Biosci 333 - Marine Ecology: Field Trip

Didn't pack the night before - to tired from the climbing trip. Got up at 5:45 and packed, showered and had a bite to eat, then hiked over to the bus stop. Plans for the trip include: Seaweed lab on Monday at the Leigh Marine Lab, stay overnight and then do an Ecological Survey of the shore at the Leigh Marine Reserve on Tuesday. We arrived at the lab around 8:45 and a guy (not our professor) showed us where the bunk room was and announced (in response to a query) that guys and girls can room together*, everyone piled into bunks - about 4 to a room, I was with 2 guys and a gorgeous girl from Canada - Chelsea, and headed down to the lab. The lab was well equipped - computers, spectrophotometers, and a full set of pipettes for every group. We waited for a while and at 9 a scientist from the lab, who none of us have ever seen before came in a started teaching us about seaweed and their nitrogen uptake and complementarity among resource use. We paired up (I was with Chelsea) and started the lab. It took most of the day, we ended up skipping a couple repeats on trials that we had to go back and do, but it was pretty successful. It was the first time that I have actually enjoyed doing lab work for a class - I found the lab well designed and, while maybe not useful for my everyday life, at least it was similar something I see myself working on in the future. The professor who taught that day disappeared and we never saw him again - although I think that he will give us a couple lectures later on. We were given no instructions*, there was no chaperone*, we didn't even know what time we were starting the next day*. I ended up going for a run later that night - it was pretty cool, up the hill and from the top I could see most of the bay and even the lights of Auckland off over the hill. It took an hour or so and when I got back all the kiwis in the class (who by the way still seem to be stuck in the late 80's/early 90's - mullets, and short shorts &c.) were just heading out to play 'spotlight' (one person has a flashlight and everyone else tries to get to the top of the hill without being spotted) then sardines, and finally capture the flag*. We ended around midnight. I felt like I was back home in high school playing games - it was amazing. I had such a great time. The next morning a kiwi - Lee - and I went for a half hour jog at 7am and got back to shower and eat some breakfast - still with no instructions as to where to be and when. The day ended up beginning around 9:00 with a lecture by this old guy - Bill Balantine - who is my new hero. He has been surveying the same 5m x 5m patch of rocky beach once a month for the last 21 years. He seemed completely insane. It was very impressive everything he was talking about. I wish I had it on a tape recorded - the speech really made an impression on me. When he was done, we found our professor waiting to talk to us about the survey: how to identify different habitats - by substrate, wave exposure, tidal height, and species presence - and lay out a transect and quadrat system (basic ecology procedure, and one that I really don't like - I don't think it gives very accurate information about an area - I want at some point in the next few years to come up with a better system). But after lunch we headed down to the shore to lay out out quadrats and start counting species. It took most of the afternoon and as the low tide was at 4:46 and the bus was coming at 5pm a few of us ended up without low tide samples. A great trip though - really fun, a great way to meet kiwis and get to know the lab - a place I would love to work at eventually.

*denotes things I think would be different if the trip were in america

Kinloch Climbing Trip

Left at 6:00am Friday morning to avoid traffic, and needless to say - I don't remember much of the trip. I later realized that Cat, the girl who set up the great weaving adventure, was driving us and it was an architecture field trip that we were on. Me and about 15 architecture students (Marc 'Tex' and Louisa are both architecture students) did a 'site visit' which, I discovered, means running around some plot of land trying to decide what they will propose to build there. It was actually really interesting. I learned a bunch about both architecture and New Zealand terrestrial ecology. Cat's mom is a botanist and she knows pretty much everything about all the plants we saw (the site was about 2 hours south of Auckland, it was an undeveloped mountain and neighboring valley - aptly described by the kiwis as 'bush'). She taught us about the different gum trees that were introduced to the area, the native trees that are still present, a certain shrub who's leaves, when chewed act as a mild anesthetic, and when boiled make a tea that will cleanse the blood. There is also a plant - 'spear leaf' I think was the common name, that was originally identified as two different organisms due to the degree of difference between the juvenile and adult. A guy named Mark (not Tex, a different Mark) who was from Scotland gave me a good rundown on what architecture actually is (it's about creating a space, and connecting it to another space and then forming an envelope for your connected series of spaces) in a magnificent Scottish accent - which was pretty much the best part. Once that was over we continued our drive down to Taupo.

