On February 16th we left Wellington and ferried back across the Cook Strait for a ten-day tour back to the South Island.

The very next day we went off on a charter boat tour of the Sound, visiting rare hector's dolphins and bottlenose dolphins, a former whaling station, an abalone farm where a guy from California and his Kiwi wife are pioneering abalone aquaculture, a restored island with native plants and birds, as well as a beautiful mainland beach with chicken-like birds called weka. The water's cold, but not quite Oregon-coast cold, and it was calm the day we were there.

Since then, we've spent many hours on the bus, just as many hours in the rain, but all of it has been in good company and with gorgeous scenery. We have our trip leaders from Victoria University Tim Markwell and Ken Ryan, Victoria Univ. professors George Gibbs and Phil Garnock-Jones, chef and PhD student Catherine Duthie, assistant chef Lynn Ryan, and our excellent bus driver, PhD geologist, rowing and gymnastics coach Michelle Hawke. Our Kiwi team provides not only expertise on the flora, fauna, biogeography, and geology of New Zealand, but invaluable insight and guidance as we navigate the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of Kiwi language and culture (see previous blog entries for more of what we've learned in this area).

The West Coast of the South Island holds a good part of New Zealand's remaining 30% of native forest, in a climate that is very wet. It's also home to huge swarms of sandflies, whose bites seem to increase in itchiness every day after the initial bite for three or four days. We were very fortunate (or not) to experience the full West Coast treatment from Thursday morning until. . . well, we've crossed over the southern alps, supposedly in the rain shadow, and it's still raining. At least there don't seem to be as many sandflies so far here on the east side.

After Picton, we moved a bit south to St. Arnaud, where we visited Lake Rotoiti in the Nelson Lakes district, which sits in a "mainland island," a conservation area that, while on the mainland, strives to apply here the success NZ conservationists have had removing invasive pests and restoring native wildlife on coastal islands. Some of those pests include mammals like stoats and omnivorous Australian possums, but also European wasps that have invaded the native beech forest in this area, eating the honeydew that would normally feed native insects and birds as well as baby birds themselves. Besides that, they sting the humans, making them really unpopular. The Department of Conservation has had considerable success in removing invasives and creating an environment in which the native species have a fighting chance. While there, we also climbed Mt. Robert and came to know him and his amazing views over Lake Rotoiti quite well.

Back to the rain. It started, and it kept coming, and there was a lot of it. our first outing in the rain out from St. Arnoud was a fossil field just off the main road. There's a hillside that sloughs off rock every year, and the rocks are filled with fossils, mainly plants, that literally land at your feet. So we got back in the bus slightly damp after that outing, to stop next at a trail covered in ferns and trailing vines leading to a beach covered in smooth pebbles with waterfalls cascading over eroded cliffs at our back and a climbable rock outcrop a few feet off the beach in front of us. Think Northern California coastline on steroids, but with easily accessible beach. Another half-hour down the coast we visited the Pancake Rocks, cool and weird geologic features that look like the piles of drippy sand that we used to make on the beach when we were kids, but these tower several stories out of the ocean and don't melt away. Driving on another hour or so we arrived at the Franz Josef Glacier, where it rained and rained and where the glacier made a huge impression. I finally learned what a glacier is and how it works, and getting up close to it gave me an appreciation of how powerful water and ice are. We got wet from the rain, but also from the creeks that we forded without benefit of dry crossing so that we could get up close. We were pretty soggy and bedraggled by the time we got back to the bus, but it was worth it.

During our tour of the west side of the island, besides visiting amazing places and seeing gorgeous scenery, we learned about the geologic forces that created the landscape--the Australian and Pacific plates meet here at the Alpine Fault, creating high peaks that are home to glaciers that carve out valleys and erode down to the ocean to create vast plains on one side and sharp valleys and high cliffs on the other. The collision of the Australian and Pacific plates also causes earthquakes that rearrange the landforms every 160 years or so, and in certain places you can still see pieces of Gondwana, the ancient landmass that broke apart to form New Zealand, Australia, South America, southern Africa, and the Antarctic.

There are a few days left on our South Island tour, and then we go our separate ways for spring break (that would be fall break here, you know).

--Valeurie

Rugby se7ens

Rugby. What better way to spend the weekend than to watch 14 burly men wrestle for that 'ol pigskin ball.

Here's the seven's game: 7 men per side, 14 minutes to get as many 'tries' (touchdowns) as possible. After scoring the 5pt try, they can kick for a 2pt 'conversion' (field goal). (There are a few other nuances that Kylie might have covered.)

