So I'm adding a new feature to our blog -- profiles on interesting people we meet along our travels. Here's the first on Julie, the owner of the llama farm we've been staying at for the past three weeks.
Growing up, Julie Insley's passion was horses. These days it's llamas.
Insley, 48, grew up on a dairy farm near where she now lives, just outside of Kerikeri on New Zealand's northeastern shore. She became a vegetarian at age 13, when she came home from school and found her father had killed her pet chicken.
Animals, especially horses, were a main priority for Insley. "From morning 'til dusk I was on a horse," she said.
But reality was calling, and after high school Insley's mom persuaded her to apply for a lab technician job at the local hospital. Unfortunately, she said, she got the job.
"We had these stools that I was spinning around on one day because I was bored," she said. "I fell off and broke my tailbone."
After being sent home early from work, she came across an injured seagull, which she immediately took to a veterinarian. There, while waiting on a beanbag chair, she ran into her girlfriend's boyfriend, who had brought in his hurt dog.
The two eventually married and moved to New Zealand's western coast.
"I married on a dare," she said.
Once the pair split, an Auckland rock band ended up moving in to take her ex's place. Insley wound up managing the band, traveling with them throughout the country.
"They drove me completely bananas," she said.
Wanting to rid herself of the band, she decided to sell her house so she put an ad in the newspaper. A man from Papua New Guinea rang her up and asked why she wanted to sell.
When she told him, he offered her something she couldn't pass up -- a chance to manage his friend's racing stable.
So, Insley moved off to Papua New Guinea to race horses. At 5 feet, 11 inches she was the tallest jockey "by a long shot," she said.
One day, Insley was preparing for a race on a training track made out of chicken manure.
"There was a sprinkler that was over too far and it created a wet patch on the chicken shit," she said. "The horse fell and I tried to roll out of the way, but the horse bounced onto me -- onto my head and shoulders."
Insley was flown back to New Zealand and spent six months in a spinal rehabilitation unit trying to recover from her broken neck.
After rehabilitation, she moved back to her old house, minus the band.
Fourteen years ago, she met her partner, Peter, and decided to move back to Kerikeri. Still a horse owner, Insley said she felt unsafe at the unpredictabilty of horses.
"Quite frankly, I got sick of it," she said.
So she found a herd of llamas in the nearby town of Russell and instantly fell in love as they swarmed around her wheelchair.
In 1996, she bought her first llama.
"What the hell do you do with a llama?" she remembered thinking.
Well, she soon found out as she eventually acquired the whole herd of 16 llamas from Russell.
"They're like potato chips," she said. "You can't have just one."
Insley, owner of Rangemore Llama Farm, has been the president of the New Zealand Llama Association since its formation in 2003. She also runs two llama-related Web sites and a blog.
She uses a voice-activated computer and moves her large mouse with her hand and chin. While she's on the computer in the early morning and evening hours, she likes to spend the days out with her herd of llamas, which has now grown to about 50.
Insley zips around in her electric wheelchair, usually with a cup of Milo chocolate drink nearby and Bruno, a green Indian Ringneck, either on her lap or hat. She said she's constantly amazed at the reliability and intelligence of llamas.
"I don't see malice in a llama," she said.
Ediza likes to get rides from Julie in her wheelchair and Peter on the lawnmower.