We arrived in Taupo a couple hours before sundown, found a friend of Louisa and Marc's (Rob) and went to Hell's Pizza. Then hike up to a camp site about 2 miles from downtown. The next morning I ran back to town, met Rob and set up a cab to take us to Kinloch, I also procured a map and climbing guide to the area. Then I ran back, packed everything up and waited for Rob and the cab. The cab ride cost 75$ but they gave us a huge discount - only 10$ a person, and they let us off right on the beach outside the only store in Kinloch. We got some food and figured out how to get to the crag. It said that permission was required so I called the number, talked to some lady - who seemed to think that we needed to go to some place back in taupo (I think) to pick up the permission slip, and then the phone cut out and we figured that was all the permission we needed. It turned out that there were about 6 different places to climb, 2 accessible only by boat, 3 about an hour and a half tramp away, and one about 3 minutes walk from the store. We set up camp and started climbing. It was 11:00 or so when we began and almost dark before we finished. I got a ton of leading in - which was awesome, and Marc got to lead his first outdoor route. A couple times through the day people came to either climb or watch us as they walked their dog - the cliff was right above the waterline and in clear view of the town. On his first climb - a top rope tex got stuck, all the sudden the rope bound up somehow and he couldn't go up (no holds) or down (no slack). I ended up giving the belay to Rob (tying him into my break and then untying myself) and got Louisa to belay me as I led a neighboring route (she had never lead belayed before - kinda sketchy, but she did well) to save tex. What happened was that his rope slid into a crack and then the belay rope went in on top of it -neither could do much of anything. I pulled them out and had to hold them free as Rob lowered Tex back down - we didn't climb that route anymore. One of the groups that came to climb was three Czechs. They were really cool and pointed out all of our gear that was made in the Czech Republic. There was one route that got me - it was rated as a 20 -a 5.10/11 back home, although the ratings were really off - I was able to get up to the penultimate bolt and clipped in - which was quite a feat for me, but it was soo far from there to the last one (which I couldn't even see) and there wasn't much for holds. The Czechs ended up climbing another route and abseiling (kiwi for rappelling) down to clean it for us. I never got another shot at that route and I was pretty tired the next day so I didn't even attempt it. That night we got some Tui from the store back in town and sat on the beach getting pissed and watching the sunset next to what most americans know as Mt Doom across the lake. As we were preparing food later that night, one of the Czechs brought out a drum and started playing for a while - it was really neat. More climbing the next morning although it was quite a bit less strenuous, and then a frantic pack job when we realized that the taxi was due to pick us up. Got back to Taupo (this time 15$ a person) and got some kebabs from a Turkish place - really good - then caught the bus back to Auckland. Went for a run that evening and ate at Louisa's place. Then back to Parnell to pack for the Marine Ecology Field Trip.

Flight of the Kiwis

The other day some (female) architecture students asked to borrow my climbing rope for a movie they were making. They allowed me to take part as well. Their assignment was to make a video commentary on teaching and community or some such nonsense, and they decided to do some sort of symbloic maori weaving. Myself and three others were used to hold the rope that they wove around us, so we sat for a good 45 minutes holding this rope out at shoulder height as they tried to figure out how they were gonna do their weaving. The girls were really cool, I actually like them alot, but it was hilarious to watch them debating back and forth about whether to weave the black up and twist it with the white or bring the blue in and use that to twist it all together. I kept breaking out in laughter when I recognised how perfect Flight of the Chonchords does representing the kiwis. I still can't get over how perfect that film is. If anyone wants to experience New Zealand culture - that is the movie to watch. The girls actually ended up buying us beer afterwards and one of them even drove us down to Taupo the next day.

Possoms

Walking back from campus the other day at about 9:30. Marc and I saw something fall out of a tree ahead of us - a 7 meter fall - hit the pavement with a crack and lie there. I figured it was someone climbing the tree and dropped a shoe. As we got closer this thing it looked around and got up and staggered off the path - clearly still stunned and making the weirdest noise. Neither of us could really believe what had just happened. We laughed and wrote it off as an anomaly. A couple days later I was walking back and it happened again - different tree and a smaller possum, but one definitely fell out of a tree and landed right in front of me then ran off and climbed the tree again. I can't figure what to make of it.

St Paddy's Day

Bought some Speights Dark - one of the best brews one can get in NZ. Got to the Bog - Irish Pub at 10:30. They had a fiddle group playing who were really good. Paid for a Guiness with 10$ note and got 12.50$ in change - was pretty stoked about that. Hung out for a while at the Bog and then headed back up to Parnell, ended the night with a couple fiddle tunes on the lawn at 2 in the morning, everyone seemed pretty cool with it - I got a round of applause as I retired at the suprisingly congenial request of my RA.

