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Published: November 14th 2006
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HI all. Well I am starting to feel guilty about the fact it's been a month since I last wrote a blog. I guess I've been incredibly busy and there's been a real fight to get on the computer every night. So what to tell you. There's been an incredible amount of change since I last wrote. Most of the house has changed and there is only myself and Damien left from the original crew. This has been a challenge but all the new people have been great and it's been a real pleasure to make some new friends. At the minute there are only 2 girls here and 7 boys. Quite a culture shock for me who is used to working and living with only girls!
To celebrate Halloween we threw a party at the volunteer house and all got dressed up, with varying degrees of success. I again pulled my spider outfit out of the bag and we played many a silly game involving balloons and compromising positions. My carrot cake was a great success. Thanks mum for the recipe! We also threw a Kiwiana party for all the new volunteers ont he program to get to meet the
GVN staff. This was fun and again we had to dress up. Toby looked especially disturbing in shorts, wellies and a very dodgy old man shirt. Dan however showed off his very fine legs in a pair of short shorts. Those of you how know anything about Kiwis will know their passion for short shorts. Some of whom should know better. We got to welly throw and I'd like to say I was very good at this. Obviously it's my Yorkshire roots!
We've been out and about on a few new programs. One of which was real bush work. We headed off the highway behind a sign and climbed for about 2 hours through trees and streams before we were asked to build some steps down a steep incline. Again very beautiful bush but you kind of got the feeling we were going to be the only people who would ever see these.
We also went on a new project to Rimutaka Forest park. This was all uphill and was raining again. We were there to stout trap, but actually only found rats. There was one particularly fat rat in the trap and the traps are so vicious it chops
them into four pieces. Really lovely to remove I can tell you!
We went back to Karori, the bird reserve, where I met a very friendly weta. I have grown to love these cute little bugs. Actually they are not really that little.
We've also been busy for two days at Nga Manu Bird Sanctuary. We were involved in cleaning out 15 years worth of Kiwi poo and leaf litter from the indoor Kiwi enclosure. This was not nearly as fun as it sounds but the masks we got to wear helped greatly with our Darth Vader impressions. We also painted the walls and ceiling black. This prompted a paint war and my t shirt will never be the same again.
On November the 5th Wellington celebrated Guy Fawlkes night with a fantastic fireworks display over the harbour. We were lucky to get a fantastic view from the top of Mount Victoria although the climb was a wee bit grueling. The fireworks were going off for about 15 minutes and were impressive. It was also a lovely warm night. Very different from Bonnie night at home.
I introduced the new volunteers to the zoo and we all fell in love
with the Red Pandas. Very cute.
So finally we headed off back to Bushy Park. This was a 4 hour drive North and a 3 day stay. As last time the weather definatlely was not on our side. We arrived in sunshine but it soon turned to rain and most of the 3 days were spent in the hut hiding from the hail and torrential rain. We did get out to dig in the mud for a little while. We also had fun with an electric fence. The video of that was very funny. It is impressive how far an electrical current will travel along a group of people. We also invented a new game called Ultimate Dodge ball which involves a trampoline, a football and no arms. I was rubbish at it and spent most of my time retrieving the ball from the floor.
So that is all for now, apart from to tell you that I have been offered a job at GVN here in Wellington. I am going to be the volunteer coordinator for Kenya and Rwanda. Means I get to stay here which I'm really happy about. So thst lasts until June and then who knows.
Hopefully it won't be too long till I update this blog again. I am off to the Coromandel tomorrow for two weeks to work with some Kiwis and proper bush!
Take care all x
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Hanzo
Hannah Procter
Ahem...where is the Coromandel entry?!
Hey you! Where is this Coromandel entry?!....I await the tales! I'm in Oamaru at the moment (I managed to escape the haunted Hostel in Dunedin). Now travelling solo as 'Godzilla' has moved on to Lake Tekapo and Christchurch already. Strange being on my tod! Suppose it is 'time to reflect' (?!) There is so much I have missed out on my blog - yours is brill! I will be putting a link to yours when I update mine ;)! x x x (pass on hellos to the GVN crew!) x