J&V Down Under: Knife Making in Barrytown

Friday 24th January
Today was quite literally one of the best days of Jon's life (I didn't push to find out where it ranked compared to the wedding.....), and I must admit I loved it too. There is absolutely nothing else to do in Barrytown, and we would have missed it altogether if friends of ours had not recommended it.

The knife making day is run by a Kiwi couple called Steven and Robyn- it apparently started out as a back yard hobby and developed into a business (still run in their back yard.....) They've been running for over ten years, and had over 17,000 people to make knives, which is quite an achievement.

We started the day by being given an old shirt to project our clothes, safely glasses, a pair of gloves and lump of steel. After a fairly brief safety talk, we were off. The first stage was to heat the steel to orange heat, and then whack it with a mallet....quite difficult at this stage to imagine that we would end up with anything other than a lump of bashed up metal. But as the day wore on, the knives really began to take shape. Adding the brass and cutting and pinning the handle, then grinding, shaping and sanding the blade - it was brilliant! Steven (who is not a young man by any means) works his socks off all day, running round helping everyone. It's very well done- they let you do most of the work yourself so you really feel like you've made the knife. The reality is that Steven is so skilled that he does a lot of the technical stuff throughout the day to make sure the knives turn out well and nobody amputates any limbs in the process.

The whole day was excellent. Not only did we end up with really stunning knives, Steven is a real entertainer too. Lots of laughs and banter, finished off with a glass of 'Barrypagne' (white wine put in the soda stream!). No idea what I'll use the knife for, but I'm chuffed with it all the same.