Welp, that's the show, folks.
Leaving EcoQuest was super hard. We've all become such close friends in a reasonably short time span, and it's difficult to leave new friends. But on to new beginnings, I suppose.
I spent my last weekend in NZ in Auckland with a couple of friends. We basically wandered around the city for 2 days. Highlights: we went to the Auckland Museum, found a really cool playground with a zip line and teeter totters, climbed Mt Eden (a volcano in the middle of the city... there are a bunch of those), went to a Christmas concert with most of Auckland wearing a tank top and shorts... Basically it was a really nice, chill end to an amazing adventure. And now it's time to head to the airport for a nice 12 hour flight. I will arrive at home before I left here -- yay time travel!
So, here's to the end of two adventures: my trip, and my blog. ( :
smiles!
Sunrise over the Coromandel Peninsula, across the Firth of Thames
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Just going for a run...
So one of our field leaders, Maree, is basically the most amazing person ever. Yesterday, at 4 am, she got up and started running, and kept going until 5:17 pm. She ran 101 km for a charity called CanTeen, which is a foundation for children and teenagers with Cancer. I really can't imaging running 101 km, or running for 13 hours and 17 minutes.
About 13 of us got up a 4 to send her off, and a couple of us ran the first 6 km with her. That was fun, and kinda weird. I imagine it must have been weirder if any of the neighbors happened to wake up and look out the window and see a group of runners, a bicyclist with a flashing vest and a car with a siren light heading up the road in the wee hours of the morning. On of the boys here also runs marathons, so he kept going after the rest of us decided we'd gone far enough and ran the first 20 km with Maree. And of course we were all waiting at the finish line when Maree came through... for running as far as she did, she looked pretty amazing. Smiling and walking around, albeit pretty stiffly.
After we greeted Maree, we headed over to Kaiaua's annual Raft Races (Kaiaua, pronounced Kai-ow-ah, is the little town down the road from us). That was really fun(ny). A couple of guys built a "raft" (I helped!) made out of oyster bouys, and so EcoQuest competed. Basically, the rules are that the raft can't look like a boat, and you have to paddle out into the firth about 200 m, turn around and come back up a little stream thing to the boat launch. It was a pretty long course. Oh, and every raft has ammunition buckets filled with algea and compost... It was really funny to watch everyone trying to paddle, throw stuff, and avoid being hit by rotten fruit. I'm kinda glad I was watching from shore... of course, the onlookers got to help with throwing stuff, too. At the end, it was REALLY REALLY stinky (someone brought rotten eggs!), and so of course all the guys on the raft ran around giving everyone hugs and making everyone else smell, too. They also all teamed up and captured Dale, one of the field leaders, and threw him in the water because he was throwing all sorts of stuff at them. And then somehow it turned into all the guys pushing each other into the water, which was hilarious to watch.
And after that, we went to the charity event with live music and dancing, which was pretty fun. Maree's partner was playing, and he does a lot of irish folky type music, as well as covers of all sorts of songs, so it was really cool. Pretty much the whole community was out to support Maree and her run. It felt really good to be part of something like that. Kaiaua and Whakatiwai are both TINY, so the community spirit is really strong.
And to top off a great day, everybody turned in their Directed Research project reports yesterday, so now except for a brief little presentation, we are DONE with all our school work. And I was kind of glad to turn in my report and stop thinking about beetles and pest control. TOO MANY BUGS!
Sorry about no pictures... my camera's acting up. ): But pictures exist, I just need to steal them from other people.
About 13 of us got up a 4 to send her off, and a couple of us ran the first 6 km with her. That was fun, and kinda weird. I imagine it must have been weirder if any of the neighbors happened to wake up and look out the window and see a group of runners, a bicyclist with a flashing vest and a car with a siren light heading up the road in the wee hours of the morning. On of the boys here also runs marathons, so he kept going after the rest of us decided we'd gone far enough and ran the first 20 km with Maree. And of course we were all waiting at the finish line when Maree came through... for running as far as she did, she looked pretty amazing. Smiling and walking around, albeit pretty stiffly.
After we greeted Maree, we headed over to Kaiaua's annual Raft Races (Kaiaua, pronounced Kai-ow-ah, is the little town down the road from us). That was really fun(ny). A couple of guys built a "raft" (I helped!) made out of oyster bouys, and so EcoQuest competed. Basically, the rules are that the raft can't look like a boat, and you have to paddle out into the firth about 200 m, turn around and come back up a little stream thing to the boat launch. It was a pretty long course. Oh, and every raft has ammunition buckets filled with algea and compost... It was really funny to watch everyone trying to paddle, throw stuff, and avoid being hit by rotten fruit. I'm kinda glad I was watching from shore... of course, the onlookers got to help with throwing stuff, too. At the end, it was REALLY REALLY stinky (someone brought rotten eggs!), and so of course all the guys on the raft ran around giving everyone hugs and making everyone else smell, too. They also all teamed up and captured Dale, one of the field leaders, and threw him in the water because he was throwing all sorts of stuff at them. And then somehow it turned into all the guys pushing each other into the water, which was hilarious to watch.
And after that, we went to the charity event with live music and dancing, which was pretty fun. Maree's partner was playing, and he does a lot of irish folky type music, as well as covers of all sorts of songs, so it was really cool. Pretty much the whole community was out to support Maree and her run. It felt really good to be part of something like that. Kaiaua and Whakatiwai are both TINY, so the community spirit is really strong.
And to top off a great day, everybody turned in their Directed Research project reports yesterday, so now except for a brief little presentation, we are DONE with all our school work. And I was kind of glad to turn in my report and stop thinking about beetles and pest control. TOO MANY BUGS!
Sorry about no pictures... my camera's acting up. ): But pictures exist, I just need to steal them from other people.
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