grass and the height of the sun put it in the southern summer, which falls at the turn of the year.

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