"Be humble for you are made of earth. Be noble for you are made of stars" -Serbian Proverb

Last night was the last day of November and consequently also the last day of spring here in New Zealand. To celebrate the start of summer and the first of December, we slept outside under the stars. A bunch of people set up their tents and dragged out their mattresses to put inside their tents. However, a few of us decided just to sleep under the sky. We rolled out sleeping pads, grabbed out warm clothes, sleeping bags, and sipped home-made mochas (half hot chocolate half black coffee).

We chatted for awhile, reminiscing about the first few days we were here. We talked about Opoutere and the shell fish survey and how unbearably cold and wet those mornings were. Despite how miserable we were, we all remembered those days fondly.

All the while we were watching shooting stars. Then the real show began. Valerie went to get her computer. She wants to be an astronaut and has this planetary program on her computer. All night she told us stories about the constellations, and nebulae, and the shape of galaxies, and the ever expanding ever accelerating universe. It was a magical night. The shooting stars were beautiful.

Happy December!!!

A Kiwi Thanksgiving

This weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving here at EcoQuest. It was such a lovely day. The weather was beautiful, and we all wore sun dresses. Cooking started three days before, and continued early that morning around 7:00 a.m. until after 5:00 p.m.. We had three roasted chickens (so tender and moist), three roasts of lamb (fresh from down the road), glazed carrots, asparagus, traditional stuffing, my mom's famous corn bread stuffing (which turned out great!), sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, corn bread, home made rolls, mussels, cocktail shrimp, brie, crackers and cheese, cranberry, walnut, and apple salad, and mashed potatoes. I'm sure there was more, I just can't remember.






Dinner went beautifully. Before we started, we stood in a circle (all 48 of us) and Denny said a prayer written by Wi (the man who started the Tangikaroro Reserve where we did the vegetation survey) and Janet read a poem about giving thanks. Then a few people chimed in and said what they were thankful for. I cried. So did other people. It really hit me that I will be leaving here soon.

After dinner, it was time for dessert. Boy did we have a spread.

Three pavlova (amazing! I will be making these when I get home), four pumpkin pies, four chocolate hazelnut pies with hazelnuts from Dale's family's farm, chocolate pavlova, berry cake that Ria made, and an apple crisp. Everything tasted amazing! I even enjoyed my first slice of pumpkin pie.
It was a lovely day. Everyone got a little sunburned. When am I ever going to be able to say I got sunburned on Thanksgiving ever again? Honestly it felt like the fourth of July. A big barbeque with lots of friends and family. I'll be sad to leave this place, but this was a nice memory I'll always keep.

Tomorrow is December 1st! Home in 28 days.

Kaiaua Primary School Day 1

Today we went to the Kaiaua Primary School to teach the children about biodiversity and invertebrates. We boarded our bikes and headed out around 8:30. It felt like I was back in middle school, riding my bike to school.

Once we arrived things quickly started. It was strange, because when I was in school things seemed to take forever before we could even start the day. We had attendance, settling into our seats, morning announcements, and the pledge of allegiance. None of this happened today. Granted the school has three classes, and this class only has 20 students (though only 15 today).

We started the day off with an icebreaker game. You had to say your name, where you were from, what you want to be when you grow up, if you could be one animal what would it be, and what super-hero power you would want. It went well even though it was really long. Next we played two truths and a lie. The kids flew through the game. Normally it takes forever. Then it was on to real teaching.

Our first activity had the kids separating a group of cards into any grouping they wanted. Most of them grouped the cards by where they live. Next I taught them the difference between a vertebrate and an invertebrate (no back-bone). Then the students separated the cards into these two groups. Third we taught them about the six basic phylum of invertebrates (cnidarian, mollusca, echinoderms, annelids, porifera, and anthropods). It was really funny trying to get the kids to pronounce echinoderm and cnidarian. They were so cute
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Then it was lunch time, after which we took the kids outside for a walk around the campus. We were hunting down invertebrates. They loved it. We saw tons of monarch caterpillars and chrysalis all over the garden. We also found rolly-pollies (slate bugs), centipedes, slugs, spiders, and tons of ants. We lifted logs, dug in the dirt, turned the compost, and tramped through the garden.

Later in the day we did a camouflage game with the kids where they had to decorate/color a cut-out of a moth and hide it somewhere in the room. Can you find them?

One of the students' projects from the day before was to write haiku poems about the tragedy at the Pike River Mine down on the south island. They were beautifully written, and terribly sad.



