The Southland landscape is undergoing tremendous change as dairying floods into every available (and seemingly impossible) corner of the region. Shelter belts are falling like wheat before a scythe; macrocarpa giants chewed up by mulchers, flax hauled out and tossed aside, the place is beginning to look like a billiard table. A network of enormous ’swimming pools’  – effluent containment ponds, is being dug from corner to corner of Southland. Even the roads are subject to change, with the excavation of underpasses; tunnels for cows, beneath the tarmac, to make the passage from pasture to milking shed easier. With all of this happening at a pace that has locals somewhat dazed, it was encouraging to hear the comment the other day, that ‘once the boom has bust’ we’ll have a ready made series of cycle tracks throughout the south, along the shingled cow lanes and under ground whenever the happy cyclists need to cross a road, with the added bonus of a series of small lakes to cool off in! Who said the dairy industry doesn’t care for the little guy!