Hitching

car plans fell through when we couldn't find a fourth and it was too expensive for just the three of us. Cara and I decided to hitch and see where we could get to. I took a bus to her homestay after not being able to find a tent for an extra 2 hours. We got started at 3:30 (only 3 hours after what we wanted) and took a bus from Pt. Chev to Titiranga. Bought some food and headed out on the road. it was first time either of us had hitched and it felt really weird to stick our thumbs out as we walked. the third car stopped for us - we had only walked about 30 seconds - and offered a ride. It was a mother with her 2 year-old son, Colm, and 7 year old daughter, Sophie. She was only going half the way to Huia but agreed to take us the whole way. she seemed really nice and pointed out that it was probably good that I had a girl with me as I wouldn't be picked up otherwise. She pointed out some good routes for us to take and gave us some advice and dropped us off at this little store by the Bryan Bay. We bought a local trail map from the store and some bug repellent and started walking around the bay, ended up walking pretty much straight across it since the tide was so low and it was so shallow it only came up to our ankles. On the other side we found an estuary and tramped up it for a bit then continued up the road towards where the store owner said a forest service office was. The wardens were having a afternoon drink but one came out and answered some questions for us. She said that we should stay at a farm campsite that had shelter for us and that a ranger would come by in the morning and charge us 5$ apiece. We ended up hanging the hammock in the barnyard so we wouldn't get rained on and heading down to the beach for dinner. We ate, searched for crabs for a while and headed back to bed. We were the only ones at the farm except for the pig, a cow, a herd of sheep, some chickens, roosters and four turkeys. There were no people. We both slept in the hammock - a tough feat to be sure, but it's good to know that it's possible. and in the morning I went for a run. We started hiking again by 10 the next morning, the ranger never turned up so we didn't pay, and we started hiking along the coast road to little huia. it is really beautiful country over there and it's really interesting that as small a town as huia is such a big spot on the map - it goes to show how unurbainzed new Zealand actually is. just past little huia another lady picked us up and took us the rest of the way to Whatipu. She had spent a year hitching around Australia and always tries to pick up hitchhikers when she can. She was heading into the bush for a weekend after spending the week helping her daughter move in Auckland. I would guess she was around 50 and heading out for a solo tramp - I was very impressed. She pointed us towards some caves outside of Whatipu - which was nothing more than a trail head at the end of the road, but from the map looked like a city. We headed to the caves, planning to see them and then cross and area marked 'lagoon/swamp' to the beach (as the ranger told us the night before) and hike up the beach to a town called Karekare. The caves were very impressive, they were really deep and cara was much more into that than I - never having liked pitch black caves with only one light myself, and she did some meditating, while I sat waiting and sweating. Once we left the caves we confronted the 'lagoon/swamp' this turned out to be better and worse than we predicted. It was completely dry, so there were no water crossings and we didn't have to worry about getting packs wet, however, it was full of this cactus like plant that was horribly painful, also there was this grass stuff that would form pillows - it looked like the ground had these rises in it but when you stepped on them your foot would go straight through a great way to roll an ankle. I felt like Lewis and Clark upon coming to the top of a thorn covered sand dune, expecting the beach on the other side and seeing nothing but a sea of more thorn-dunes extending on as far as we could see. By the time we reached the actual beach, we were completely cut and scratched and embedded with thorns and all kinds of crazy shit. The beach it's self was nice, it extended on forever and was rippling with hear waves, it took 20 minutes to walk straight across from the thorn dunes to the water. Then we hiked north along the beach for a couple hours, which was completely deceptive as the scenery never changed. Also we were hiking barefoot which ended up giving me foot problems the next few days, as I didn't realize how far without shoes I had gone. We finally came to this guy walking down the shore out in the middle of nowhere and stopped him to ask the location of a trail going into the bush away from the beach that would lead us ultimately to Karekare. We learned that Karekare was similar to Whatipu in that it was a glorified trail head and not to expect any food to buy there, the nearest food was in the town of Piha, another 5k beyond karekare. He also pointed out the trailhead - all we had to do was recross the lagoon swamp which was wet this time, and I'm very glad that there were no leeches. We reached the trail head to discover that it went straight up for about 2k until leveling off and heading across to karekare. It climbed mt. zion, to a height of 273m and there was no leveling off before the top. When we reached karekare we both just crashed in the grass of the park by the parking lot. About 5 minutes after we sat down a man asked where we were hiking to and agreed to give us a ride. We accepted, still thinking that this trip had been far to easy. He (~45) was with some family friends - a grandma (~65) and her granddaughters, who were both really crazy. The girls, Analiese and Stephanie (i think) were 11 and 14 and quite feisty. The little one looked cara up and down and asked "are you posh?" she then turned to me and after inspecting me for a minute asked "do you clean your teeth?" Cara's response was: "what does that even mean?" mine was: "not since this morning - why?" She then proceeded to inform us that she was a daredevil and enjoyed doing crazy things, or as her sister termed it: putting herself at risk. the grandma promptly started in on the fine line between putting yourself at risk and yet not killing yourself since there are people in the world who care about you. Cara and I - the two hitchhikers with out a plan on where we were going, who hadn't really even told anyone we were going anywhere - Cara and I didn't have much to contribute to the conversation. The guy - Bill - was really friendly and took us to a lookout over the town and bay of Piha, it was very beautiful and Analiese entertained herself by rolling down the hill on the side of road - while her grandmother complained about grass stains. Bill dropped us off by the beach in piha and we explored the town and found a place to eat then went to look for a campground for the night. The lady at the public campground told us about a forest service one up the road that we could use and not have to pay for if we got far enough back so the ranger didn't see us in the morning, we looked for it but couldn't find it and ended up sleeping in the public campground on the lawn - keeping one eye open all night for rain, which would have ruined the sleeping bags. The next morning we hung out at the beach and by 2:30 decided that it was time to start heading back, we had class the next day at noon and weren't sure ow easy it would be to hitch along piha road. we were expecting to get a lift to titrangi and then spend the night on the beach and take the bus early in the morning, what we didn't realize is that Piha is where all the aucklanders go on the weekend so the first car who passed us picked us up and dropped us off on the corner of parnell and ayr street - about 2 minutes walk from home. Dave was our driver and he had been in piha training for a 100k race in a few weeks. He was a lawyer in the city who just graduated and was saving money till he could go out and spend a couple years doing something sweet, in the mean time he was training for an ultra. He seemed like a great guy and knew cara's Buddhist teacher by name so they had a nice chat. We agreed to go out and run sometime and maybe go drinking. We got out of the car and just laughed back and forth at each other that it was soo easy and we made it. It was the weirdest feeling to realise that we had one of the best weekends one can hope for: met kiwis, saw the New Zealand bush, slept in a barnyard with the pig, explored a bunch of caves, and only spent 50$ (including a 10$ map) between the two of us.

