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Published: January 24th 2009
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Ray the ranger drove his beetle through this stream and Sam wouldn't put the van through it! MON - said goodbye to Punakaiki today and drove onto Craigieburn whcih is situated just after Arthurs Pass right in the Southern Alps! awesome! mmm i treated myself in the supermarket on the way over and bought some plums and smoothies!!! yummy!!! ahh the things you appreciate now, duvets and plums... awesome views of the mountains, even when bare, they would be just amazing if they were in winter, the icing on the cake, or should i say the snow on the mountain?! excuse me :P we had a quikc lunch when we got there then ray the ranger there took us out to have a look at the site we wouild be working on for the week. look one way theres mountains, look another, theres mountains, we are surrounded by them! love it1 also we were working in narnia country, ray said our site was where some of it was filmed...shame i havnt seen it! shame it wasnt lord of the rings film set!
TUES - pulling out wilding pines today - they were originally planted at the top of the mountains where there was scree as they thought the grazing had cause the scree and no natives can
live that high, turned out they were wrong and the scree was natural so they abandoned the pines whcih consequently spreadlike wildfire and if they arent stopped they think they will reach christchurch withing 50yrs! its awful, so we are on the frontline pulling out the seedlings and younger trees to help prevent the spread. we did proper sweeps like forensic police may do when searching for a body, also like we did in north shore all those weeks ago! we went to a nearby craigieburn recreation area for lunch, i explored over the stream and that was like lotr country, infact there and then i realised that the forest in which the last fight scene of the first movie was filmed was a mountain beech forest!!! i recognised the trees there from the films! yeah im sad... we finsihed work pretty early (about 2.30pm) whcih was nice as i read some of my lotr location guide book that karl got me for my bday to see if we were near any sites, we're not. had cakes after dinner to celebrate obama becoming president! yay, no more bush idiot!
WEDS - had a change form pines and checked stoat
traps along the Lyndon Saddle Track, really nice trail through the beech forest. it took us right up to the top of helicopter hill (1143ft) killed me getting up there as was really steep after a long walk up but worth the pain and death! breathtaking 360 views of mountains surrounding us as far as the eye could see!!! wow! there is a stone on the crag up there with my name on too! 😊 sweet as! tough day but we finished early again and went to arthurs pass for phone signal, internet and cafe. got a nice choc thing but had to eat it pretty guardedly as there was a Kea hopping closer and closer, eyeing it up, cheeky thing!
THURS - pines again today, started late and finsihed early with a 40min morning smoko and hour lunch...oh its all ion a hard days work in south island...it was also very very hot and none of us could be bothered with it. had a fire drill in the evening, sam couldnt work out how to trun it back off for a while though which was rather amusing 😊 went for a little walk along the nature trail (a
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Narnia film set (havnt seen the films but apparantly its from a battle scene in th efirst one) brief walk in the beech forset just outside th elodge) was nice as the sun was still warm (5.30pm) and the light was dappled on the path, peaceful 😊 smells so nice, i wish i could capture it and take it with me, its warm and smells of honey, wish i could describe i tbetter...
FRI - did an hours work in the morning, checked the traps up to the ski field then pulled pines then cleaned the house and left for christchurch. sam dropped us in the airport straightaway so we had about 5 hours to kill in there! argh! wasnt too bad, went to a cafe, read, listened to musci, watched a silent episode of neighbours...usual airport stuff. flew back to auckland at 7.30 and arived at about 8.50 😊 bus into acb and a massive faff wioth our rooms, no keys no tags on the keys to get us through the doors, ended up getting an upgrade to a family room witha tv and 6 beds, though its only me and karl in there at the moment, kate has another room onthe same floor.
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