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Published: October 18th 2006
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Classic!
I think Hannah won this game. Ok back again for a mammoth blog. It seems that so much goes on here and it is so hard to get near the computer that I rarely get chance to update this. Anyway here goes. I have the day off today as Pernille has kindly gifted me her cold and I feel like poo! Decided that a day sat in a bog digging was not really what the doctor would suggest so I am wrapped in a blanket at the computer downing lots of hot lemon.
Otari Wilton's Bush
Since I last wrote we have been back to Otari Wilton's bush. I really love it there. It is right on the outskirts of Wellington. Apparently a farmer in the 1850s granted it to the city to set up a plant collection and restore some native bush. We were back measuring the GVN plants and planting some flax near a fish ladder. While there the sun smiled on us and we had a laugh climbing about in the bush. The trees are getting so close together now and bushy that it is impossible not to hug them just to move between them. So yes officially I am now
Dangerous woman
I think they think we are mountain goats! We were planting on a vertical cliff with nowhere to cling onto. This picture was taken shortly before I swung the grubber into my ankle. a tree hugger. When we were there Hannah got our leader, Jonathan, all excited by finding a spiny stick insect. It was very cool and Jonathan had it climbing all over himself. In the afternoon we perfected our seven dwarves motif and hauled the heaviest grubbers imaginable down to where a new fish ladder has been built in the park. They had to build the ladder because the fish were unable to climb the waterfall up from the lower stream to the stream in the park. New Zealand fish are a bit unique in that they crawl instead of jump when they reach an obstacle. Well where they had been building was all bare and unattractive so we planted about 200 flax on the hillside to beautify it all. This was funny because the hillside was sheer straight up with no footholes at all. It made for an entertaining afternoon trying to cling onto the grass and swinging your grubber to dig a hole. Much falling down ensued but we all luckily survived. Actually if you check out the Otari-Wilton's bush website I make an appearance. Well if you look really closely I do. I am the one hidden in
Falling down the cliff.
Here Renee and Rachel were trying to plant whilst clinging onto the hill. the bushes. I was busy!
The weekend
The weekend turned out to be a bit disappointing as the weather was awful. The horse riding was cancelled because the wind was so strong, about 100km/h and the rain was hammering down. I was so depressed by it all I painted a tropical landscape on some canvas we had in the house and sat it in the window. It is meant to remind us that we are living on a island in the South Pacific. The good thing though was that Steph, old volunteer, was back in Wellington for the night. So we headed to Kitty's and had a fun evening. Danced like fools again and got home round about 4am.
Pauatahanui
On Monday we were back track building with the old folks. I am definatley developing my Arnie muscles with all the work. We shifted some seriously hefty clumps of grass. Damien and Adrian we particularly adept at swinging their grubbers. At one point we were all working in a line and looked like a chain gang. Toby wanted to chain us all together. We decided instead to sing.
East Harbour Possum Trapping
So to
A spiny backed stick insect
Our guide, Jonathan, became very excited when Hannah found this guy in the bush. yesterday and the dreaded East Harbour Regional Park possum track. Now East Harbour is beautiful. Absolutely stunning scenery and we are allowed where the public aren't. The bush is lush and green and the stream one of the cleanest in New Zealand. However to get to all this stunning scenery you have to climb a ridiculously steep hill and then go down the other side. You work all day in the valley and then have to climb out again. It takes about an hour and a half to get to the top of the hill to give you an idea how long a climb it is. The walk along the valley is great although you have to cross the stream about 50 times and your feet get drenched everytime. Once I thought Damien was messing about on the walkie talkie because I could hear something. Turned out it was the squelching in my shoes. Lovely. It was the second time I had done the walk so knew what to expect. It was slightly easier then last time but still a killer.
We head up there to keep possum and rat numbers down. There are about 500 possum traps in
the whole park, possums being a major pest here. We had about 50 to monitor. You have to replace the bait and then reset the traps. For some reason all the bait had been eaten but we had no dead possums. Last time we found about 6 in the traps. Not a pleasant experience. I think last time we set the traps wrong! Along with the possum traps we had to replace the rat poison in the rat tubes. This is bright blue and you have to think why the rats love it so much. We did come across a dead rat on the track and made Adrian give it an aerial burial. I think this is one of the hardest parts of this job because we know possums to be cute furry animals and in Australia they are protected. Here though they eat the rare bird eggs and destroy natural habitats for the birds. It is easy to understand why we are doing this but all the same difficult to do.
The good thing about the walk is that you get to know your fellow volunteers really well on an 8 hour hike and have a laugh. Damien
Should we really continue?
Very off putting sign that we ignored and ploughed on. again was reduced to tears of laughter and Pernille kept up her abuse of Toby. Toby in turn complains to "Miss Karen" who just finds the whole thing hilarious.
Well my time on the program may be drawing to a close. I am trying to stay on for another month and might be able to stay here till the end of November. I will have to wait and see. I would love to stay as I am having a fantastic time here and don't want to leave. It also means that I would get the chance to travel with the volunteers up to the Coromandel, in the North of the Island. So fingers crossed for me. Take care wherever you are and keep in touch.
K x
PS the first picture in the blog is just us having fun with twister. I was pathetic and kept falling off the board. Toby and Jen were however especially bendy!
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