Grown-up Sandcastles

     So tomorrow morning we head up to Leigh, in Northland New Zealand to begin our marine unit! We'll be staying at a marine lab and helping out with a survey program monitoring fish populations and the presence of sea urchins in the Goat Island Marine Reserve. We're also going to Poor Knights Island, which is apparently one of the top ten diving spots in the world. So lots and lots of snorkeling and cool fish and who knows what else. I'm pretty excited.
     We get back in about a week, and then we jump right into our Directed Research Projects. I'll be helping with a monitoring program at a montain reserve that has a pest-proof fence excluding pretty much everything that damages native ecosystems, so I'm pretty excited to see the site. We're collecting invertebrate samples to try to keep track of how pest eradication is affecting large beetles and Weta species (Giant grasshopper type bugs).  I think I have a pretty good group, too. So that's up next.
   But this weekend... this weekend was fun. We had Saturday off, so Friday after lecture 12 of us piled into a 10 person van (there were some... complications with renting the vans. Somehow the group with 8 people got a 12 seater... anywho. so we had some pretty good bonding going on) and drove to the Coromandel Peninsula, which is a pretty popular vacation destination because it is SO BEAUTIFUL!! We went to Hotwater beach, and got there for the low tide, which meant we got to test out the beach's namesake: the stream that bubbles up on the beach from being heated by near-to-the-surface volcanic activity. Then as the tide came in and cooled down the pools, we set up camp right on the beach, watched the stars, and had an awesome campout.
    A couple of us woke up at 5:30 to catch low-tide and the sunrise the next morning, so we got to basically build grown up sandcastles and dig our own hotpools. It was pretty cool! See:

Since it was only 5:45am, we had the beach to ourselves, despite Hotwater Beach being a SUPER popular tourist spot.

Anna testing out the pools.

  It was actually quite an art... you have to pick the right spot where you wont get washed away by the waves too soon, but aren't at the mouth of the stream where you get scalded. The water was actually REALLY hot... we had a bit of trouble finding a comfortable spot. But eventually, everyone got settled in. It was also really nice to go jump in the ocean and play in the waves. The water was so clear!

By about 9 am, the tide had come in and washed away our efforts, but what a way to start the day: hotpools and swims in the ocean.
   We moved on to explore some more beaches along the Peninsula, and did a really nice hike to a bunch of beautiful coves. Unfortunately, it kind of started to rain, but since we're prepared for all weather here, we just added raincoats to our swimsuits and continued on our way. The beaches were stunning:

Looking through the natural rock arch at Cathedral Cove

Cool rocks!

More cool rocks! Actually, the same rock from a different angle.

Arriving at "Secret Beach"... you have to do some serious bouldering to get to it, and I don't think that it's *technically* open to the public. But one of our field leaders told us how to get to it and we'd heard good things from previous ecoquesters, so we had to go. It was pretty neat! And we obviously weren't the only people who were in on the secret: there was a little "house" (more like floorplan) with some chairs and a "fireplace" and a "door". It was cute.

Everybody up on a rock ledge at Cathedral Cove. There were some pretty amazing rock formations all up and down the coast.

However, the rain kinda cut our stay short, so we were on our way home early when we stopped for lunch in a small town and ran into one of our on-again-off-again field leaders who lives nearby. Of course, by this time the weather had remembered it's early summer, and was gorgeous again, so when she told us about an amazing swimming hole in the river, we just had to go.
 It was super cool! It was really deep, but intensely clear. At one point, I went to stand up because I could see all the way to my toes and the rocks, but was still out way over my head and apparently just lack depth perception. There was also an awesome rock right over the deepest part of the pool that was obviously used as a jumping point, as there were handholds carved into the sides. So of course we all had a blast jumping off the rock into the beautiful water... someone has a million pictures of that, but not me, so you'll see some of that eventually.
   So it was a weekend very well spent. Now, I need to get ready to leave for the week and then turn in a handful of term-long running assignments when I get back, so I'm gonna get on that.
 but I'm sure to have exciting stories about snorkeling in the subtropical marine reserve!!
smiles!

Keep an Open Mine!

     So this week we were studying extractive industries, and trying to figure out the asnswer to "Can mining be sustainable?" It's an interesting question... mining and extractive industry is very closely wound into our everyday lives. We really can't do anything without interacting with something that has been dug out of the ground. Yet mining is a pretty dirty business, both environmentally and socially. So its hard to accept, but hard to criticize. Its interesting here too, because pretty much everyone is quite inclined to out and out hate mining. This topic has made it pretty clear that preconcieved notion can really color how you look at and absorb information.
     In any case, the fun stuff I did in relation to mining, rather than my philosophical waxings about it: we went to a town called Waihi which has two active gold and silver mines pretty much in the middle of town. It was pretty amazing, actually... we stopped at the visitor center, and walked up the hill to look at the old mill's pump-house, and all of a sudden there was a HUGE hole in the ground! We had no idea it was there! Which is pretty good testament to the mine's noise barriers, because there were a lot of massive trucks going in and out of that thing. 