When school ended, we biked down to the Kaiaua Store for some icecream. Yum!

Working on more directed research project stuff tomorrow, then thanksgiving is on Sunday!!! Weird, I know. Then back to the school on Monday. Two people from the Ministry for Education will be there too! I have to admit it's exciting but a little intimidating.

Working on DRPs

Been a busy few days here at EcoQuest. My group and I have been working about 10 hour days creating activities and creating worksheets. It's exhausting. Sadly this leaves little time for other things in my day. We have been watching movies and such after dinner to relieve some stress.



I did get a pet caterpillar! His name is Marvin and he will soon be a monarch butterfly. Currently he is pupating (he has made a chrysalis). Now we just need to wait for him to emerge. So excited. I always wanted to be a girl scout as a girl because my old friend Mackenzie got to spend the night at the science museum and she came home with a monarch butterfly caterpillar. Well now my days of envy are over. I have Marvin now. Here he is.

Watching "Flight of the Concords" currently. So funny. Not sure what we are doing tomorrow. Allergies are plaguing me at the moment. Let's hope this ends soon.

Need to buy another plane ticket tomorrow...which sucks.

A Few Days at EcoQuest

Been a slow few days here at EcoQuest...hard to believe I know. We started working on our directed research projects (DRPs) last week. All of us have been split up into groups, two groups counting bird populations, one group measuring frogs, one group counting and studying invertebrates, and one group looking at lizards, then there is us (Emily, Kim, Amanda, Kate, Hope, and Me) the education for sustainability group.

We are working with the Kaiaua Primary School to create a learning module for 10 weeks to teach them about invertebrates and biodiversity. Daunting task really, though it's a chance to get really creative about activities for the kids to do. We actually go to the school tomorrow to meet some of the kids. Should be fun.

Ever since we got back from Northland, we had been working on our introductions for our DRPs. I had to research the New Zealand curriculum and try to write about it. I feel like a teacher. There is so much information about the curriculum, and its all woven into each other. Hard to explain. Just trust me. Anyways we wrote our introductions (first drafts at least) and they came back with very few corrections to be made. Apparently we are on track, and maybe even a little ahead of the game. Sweet As!

On our day off (Sunday) we woke up late, ate breakfast, and then walked over to the marae for the tukutuku. Tukutuku are the woven panels between the carvings in the Wharenui. Each tukutuku is made from woven flax and has a multitude of colors. Unfortunately we missed the actual weaving process, but went anyway. We met a bunch of adorable children outside the Wharekai who captured our attention for quite some time. They were so gregarious. They were quick to memorize our names. After that they started singing us songs. Some of the girls even sang us the song "Billionaire" in Maori. That I have to admit was really cool. Then we met up with Hermoine who showed us the weavings, and we got to see the new carvings that were put up in the wharenui. Later in the day we sat down and talked with a traditional carver. He was interesting but talked a lot and filled (rather crammed) our heads with information. Interesting fact: New Zealand was named by Abel Tasman (who has a national park named after him...where I spent my 5 day break on the south island) who thought he was in Chile. Turns out, he wasn't. So they named it New Zeeland after Old Zeeland a peninsula off the coast of Denmark. Then James Cook spelled it wrong, naming this beautiful country New Zealand.

Came home and made friendship bracelets out of harakeke, a broad leaf grass endemic to New Zealand. Tough work, but they are pretty cool. A game of scrabble then commenced. I love scrabble, truly I do. That night we made stirfry for dinner. Yum!

Celebrated Hope's birthday with mamosas and Cinderella.

Monday we had to turn in our papers...ew. Then we spent the entire day sorting invertebrates. Frozen invertebrates. For like 6 hours. Didn't find much, but got to listen to some awesome music and talked about movies. Pretty sweet day. It was Hope's birthday so we made a delicious meal of homemade meatballs (my first time, and they came out amazing. Watch out mom you have competition) and spaghetti. We also made a rainbow cake. It came out a little thin, but still tasted delicious.

Today we went to the Auckland Museum! It was incredible. Part science museum, part natural history museum. We did not spend nearly enough time there. Oh well, I'll be in Auckland for a few days before leaving for Fiji so I'll just have to go back. Here are some pictures.

Northland

Last post from this past week. After our last snorkel dive in the Poor Knights we headed back to land for our time off.

