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Published: October 7th 2006
New Zealand!
View flying into WellingtonFirst Week in NZ!
The journey....! Well, it took a good 34 hours to get to NZ, but I made it! Having not seen my bag since it was checked in at Manchester, and having three plane changes, I had images of my bag getting lost in transit! However, the bag made it too!
I stayed one night in the Backpackers Hostel in Wellington - managed to meet someone in my dorm who went to Leeds uni and lived in Headingley for 5 years! It is comforting to know the world is a small place!
Lower Hutt I got picked up by Tracy, the house advisor, on Saturday and I'm now at the volunteers house. There 10 of us altogether! The house is at the top of a VERY steep hill! Reminds me of home! I'm sharing a room with another girl, Karen, from the UK and a woman Ursula from Switzerland.
Pauatahanui Wildlife Reserve First day of work was on Monday and we went to Pauatahanui (-I'm still struggling with the Maori pronunciations!-) Wildlife Reserve. GVN does voluntary work there regularly as the reserve is run by elderly/retired people. We were burning some of the vegetation
Wellington harbour
A snap of Wellington harbour that was cleared in order to make way for a walking path through the reserve. We were also cleaning moss off some of the sign posts (glamourous work!). It was at that point, when I was covered in green moss and got soaked by a power hose, that I encountered the Weta!.....I await to see the 'Giant' Weta! Managed to have a bit of a wonder around the reserve and look at some of the NZ birds by the estuary. Very scenic spot!
Global Volunteer Network (GVN) Office, Wellington On Monday afternoon Toby (the Team Leader) took us all to visit the GVN head office in Wellington. We got chance to meet some of the staff there and Colin Salisbury, the guy who set up the program. (We got fed many a muffin and hot choc too!) It was great to see the staff, see how the program works and find out how it was all set up etc.
Sailing Tuesday we went sailing on the GVN boat to attempt to do some cetacean monitoring from Petone round to Wellington harbour. However, I say 'attempted' as it turned out to be quite an eventful trip! We left the
harbour and the steering on the boat broke! The coast guard doesn't work during the week - only weekends and holidays (!) so the police came to tow us in! We were going around in a circle for about an hour. (Luckily I took my sea legs!) Funny thing was, when we got back to the harbour our skipper, Terry, then found the manual rudder on the boat!
Bushy Park, Wanganui From Wednesday to Friday we went away to Bushy Park, ~240 acre stretch of rainforest north west of Wanganui, about 4hrs drive from Lower Hutt. Bushy Park has a mammalian pest proof fence around the park and the aim is to make the park completely pest free to restore the forest and some of the bird populations. Robin, the Maori park ranger, had however recently discovered a 'mice invasion' so our first job when we arrived was to set up mice bate/poison traps around the park.
Thursday I got the chance to help a girl Jen, who is doing her Master dissertation at the park, to worm one of the kiwis at the park. Can't believe she managed to locate the kiwi in the dense NZ bush!
Weta!
Surprisingly not a 'giant' one! I got to hold it and put it back in it's burrow - pretty amazing, don't think I'll get the opportunity to get that close to one again. Luckily I was told after I held the kiwi that kiwis have the leg strength to break your hand when they kick - might have thought twice about holding it!
Friday was our last day at the park. We went deep into to the bush to start making a new track through the forest. Quite hard work! Then we drove back to the house, had tea and played/exchanged international drinking games. I lost quite a lot!!!
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kat
non-member comment
the weta
hey span scary photos here! loving the blog xxx keep it up love katx