09 May 2025
Shear Strength
Wahine Ahuwhenua. Woman of the Land.
WRITER: AS TOLD TO ARPÉGE TARATOA-RANGIKURA (NGĀI TE RANGI, NGĀTI RAUKAWA, NGĀPUHI, NGĀTI RĀRUA)
photographer: ELLA GROGAN (NGĀTI KAHUNGUNU)
Catherine Mullooly (Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi, Ngāti Kahungunu), 35, mother of two and women’s shearing champion, has loved shearing from a young age. Keen to introduce more mental wellbeing awareness into shearing training in Aotearoa, Catherine recently held a women-only shearing workshop in Tairāwhiti.
Catherine says, “It’s important to surround yourself with people who make you feel good. The kind of people you might want to be – positive people.”
I grew up in Mātāwai, and my partner Ardy, 31, and I now lease the farm that once belonged to my grandparents. I grew up on the farm with my dad, and I was a real tomboy. I hated high school – I loved horses and dogs; being on the farm around the animals was where I wanted to be. If the shearers came to the farm over the weekend, I’d wake up and hear the speakers – boom, boom, boom – and I’d run down the driveway to the woolshed. I’d stand by the door on the landing and just watch them – I was always a little shy, but I was also so interested. I was waiting for an opportunity, a job, anything to help out.
I remember my dad got some sheep in one day, just some stragglers, and I said to him that I wanted to shear a whole sheep. He’s always given me the opportunity to just give something a go no matter what, which was pretty cool, but I remember he looked at me like, “Are you sure?” It was a big ewe and she had a full fleece – and it took me a LONG time to shear her. I remember every single muscle in my body was shaking. It was full on!
Dad got me into a Tectra shearing school just out of Gisborne, and I caught the bug. It can be really hard to get your first stand as a shearer, and sometimes even harder when you’re female – it just wasn’t as much of a thing back then. If you’re not fast, you slow the whole gang down, so the faster you are, the more likely you are to get on a stand. Generally, you want to be able to get through at least 200 sheep comfortably in a day.
It took me about seven or eight years before I started travelling overseas to shear. Shearing is seasonal, so you follow the sun. Starting the summer here, then I went over to the UK and then Aussie, then back to New Zealand. It was during a season in Kingston South East, South Australia, that I met most of my really close friends and my partner. We’d been shearing for different contractors around the area, and I met Ardy at a speed-shear after-party. He was from New Zealand, too, and we had mutual friends and kind of just hit it off from there.
“We fed the girls, which isn’t part of a typical shearing school – but we find a lot of people will disappear to their cars and go on their phones at smoko and lunch. We wanted to bring everyone together during those times instead, and the chat was just non-stop from the very first smoko break!”
When we came back to New Zealand, I was supposed to go back and shear in Gizzy, but a stand came up in Piopio where he was from, so I took that and stayed for about three or four years before coming home to Mātāwai. We have two boys now – Bryn is four, and Cole is two. In 2023, I trained for the Solo Women’s Eight-Hour Strong Wool Ewe World Record, and I had to be away from them for a wee stint, which was really hard. We’d planned it so that I could stay with the boys most of the way through my training, but there was a point where I had to go down south for about eight weeks. I’ve never been away from them longer than a couple of days, and when I first decided to do the record Cole was about four months old – so yeah, it was really hard. I used it as a kind of mental-toughening exercise and made sure to use the time away from them to train hard and learn as much as I could. I knew I was there for a reason, so that really helped me get through that time away from them.
When I was doing my record, Elite Wool Industry Training sponsored me, and Tom Wilson, my boss, did up all my combs and gear for the day. He used to do that full time, and I don’t think there’s anyone better in the game than him!
After the record, I was invited by the Shearing Contractors Association of Australia Shearing Woolhandler Training Inc. as a guest trainer at the 2024 Women’s World Shearing Workshop held in Telopea Downs, Australia.
The facilities were amazing – it was a brand-new, fourteen- stand woolshed. We camped out at the station for a two-day course, and there was a lot of focus on mental wellbeing and balance and technique. I’ve never been to something where you aren’t just focussing on the physical side, but also the importance of mental strength when it comes to staying in the zone. There’s a lot more to shearing than just physical strength and fitness – it takes a lot of mental strength, too.
I felt so balanced and grounded after that trip – even though I didn’t know anyone and I was shitting myself going over there, because I’m pretty shy outside of my group of friends, it was a really cool experience. When I got back to New Zealand, I spoke to Tom and suggested we do something similar. Tom said, “Give it a go, but you have to organise it.” So we put out a register of interest for an advanced training course to be held in Gisborne, and we had over fifty women register!
Continue reading the full story in our Ngahuru Autumn 2025 Edition.
If you enjoyed this story, please share with someone else.
This story appeared in the Ngahuru Autumn 2025 Edition of Shepherdess.
Get your hands on a copy.
Related Stories
The Threads that Bind – Philippa O’Brien
I discovered the film industry in my last year of university, and that was it. I left. I joined the circus.
Spiced Apple Cake
This is a lovely cake to sit down to with a cup of tea. It is best with a cooking apple, as the tarter flavour pairs perfectly with the subtle warmth of
Community Driven
Selfless service runs in the family for daffodil farmer and Ellesmere Community Care Organisation chairperson June McLachlan, 53. It’s something this dairy farmer’s daughter learnt from her mother and is