Running

So I decided not to talk too much about running in this, as athleticore has everything that one needs to see, but my life has quickly deteriorated (or maybe evolved?) into the life of a professional runner. I've gotten up every morning for the past week and gone for some sort of run, thought about running all day and prepared for the next mornings runs. At the moment I'm refiguring some shit so that I can run in the evenings as well. When I'm not running, I've read 'Once a Runner', am halfway through 'No Bugles, No Drums', with 'John Walker, Champion' in the queue. In between all the thoughts on running, I have been going to class and studying, but at this point there isn't much to do and I only have 8 hours of lecture a week (including wednesedays and fridays completely off). I found a series of races in Auckland - 4 actually - that are all 5k or 10k. The first is on Sunday in 3 weeks, I'm gonna try and make it to most of them, but the weekends are good for tramping and fishing. so we'll see which wins out. I did find a track, it's just a chalk line on the pitch in the domain, but I'm pretty sure that it is close to accurate (why wouldn't it be?), I'm also pretty sure that when Snell talks about doing his running in the domain, that is where it is, as none of the other domains have anything close. It is quite an experience to read about the runs he did and then go and run there myself. Although the cars will not stop for you, it is crazy to run somewhere that you don't have the right of way, I'm pretty sure that I'll get hit sometime; I almost did this morning - hope it's not bad when it happens.

Also been climbing almost every day, if only for a few hours, I'm gonna start putting that up ion athleticore as well. Sent some good routes, but nothing major yet.