See? Big hole! This open cast mine is 260 meters deep, and its only a third of the depth of an old (now closed) underground mine.

One of those big trucks. My head comes up to about the top of the inner yellow ring on the tire. The truck can carry 10 tonnes of rock, which has about 1 oz of gold. And that's economical, because gold is worth a firstborn child these days. Apparently.

   A representative from the mining company took us on a tour of the mining process, and it was pretty neat to follow the rock from the open pit to the processing plant and the tailing pond. The mining company is American owned, based out of Denver, and as a whole doesn't have a very good record in terms of social and environmental ethics, but the branch in Waihi was doing pretty good. They are very on top of their pollutant run off, have done a lot of restoration work to plant native trees and restore habitat, and plan to turn the tailing ponds into wetlands and convert the open pit into a recreational lake once the gold runs out and the mines close. Which could be a while... they're still prospecting.
  We also had a talk from one of the public relations people, who told us about how the company works within the environmental legislation framework here in New Zealand and how they're trying to make the industry sustainable. You could just tell from his whole talk that people really don't like mining; he was really defensive the whole time. It was kind of odd, actually... I kind of got the feeling from a lot of people that they didn't want to like what they were hearing, so they didn't. But then, the company gives a lot to the community, but there is only so much environmental stewardship a mine can make.
      Anyway, after that, we drove to Karangahake Gorge, where there used to be a huge mining operation that has since been long abandoned, so there are just crumbling foundations, random bits of rebar sticking out of the rock, and old mining tunnels to explore (don't worry... it's all managed by the Department of Conservation and kept safe for the public... EcoQuest is not taking us to clamber around random abandoned mines!). The place was just beautiful: 

This picture doesn't even begin to capture how stunning this gorge was. The walls went straight up (partially helped by mining) and the river was beautiful!

Looking down at a suspension bridge across the river and at the mouth of a short tunnel through the rock.

 Part of the walk was through the old mining tunnels. It was SO COOL! It was absolutely dark in there (we'd brought flashlights, but decided not to use them), so we all held hands and felt our way through. Periodically, there were "windows" out of the tunnel over the gorge, and it was pretty crazy to emerge from the darkness and see something like this:

The view from a "window".

We've almost made it through Moria! But seriously, I think that's a cool picture.

  At one point we all stopped in the dark and just stood in silence. It was really eerie, and very cool. It was kind of like you could hear the mountain. There were also a bunch of glow worms in there... it looked like there were hundreds of stars. Super super pretty. So that was a really neat trip.
    So to explain the title of this post, we had a debate this afternoon on the topic: "That a previously closed gold mine should be reopened if it becomes economically viable to extract the gold". I ended up speaking for the affirmative, and our "team line" was "Keep an open mine". Play on words, eh? Ha ha? It actually worked out pretty well... our team won the debate. It was pretty silly... we all dressed up at the last minute, and it came out pretty funny. Also, all our instructors wore goofy hats. So it was a pretty lighthearted debate. But pretty interesting, too... we weren't told which side we'd be arguing in advance, so we had to prepare for both.

Us pro-miners, looking all snooty. I had a really hard time keeping a straight face.

Anyway, enough with school stuff: this evening we had a massive game of Ninja manhunt... everyone dressed up in ninja clothes (pretty much everyone here has a full compliment of black spandex-y clothing) complete with facemasks, and then we ran around campus in the dark hunting each other. Basically, its a lot like capture the flag, minus the flag: one team hides, then tries to get to their safe zone, and the other team tries to stop them and send them to jail. So it was a lot of full-out sprinting in the dark and crawling through bushes and basically creeping on everyone else. It was awesome. There are pictures of everyone dressed up out there somewhere...
   And finally, I'm going camping at a beach where we can "dig our own hotpools" (i'm sure I'll have stories) and then we are heading up to Northland for our Marine unit, which means snorkling and the like.  SUPER EXCITED!!!
so yeah. sleep time.

So much happens after 22 days on the road...

