Motutapu

Early morning, yesterday, loaded up the vans and left by 7:15 a.m. (mind you this was after watching Lord of the Rings: Return of the King until midnight-ish). Tried to sleep on the way to Auckland...didn't really work. The roads are so bumpy here and the vans we have just rattle and shake like crazy. In Auckland we got on a ferry headed for the island of Motutapu. On the way we stopped at Rangitoto, one of the newest islands in the Hauraki Gulf. It is a volcano that erupted around 500 years ago. No one lives on the island anymore, but there are some old vacation homes. Motutapu is directly next door, and was once covered in the volcanic ash from the eruption on Rangitoto.

When we arrived, we were met by volunteer coordinators. Hiding from the elements--extreme rain and wind--we entered an old barn. In the barn, we were given a brief history of Motutapu. Once inhabited by Maori, until the volcanic eruption. The island was then inhabited by Europeans. Specifically one couple who turned the land into a farm. In the 1990s the island was turned into a conservation site. The project that we helped with was reforesting part of the island to indigenous bush.It was a steep hike/walk up the muddy hill, not to mention it was blowing all over the place! Sam and I paired up and started planting. As a group we planted 400 trees. The soil was amazing! So porous and fertile. It was really dark in color, and smelled so good! (Weird I know).

In the middle of planting it started to pour. Typical. We huddled under a tree for shelter with some of the volunteer coordinators and our field leader, Chris and his wife. It was funny listening to Ken (one of the coordinators) talking about customer service calls. He was complaining about how he hates when they ask you security questions and how he just asks them security questions. Can't really capture how funny it was in text. Had to be there. Then we ate snake sweets--pretty much gummy worms but snakes...the only snakes in New Zealand.

At the end of the day we wondered down to the beach. I found so much beach glass! Big pieces too. My collection is slowly growing, and now have 47 pieces (+a piece of blue and white porcelain and 1/4 of a plate). We ate sausages between slices of bread, and waited for the ferry.

On the ferry ride home we saw a ridiculous amount of rainbows. That's one thing, it may rain like crazy here, but there are tons--and I mean tons of rainbows. We even saw a double rainbow on the ferry ride.

Grabbed some gelato at the pier and headed home. Long day...really long day, but so much fun. It really felt nice to do some community service on an ongoing project. Thinking of asking if they need an intern to work in their nursery for next summer.

Had a chill day today. Class didn't start until 1:00, and only lasted one hour. Tons of reading to do now though. Oral presentations are wednesday, I have a paper due Saturday, and a weekend to plan....crazy! Leaving for the South island on Sunday!!!!! Going to be gone for 4 weeks--I'll try to keep up with blogging the best that I can.

Going to the Miranda Bird Center tomorrow.