Devonport

Took the Ferry over to Devonport the other day, met up with Jay and Bron. Took a nice long walk on the beach from the bus stop to Bron's parents house. On the way there was a rare books store that happened to have 'No Bugles, No Drums' for 40$. I am now the proud owner of that as well as another called 'John Walker; Champion'. Devonport and Takapuna were great little towns, beautiful beaches and a lot of sailing. Bron's parents were really cool, her mom is a painter and her dad is a book publisher (who actually had the rights to publish NBND until the author bailed out on him - he was cooled off by the time I showed up with the book, but was quite angry when it happened). They were great people. Then we headed over to Bron's sisters place for dinner and I got to meet thier family, including two college (what americans call high school) age kids, a 4th year and a 2(?) year. Both of whom were really cool. Andrew, the older, is a dancer and I hope to get to see him dance at some point. Dinner was great, and I hope to be invited back at some point.

Climbing

the climbing wall finally opened, it's good but kinda small. climbed for about 4 hours yesterday with Tex and Cara, then got pissed and shot the shit for a while. I've been carrying my climbing gear around with me, it's probably a good thing that there's no wall at ROC. I'm still amazed how much they drink here, although most of the cheap beer isn't all that bad - much better than genny light. there are so many foreigners living in parnell that I haven't met that many kiwis, but I'm working on it, joined a kayak club and a climbing club to that end.

started running again, still pretty short stuff, but I'm getting back into it. that the pedestrians have to yeild to traffic is still triping me out. It's really easy to tell who the foreigners are when they cross the street - we're the ones swiveling our heads back and forth trying to figure out which way the traffic is coming from.

Classes are sounding really good. Philosophy is a huge class, but the material should be a good intro to the take five program that I'll be doing next year. Antarctica is totally online, there is no formal lecture, just a question and answer session, so I'll have to stay up on that, I imagine that I'll have the tendancy to put it off and say - write a blog or some other such nonsense. The ecology classes are gonna be sweet, the kids in marine ecology seem like tools (frat boys) but the ones in freshwater are cool, and the topics seem really sweet, not to mention the field trips, and the profs are great.

it is really weird to not have a meal plan, having to cook every meal for myself is a lot to think about, I feel like I've been eating a lot, but I've still been really hungry, maybe it's just the stress of being in a new place.

Whakatane Camping trip

wow, a lot to say, I don't even know where to start. the camping trip went really well. we ended up getting a late start out (organising five people with hangovers is never easy) and didn't arrive until it was about an hour till dark (the hike to the first cabin claimed to be 3 hours). The guy who sold me the fishing licence said that it would be a good idea to buy a local a pack of beer and ask them to watch the car otherwise it might not run when we got back, so we found an old Maori lady and paid her 40$ to let us park on her property til we got back, which was really sketchy; we were pretty sure that we had paid her to sell off pieces of our car. as we started hiking we realized that the DOC (department of conservation) wasn't too interested in marking the trails and as it was dark enough that we were hiking with headlamps we inevitably missed the a turn in our trail. We doubled back a couple times and ended up in some Maori's pasture chasing his sheep around and catching glimpses of possums in the forest. We finally found the trail and hiked for another half hour before becoming so mixed up with the sheep trails that we decided to stop for the night. we didn't have a tent as we were expecting to sleep in a hut so we just bedded down on the hill under the palm trees, and tried to sleep. This would have been easier if the girls didn't keep hearing things and freaking out. Once dawn came we got up and backtracked till we found the trail - it turned out that we were only on the actual trail for about 5 minutes before missing a turn and following a sheep track for an hour. The trail did turn out to be pretty well marked in the day time and we were able to get to the cabin by midday, stopping only to swim, eat blackberries, rest, eat more blackberries, take pictures, change shoes, swim again, and eat more blackberries. That morning taught me a lot about tramping with girls.

The cabin was really nice, especially after staying the night on the forest floor, and we had a very pleasant evening. I went fishing and caught the only fish of the trip and quite possibly the biggest fish I will ever see. It was a ~30 inch rainbow. We ate it for dinner as selling trout in NZ is illegal and the only way to be able to eat trout here is to catch it yourself. It was delicious. I didn't get another bite for the rest of the trip. I think that someone had fished there before me and pulled them all out, and either he missed the one I got or put it back.

The next day we hiked up to the rapids and spent some time there fishing (again unproductively) and eating and climbing. The girls decided that they wanted to quit the trip early and go back to town to get on the piss (NZ for 'go to the bars and drink beer') so they left us there and the guys messed around some more and then hiked back to the cabin. That night was uneventful and the next morning I fished and we left. There was a wire bridge that we had to cross which turned out to be pretty sweet and we got back to the Maori village as it just started to rain. The girls were nowhere to be seen. By the time they showed up we were completely soaked and slightly annoyed. We got back to town at 10:30 and slept.

It was a great trip.