So I don't even know where to begin. We've driven slightly more than 2,000 km in the past three weeks all over New Zealand in a caravan of three 9-11 person vans with trailers attached and about 5 CDs, and never stayed anywhere longer than 4 nights in a row. Usually we were in a different hostel each night. New Zealand's South Island is an incredibly beautiful and varied place... and for the first time we actually had nice weather!!! I went out and bought an actual raincoat and everything, and haven't had to use it. figures, right?
  I'm trying to figure out the best way to share everything... I think you get bullet points and if you want details you're going to have to talk to me. there's some incentive for letters, people. [1204 East Coast Road, RD 3 Pokeno 2473 NZ, hint hint hint (: ]. But there are some stories worth telling in full, so I'll get to those eventually. but if I tried that now I'd get carpal tunnel from typing too much. so here goes:

-- Kaikoura: The first place that we stopped... we stayed at the local Marae for 4 days, and that was an amazing experience. The place was absolutely gorgeous, with amazing carvings and paintings that told the whole history of the tribe. We were looking at eco-tourism and sustainability, and the main attraction in Kaikoura is the plentiful marine life.
    oh, and I nearly forgot (not)... I SWAM WITH DOLPHINS!!!! It was an incredible experience... really not what I pictured swimming with dolphins to be. I've always thought of it as a pretty exploitative, touristy, cheesy thing to do, but the company we went with was really good and took their ethical responsibilities to the dolphins really seriously. So we swam with a pod of 150-200 really playful and inquisitive Dusky Dolphins for a good 45 minutes. They are amazing animals -- so graceful underwater. They'd surge up around us and whiz around in circles checking us out, then zoom away to look at someone else. It was SO AMAZING, in case you didn't pick up on that.  So some pictures:

Suited up and excited to swim, but awestruck by the scenery in the meantime. The mountains come right down to the sea.

-- Hanmer Springs: A really cutsy little mountain town with geothermal springs...we had 24 hours off there and I wandered around in the foothills for the day and ate cheese and crackers by a stream and met really nice kiwis who gave me directions.

Me at said stream.

PICTURES! OMG!

     A few days ago we went to volunteer on the island of Motutapu in the Hauraki Gulf, a bit offshore from Auckland. The island has a long history of cattle and sheep ranching, so they're trying to restore about a third of it back to native bush. The other two thirds have cool archeological and historical sites on it from Maori settlements and early European occupation. So we planted about 400 native plants -- that's a lot of holes. But the ground was nice and soft because it has rained Every. Single. Day. we've been here so far (except 2, to be fair). So there was of course a nice little downpour in the middle of planting, but for the most part, it looked like this:

That's right! It's a photo!!! Of the mainland from Motutapu Island.

Opoutere

When I walked outside my room this morning the first thing I saw was a huge rainbow over the Hunua mountains... it was a good day. It was the first really chill day we've had... I made a kite (we're in the midst of a VERY large storm... last night the power went out (we all played cards by the light of our headlamps) and there has been some pretty intense winds.  It was nice today,  but we're due for more weather this evening and tomorrow).
     We're back at EcoQuest after spending the week on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula in a little town called Opoutere. Basically, I went from field work meaning sitting in the middle of the desert in the dust measuring rock track depths to field work meaning  sitting in the middle of tidal flats in the estuary in mud up to my ankles counting shellfish. It was awesome... we were helping in a shellfish monitoring program across the Haukuri Gulf region (Northern NZ), so we went out at low tide three days in a row to record how many cockles, wedge shells and welks were present across the estuary. The first day was windy, the second morning was pouring rain and super cold, and the last day was just the most perfect weather ever.
   We also got to explore a little bit... we hiked up to the top of a hill near the hostel we were staying at. It was the site of an old Maori Pa, or fortress, and you could tell why the tribe had chosen to build it there: we could see for miles (it seemed) and had a really nice overlook of the whole harbour and valley, and it was kind of steep climb up. There wasn't much left of the settlement -- just shell middens. They ate a lot of shellfish! Not so surprising, really...
   Tomorrow we are going to an island called Motutapu near Auckland to help out with a community restoration day... should be fun, especial with the wind. It might get canceled because of the weather, which would be a bummer. but so far so good.
  smiles!