I've never seen this pace of action. The tournament featured 16 international finalist teams that played back to back. The field was empty for no more than ~30 mins from 1pm-10pm for non-stop rugby. During said hiatuses, shameless half-time shows featuring Austin Power look alikes, NZ idol finalists, The Village-people dancers and dodgeball contests kept the party going. And by 'party' I mean people dancing in their seats and metabolizing 11 litres of alcohol a minute. For us, the audience was just as entertaining as the game.

Aside from the game, the entire city of Wellington celebrated the event in costume. At any given street corner one could find a dozen Fred Flintstones, the Justice League, Smurfs...And yes, we found Waldo, all 30 of them. We joined in on the fun with our inexpensive impromptu costumes which included bedsheets, face-paint and feather's plucked from the nearest Kakehe and kiwis. We paraded the city as Ceasar, various unknown superheroes, fairies, cross-dressers and parrots. With these costumes it's funny to see what American pop-culture is to the rest of the world.

Look forward to finding some Sevens coming to America.

happy valentines day,
zach and asa

Rugby: The Definition of 'Hardcore'

Our month in Wellington is coming to a close and -- for me at least -- the feeling is bitter sweet. I have really enjoyed the time we have spent here; going to a true Victoria University lecture with other kiwi students, living in the dorms on campus and staying long enough in one place to really feel like I'm getting to understand the ebb and flow of the city. But I am also getting pretty antsy to leave. We're headed out on our South Island tour on Monday, heading for the ferry to cross the Cook's Straight at 6:30am.

On our last weekend in the city, Ken and Tim have arranged for us to watch the Wellington based rugby team the Hurricanes. The game's tonight and I am TOTALLY stoked for it! But in order to insure we understood the ins and outs of the sport, yesterday they asked a couple of Ken's students to teach 22 American kids how to play rugby. I'm really glad they did it -- I mean, I know we have a decently sized rugby team at LC, but I had never taken the time to understand it before. All I could compare rugby to was American football without pads... but oh, it is so much more than that...

We started with a short description of the game and staged a scrum (a well staged huddle in which both teams try to kick the ball out to their respective teammates) and went over the rules in brief, the most important of which being that you can't pass the ball forward. A player can only advance the ball if they are running or kicking it. This requires a lot of communication between teammates for you to know where your other players are at all times. Second most important, I would say, would be that you cannot play the ball while you're on the ground. If you are on your knees you are unable to hold on to or otherwise touch the ball. This results in the downed player being essentially straddled by their teammates to create a protective space for the ball to rest on the ground. Thirdly, on defense you are unable to touch anyone on the opposing team that does not have the ball. Similarly, if you're on offence and are not in possession of the ball you cannot touch an apposing player -- aka, no blocking for your teammates.

If we had more instruction, I don't remember it. We divided up into two teams (including Tim and Valeurie, who were both totally fierce in competition), kicked off the ball and began to pummel each other. Even standing on the field, I realized how disorganized and ridiculous we looked running around dog-piling each other every chance we got. I'm probably sorer now from laughing rather than actually playing the game.

It took us a while to get into the flow of the game and even by the end of it I still didn't understand all of the rules and penalties. But we all had a blast -- even those of us who ended up hobbling off the field with our various injuries!

Hello! Our group has spent the last two weeks in Wellington studying at Victoria University. Our classes are in intensive chunks, so we just wrapped up our biogeography/NZ flora and fauna class. We discussed the tectonic movement of New Zealand and how that affects what plants and animals are or are not here. We were in class and lab for about six hours a day and took two field trips, one to Kaitoki Forest Reserve, and one to Matiu-Somes Island. Here we worked on identifying native flora and got to see wetas (which are like giant crickets), geckos, and NZ parrots called kakariki. We worked hard, but fortunately we had our evenings open so we have plenty of time to enjoy the city, play ultimate frisbee, climb trees, and go to the beach and concerts in the Botanical Gardens. Anyway, we are now starting our Conservation Biology and Cultural Heritage classes. And, in the interest of culture, I thought I'd give you all an amusing insight into New Zealand slang. Hope you enjoy!

sweet-as=cool, awesome
good on ya=good for you, ok, sure, right on, cool
bush=forest, outback
puffed=out of breath
torch=flashlight
rattle your dags!=a country expression for hurry up, originating from the dreadlocks (dags) that develop in sheeps' wool. We picked that one up on the sheep farm.
scroggin=trail mix
tramping=hiking
full on=intense
boot=trunk of car

So conceivably, you could have a converstation that goes something like this:
"Hey I put the scroggin and torch in the boot for when we go tramping in the bush tomorrow." "Oh, good on ya man, it's gonna be sweet-as, but we better rattle our dags in the morning cause it's gonna be full on."
"Oh yeah, we're gonna be puffed!"
--And that would still be English. :)