We jumped in the vans (my group had the living saloon! a very plush van) and headed to Whangarei for dinner. Ate a delicious plate of nachos and then headed for the Kauri Forest. Unfortunately the other group's van started smoking and smelling really bad. We decided it would be better if we just stayed the night in Whangarei. Crawled into a nearby holiday park and stayed the night.

The next morning we split ways, as the other group waited for a tow truck. Our group headed out to Dargaville (the kumera (a.k.a. sweet potato) capital of New Zealand). Nothing was there basically, and we got lost after driving down a gravel road for what seemed like ages. At the end of the road we found a beach.


Drove back to Dargaville for some fish and chips and then headed in the right direction for the Kauri Forest. Kauri trees are the largest in New Zealand and are rare because they were used for ship's masts in the early 1800s. Some of the trees we saw in the forest were from 600 to 2000 years old. The oldest (the picture of me in front of the tree) is called Tane Mahuta. An old Maori legend says that Tane Mahuta was the son of mother earth and father sky and tried to split them apart.

After the Kauri Forest we started heading up to Ahipara. When we were about 45 km outside the town our gas tank read empty. We kept driving. Before boarding a little ferry we stopped at a gas station. It was closed. Boarded the ferry and decided to get gas at the next town. Gas station found and closed. Kept driving. At this point I started judging the houses that we were passing to see where the best place to stop would be. We figured that we would just ask the friendly townspeople if we could sleep in their backyard. Luckily we pulled into Ahipara (still on empty!). Stayed the night at another holiday park.

At this point we were starving and decided to walk downtown to get some food. Everything was closed. Figures. But it was Guy Fawkes Day so all the people in the town were setting off fireworks and playing with sparklers. I love fireworks!

Made it back to the holiday park and found out that the third group of EcoQuesters was staying there. What are the odds?

Next day we drove around looking for the gigantic sand dunes.



We climbed the dunes for what seemed like forever. They were incredible! Sadly the pictures just don't do it justice. They were so vast and so tall. Awesome. We had a fun time running down the dunes.

Then we started the long drive home. Ate some delicious falafel in Whangarei. Yum. The drive home was cool, especially through Auckland, because there were fireworks going off everywhere. Now I have to start researching for my two papers that are due Tuesday. Final exam on Tuesday too! Oh and work journals due Thursday, AND a paper due Friday. Probably wont blog for the next week. See you next week.

Leigh and the Poor Knights

This week we traveled up to Leigh to snorkel at Goat Island. Goat Island was the first marine reserve in New Zealand. The area is a no take zone, meaning you cannot fish commercially or recreationally in the area. Snorkeling was amazing!!! We saw really big snapper, trigger (or leather jacket) fish, spotted wrasse, banded wrasse, and so many others!


After Goat Island, we drove up the coast a little further to snorkel at the Poor Knights. The Poor Knights are another marine reserve, but further away from the coast. The night before we left we boarded the Pacific Hideaway (our boat for the following day) to hear a talk by Wade Doak. He was easily the coolest man I have ever met! He was around 70 years old, and one of the pioneers of diving. When he was a young man he created a diving helmet out of his dad's coal bucket, rubber tubing, and a pump on land to be pumped by his two girlfriends. (Advice from Wade: always have two girlfriends). He and some of his friends (years later) also discovered a shipwreck off the coast of New Zealand. In the wreck they found gold! One of our academic field leaders, Sally, is a good friend of his and they found all these gold coins. What a magical night. We even got to see his videos of diving the Poor Knights. Everything was so colorful!!!

The first place that we snorkel at was this little cove that was full of life! I saw another eagle ray (similar to a sting ray but smaller). We also saw tons and tons of desmoiselle fish. It was amazing. The next place we went to was Rico Rico cave. It is the largest natural sea cave in the Southern Hemisphere. Inside we started signing. The cave had amazing acoustics, an 8 second echo. Then we jumped out of the boat and snorkeled inside the cave!!!!


We swam to the back of the cave. It was incredibly dark and there were salps everywhere! Salps are similar to jelly-fish but they wont sting you. There were thousands of salps. It was amazing! We had to stick to the wall so we didn't get lost inside the cave.

The third dive we went to a little tunnel and swam though. We had to wait for the waves to push us through this little crevice. It was really shallow inside and we were weaving in and out of the kelp. A few of us even saw an eel! He was about 5 inches in front of me. So cool! We got stuck inside the little cove and had to crawl over some of the rocks and swim wicked hard to get back to the boat.

We did one more dive after lunch. It was just such a cool day! Here are some more pictures.