The Pinnacles

   So, I love my hiking boots. I moaned a lot about having to get them in the first place, but they are basically the best thing ever. Context:
    Twelve of us went on an overnight backpacking jaunt this weekend up to a lovely spot called "The Pinnacles" on Coromandel Peninsula (which is right across the bay from EcoQuest). It's a three/four hour hike up to the top, where there is a REALLY snazzy backpacker hut and some tent-pitch spots, and then another half hour or so up to the peak. We planned to hike up to the hut on Saturday, pitch camp (who needs a roof and bunks when you have tents and sleeping bags), and climb up to the top for sunrise on Sunday.
     The hike up was lovely... lots of treeferns, crazy jungle scenery, picturesque springs along the path, rain... wait, what was that last thing? Oh yeah, Pinnacles happens to be the second wettest spot in New Zealand. So it started drizzling as soon as we started up the track, and started pouring as soon as we went to set up camp, and continued all night long and well into the morning. We cooked dinner in the hut, where they had gas stoves and solar lighting, and talked with a bunch of New Zealand hikers. They looked at us like we were absolutely nuts as we started packing up to head back down to our tents.
   The night really wasn't that bad... the tent I was in did a really good job keeping out the water out. The rain was just super loud. Anyway, we got up at 5 anyway to head up to the Pinnacle... didn't end up leaving until 6, but the semi-dawn was very useful, since the ascent involved vertical ladders, steel pegs driven into sheer stone slabs, and some pretty fun scrambles. I loved it.  The views stayed a little mysterious behind the clouds, but huge stone pillars and dramatic cliffs would loom through the mist when the wind changed.
   Anyway, back to my boots: the trail down was a stream. Literally. The entire mountainside just poured water out of every possible nook and cranny. So those waterfalls that were so pretty the day before were even more amazing. And my feet stayed dry, since it was generally pretty shallow and/or I could avoid deep parts. So yeah, hiking boots + New Zealand = good idea.

     On an unrelated note, we are going Opoutere (pronounced Ah-po-tear-ee) on tuesday for a week to study the Wharekawa Estuary and participate in a community driven shell-fish monitoring program. We'll be back on Friday, and then have a week back here before we leave for the South Island for a month-ish. I wont take my computer when we travel, so I probably wont post anything during the trips... you'll just have to wait to hear about it. and pictures... I'm working on that. I know that everyone is on the edge of their seats in anticipation. right.

smiles!

Te Ao Maori (the World of the Maori)

     Today we were officially welcomed by the local Maori Iwi (tribe) with a Powhiri (Poe-fi-dee: welcoming ceremony... for future reference, "wh"="f") at the nearby Marae (MAR-eye: Maori meeting house/church/ancestral home place). We've been learning about Maori culture, language, beliefs and history for the past few days, so it was really interesting to actually participate in their way of life. The Maori place a lot of emphasis on ancestry and ancestral honour, so the powhiri is basically a meeting of our ancestors and their ancestors, carried out though us, the living. Before this meeting, we (us EcoQuesters new to the area) are strangers and potential threats, but once we have "exchanged breath" during the ceremony, we become "people of the land" -- honorary members of the tribe. [An aside: the exchanging of breath is a pretty important part of Maori greeting. The Hongi (hong-ee) is basically like the french cheek kiss (except closer): when two people meet, you shake hands and press your forehead and nose together. It definitely emphasizes the differences between cultures' personal space bubbles... it feels really strange to be that close to someone's face the moment you meet them! ]
    The ceremony started with us waiting nervously outside the gate to the Marae... apparently, time moves a little differently on a Marae, so things take as long as they take. So we weren't all that sure how long we would be there. But, they didn't keep us waiting too long; we soon heard the call/chant that signaled it was time to start. We walked across the courtyard, women in front (as a sign of good faith... visitors put the most vulnerable party members first with the warriors behind them) and then filed into our seats inside the Wharenui (far-eh-new-ee: the ancestor's house). We were met by 6 elder members of local tribe. Most of the members have spread out to Aukland and elsewhere, so there isn't a very big presence locally. The highest elder gave us a welcoming speech, which was followed by a song, and then our director thanked them and we sang (in Maori... I think I may actually be fairly competent in the language at the end of this... at least with nouns). The songs are meant to support the speaker and add to their honour and status. Then we hongi-ed, and then shared food (tea and crumpets... a testament to the Englishy-ness of New Zealand), and are now officially welcome on the land. Yay!
     The relations between Maori traditions and the modern world is actually pretty interesting.  Maori culture is going through a renaissance after being pretty beaten down in typical colonial fashion. However, New Zealand is making a pretty concerted effort to honor a treaty drafted between the Maori and the English and redress past wrongdoings. It is, of course, a controversial issue, but it's kind of neat to think about, especially in terms of the US's policies regarding our First People. What rights to they have as the original inhabitants of the land, and what responsibilities to modern nations to respect at least the spirit of their culture?
 Anyway, it's 9pm, which means it's bedtime. I've been going to sleep ridiculously early... but pretty much everyone else is also in bed by 9:30. We haven't quite figured out why a group of 25 college students is asleep by 10 and gets up around 6, but what-the-hey.  Sunrises are beautiful.
smiles!