The start of a life as an adrenaline junkie?

I have never been interested in birds. Holding my arms in the same position with binoculars glued to my eyes have never been my cup of tea. But this week, that was our focus. We had to sit for hours on a shell bank (not comfortable on the bum) and watch the different new zealand wading shorebirds and take note of their dietary habits. I drug my feet as we took the hour walk to the site, and decided to be a negative nelly about the whole thing.

What a surprise it was when I found myself frantically jotting down notes and discussing in detail the specific characteristics of bar-tailed godwits with my friend Lacey. This is when I made the decision that as long as I'm learning something, and something is new and exciting, it will catch my attention. And now I know more about three new zealand waders than I ever would have thought, and I take a small amount of pride in that. When I get home, test me on my bird watching skills. I know oh so much about the feeding habits of godwits, wrybills and oystercatchers.

And if you had an inkling that bird watching isn't my thing, you KNOW that kids aren't my thing. I leave that to Alexis, and when I'm with children I just don't know how to act. (except ryan and kyle...) But we went to the primary school in Kaiaua to spend a day running around and picking up trash with the kids. And although I had reminders of why I don't want kids (one little hoodlum told me that 'dogs don't hang out with chicks' and proceeded to bark at me... wtf.) I also found myself having fun being a horse to the 5 year olds and reading partners to those who could actually read. I was exhausted for the rest of the day, and I think that it was the best work out I have gotten since being here.

The weekend came, and we started it off with a bang at the local pub. Because we live in such a small place, when we go anywhere we take over. So we took over and started a dance party, got a little too tipsy and a walk that should have taken me 30 minutes took me two hours. gah. But the next morning a few of us (lacey, ashton, hanna, jenni and I) took a two hour drive to Waitomo caves for some black water rafting. It was AMAZING. The general idea of black water rafting is you hop into a wet suit, drive to a cave, slide into a cave and proceed to crawl/walk/maneuver your way through the cave until you reach the river. That is when you hop into your inner tube and float down the rapids. It is pitch black and you run into the side of the caves, and you jump off waterfalls and every once in awhile you turn off your head lamp and look up to what looks like the night sky. Then you remember you are in a cave, and what you are looking at is billions of glow worms. It is something I can't really explain. I just have to summarize it with the word amazing. Oh, and the guide looked like John Mayer, which was intriguing.

we then drove to Rotorua and splurged (because it was Labour weekend, we had to stay in a hotel)... so we took advantage and went in the pool, hot tub and sauna. We ate ice cream, took real hot showers and slept in comfortable beds. For all those people who aren't ecoquest students that may not sound like anything big, but for me it was extravagant and blissful. The next day Ashton and Lace went white water rafting (I needed to save some cash), so the rest of us went walking around the city. They had some beautiful parks, and Rotorua is known for it's thermal springs and bubbling mud pools, so I spent most of my time in the government gardens exploring.

All in all it was a good week/weekend. Now we have a week on shellfish observation and fenced islands, and then we head up north. The time is flying by, and it scares me. This place just feels right.

Back Home

I left you off in Christchurch, where the copious amounts of liqour and dancing left me with a sore throat that I tried to convince myself was from the gin and tonics. As it turned out, I contracted that beautiful illness that had caused one of my field leaders to sport a fabulous medical mask for the first few days of the trip. Our next stop was up in the alps in a place called Craigieburn. The mountains were straight out of lord of the rings, and our vans barely made it up the hill. We were staying in an educational center isolated in the middle of a mountain beech forest. It was perfectly serene and beautiful, and we were lucky enough to have a sunny welcoming and a clear night; perfect for star gazing. We were studying alpine ecology and vegetation, but my sickness cooped me up in the lodge crocheting a hat for Jensen's soon to be baby by the fire. There were about five of us that were too sick to participate in activites, so we spent the days lounging and watching the snow fall.
oh yes, thats right. It snowed. And was VERY cold. God damn, I thought it was supposed to be spring (the first official weekend of summer is coming up in a few days... doesn't really feel like it)

I started recovering right when we were leaving Craigieburn to go to Reefton, which was unfortunate because I missed all of our lectures, but was good because I was able to participate in learning about extractive industries in New Zealand. We visited this old gold mining museum and learned a little bit about the boom and bust industry of the Reefton/west coast area. The next day we went to visit a few coal mines, which was hard for me. But our guest speaker was very informative and tried to make sense of the reasons for the destroyed land. It was pretty cool because he took us to a mine that was a 'bad' example of mining, and then took us to one that is more environmental and although it was still a scar on the land, it was an interesting contrast. We also got to go to a beautiful national park called Nelson Lakes and studied mainland island pest control. It is crazy because New Zealand has no native or endemic land mammals, so all those that do exist (possums, deer, stoats, wasps... etc) are considered pests and are destroying the native plants and birds. So we learned about how the pests are controlled, and what methods are used. (some of the possums they kill are turned into nice hats/scarves/sweaters. It feels to weird to buy a possum fur hat though... too freaky)

After Nelson Lakes we were dropped off for our four day break!!! So exciting. It is our only big break in the entire four weeks that we have. Five of us (hanna, heidi, colby, elizabeth and I--for those who care) decided to stay at a hostel in Nelson for a few nights and go hiking in Abel Tasman National park for a night or two. The first day was shitty weather, so we decided to drive east and go to Renwick, home of Marlborough wine country. We took a nice wine tour and drank a bit too much wine. All the wineries were beautiful and it was nice seeing a different kind of tourism industry. And what can I say, I have aquired grandma's and mom's taste for good wine. It was a great time, and we ended up going home and napping and having a nice stay at home day. The next day wasn't great weather but we decided to take our chances, and drove out to Abel Tasman. Something in the sky loved us, and right when we got there the weather cleared and we ended up having tons o' sun. We did 13 miles the first day (let me tell you, my feet were NOT happy with that plan) along the coast, and camped on the beach at bark bay for the night. We woke up to another beautiful day, hiked 7 more miles up the coast, ate at an entirely too expensive lodge (food has never tasted so good) and then caught the water taxi back to the park entrance. The water taxi was awesome, we go to see a colony of seals and a blue penquin (smallest penquin in the world!) We went home and spent the last day of break eating popcorn and watching movies, going out to a fabulous restaurant for dinner and going out to see Superbad... every once in awhile you need to be reminded of crude american humor.

and now we are back home. It feels so nice to get back and have my bed and my room. My friend Jenni's birthday was last night, but there was a storm so we got a ride to the pub, picked up beer and played drinking games in the Wharekai. (I did not partake, but it was just as fun to watch all my friends make fools of themselves, scrambling around the room, chasing after a little ping pong ball)

We have two weeks at home and then we head up north for snorkeling (at one of the best diving sights in the world) and some more learning!

more to come...