Roving Camera

What must surely be one of the largest fleeces, if not the largest, ever to come off a sheep's back was in a bale at the Mill Road Wool Store. From the Tolaga Bay district, the fleece weighed 451bs with staples 20in long - which is a bit much when compared with the normal length of five to six inches. With the fleece, which would contain at least four seasons' growth, are, above right, David Lunn, Arthur Gordon and Fred Tate, while, below, is shown the difference between the monster staple and the normal one.

An interesting facet of the woolstore is the processing of woolly dags. The manure is beaten out of the wool which is then thrown out of the processing machine. The manure drops to the bottom of the machine where it falls on to a conveyor which loads it into bags for distribution.

The processed wool is exported to Japan where it is used in the production of a number of products. The store processes two tons of dags per day of which 30% is wool and the other 70% is manure.

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Arthur Gordon operates the machine.