Extreme Gardening

Okay so last weekend....

Paul and Tim left Friday morning to go hiking/tramping for the weekend so they dropped me off at the airport. Flew from Dunedin to Christchurch to Hamilton. Took a shuttle to the city. Found my hostel. Dropped my backpack off in my room. Got some lunch and wandered around the city. To clarify, Hamilton is less of a city and more of a town because cities are more dense. (Explanations: Physically, Hamilton might be the size of Westlake... but Hamilton is only 1/3 ofWestlake's density - therefore, Hamilton = town.) Anywaysss.... Hamilton seems like a very nice place. I went to the Waikato Museum which was really cool/informative/fascinating/free. And then I walked to the Hamilton Gardens. Yay exploring! Eventually, I made it back to my hostel and, because of some previous nights of sleep deprivation, I went to bed super early. Sleeping is seriously the best... Just Saying :)

Next day, I trekked over to the Transport Centre (yeah I know, UK English...) met Callie-from-Minnesota, Rachael-from-St. Louis-but-goes-to-school-in-South Carolina, and Dan-our-leader/guide-from-Auckland. I guess three more people were supposed to go volunteer with us but they never showed up... they're Aussies, go figure. So the four of us headed up to Hunua Ranges to start our weekend.

Things That I Learned About New Zealand/Hunua Ranges On The Drive Up And During The Weekend:

-Back in the day, tectonic plates were maneuvering themselves around and New Zealand decided to break away from Antarctica and Australia.

-Randomly, during all this plate tectonic motion, the land mammals weren't too keen to hang out in New Zealand... which is why, New Zealand has no native land mammals (minus 3 species of bats). So New Zealand was just full of plants, birds, some small reptiles (but no snakes, Kathleen), and bugs... and all these living things evolved harmoniously BUT they didn't develop any instinct for/protection against predators.

-As a result, when Maori, Pacific Islanders, and Europeans started to settle in New Zealand and when they brought rats, cats, pigs, goats, deer, possums, stoats, weasels, etc etc etc with them, all the native plants and birds were getting eaten and the forest was cut down for logging and the whole ecosystem of Hunua Ranges was being destroyed :(

-So now, in order to save the ecosystem/promote biodiversity/protect Hunua Ranges, there's no more logging and a whole lot of pest control... meaning that I got to help out with the pest control part :)

-Basically, there are a whole bunch of bait lines and every 100 meters or so there is a bait station full of bait. When an animal eats the bait, the bait prevents its blood from clotting. So there's no immediate death, but the animal will die eventually. Every week, a group of local volunteers run along the bait lines and check on each bait station. However, these bait lines aren't on actual trails and they are VERY VERY OVERGROWN and some haven't been cut for over a year.

So this is what we did: We hiked along the main track to the start of the bait line. Then we journeyed into the bush and did some extreme gardening to make the jobs of the bait-line-runners a little bit easier. We did one bait line the first day (Saturday) and then we did two bait lines the second day (Sunday). The bait lines were pretty steep and overgrown so it was a lot of hard hard work. All in all, it was totally worth it though... carrying gigantic gardening scissors, blazing trails, learning about all the different plants, learning the sounds that different birds make, finding pig tracks, getting super muddy, finding rare ferns, etc. (Dan got REALLY EXCITED over this fern we came across. It was a King Fern and apparently they were almost wiped out and they are really rare. It was only the second time in his life that Dan had seen one and he was seriously ECSTATIC, like he spent ten whole pictures taking a bazillion pictures of A PLANT... PS. Dan (no joke) knew the English name, Maori name, and characteristics of EVERY plant and bird that we saw so he got to educate us and enlighten us with all his knowledge of nature.)

Other highlights of the weekend:

-On Saturday night, there was a speed shear competition at the Red Fox Tavern in Maramarua. It was probably the biggest redneck/hick (no offense) event I have ever been to. BUT I did get to witness someone shear a whole sheep in 39 seconds!!!!

-On Sunday afternoon, on the way back to Hamilton, we stopped in Pokeno, a tiny town that is only known for their ice cream. So my lunch that day was three huge scoops of ice cream - Hokey Pokey, Mange Rizzle, and Mint Chocolate Cookie. So Good, So Creamy, So Delicious.

-Air New Zealand gives out water, then coffee, then cookies, then more water, and then candies. This happens even on their short, one-hour flights and I've decided that I really like the amount of attention that Air New Zealand gives to my tummy. It is Quite Nice.

I got back into Dunedin on Monday night (shout out to Paul who was really great and picked me up at the airport) and went over to Gray's flat because it was his birthday and everyone was there. Tuesday was class, frisbee in the rain (torrential downpour/it was raining SOO hard), stir-fry dinner at Alan's, and homework. Wednesday/yesterday was class and then just hanging out with everyone for St. Patrick's Day!! Today/Thursday, I was printing out some notes for lecture and I looked down and my backpack had disappeared. Yeah, SOMEONE STOLE MY BACKPACK... with my wallet, and my computer, and my life. In a nutshell, I was ready to kill someone. Granted these murderous feelings and thoughts were all in the heat of the moment, but DUDE, I was so furious. And just as I had reached a certain level of anger that only a very few people have ever seen (which, in general, I think is a good thing)... I turn the corner (I had been pacing around the building looking for any trace of my backpack) and there it is, right where I left it. The weirdest???? Turns out this girl had picked up my backpack, thinking that it belonged to her friend... and when she realized her mistake, the girl returned it. This girl was seriously apologizing All Over The Place and I was just totally relieved and I told her not to worry about it and we went our separate ways.

So yeah, my brief period of panic = gone forever and it's ALL GOOD and I am so happy that I've got my backpack. And now I have loads of reading to do - YESS.