Winding Down

 

Student Journals from the past 5 weeks recounting both scientific information and personal responses to our experiences were due today, and we celebrated the course end tonight with time together with the folks who have helped us along the way and a slideshow (cramming as many photos as we could of over 4,000 photos into under 300 slides).  We have done so much – worked hard and had a lot of fun! Thank you for the good memories All.

Sweet Dreams, Meryl

Little Lambs and Peeved Penguins

Our day started with a stop at Graeme Rodger’s sustainable home in Lincoln. He taught us about the solar panels on his property and how they interact with the national grid. Power cuts are fairly common in rural areas, so his solar panels allow for his home to fully function when the grid isn’t providing any energy. He also explained how wind turbines work, which was very interesting!

Graeme showing us his solar power setup,
wearing an awesome sweater his partner knitted for him!

Graeme explaining how wind turbines work by overcoming magnetic forces

After our ‘enlightening’ talk about electricity, he grabbed some feijoa fruits to feed to his sheep. The sheep love the fruit so much, mothers will walk away from their lambs to eat one! We saw multiple cute little lambs who were quite “sheepish”, as Dr. Hostetler put it. We witnessed the aggressive way that lambs get milk from their mothers. They headbutt their mother’s abdomen to encourage the flow of milk. Some of us agreed that we’re thankful human babies don’t do the same thing! Graeme told us about the nets surrounding the stone fruit trees he has on his property. When the trees start fruiting, birds will eat every single apricot and cherry they can get to, so the nets are placed around the orchard for protection. 

Feeding feijoas to the mama sheep

sheep family picture

cute lamb

After a stop at Coffee Culture for a tea break, we all got in the Gator Waka for the drive to Sumner Beach. When we had almost reached our destination, we saw a royal spoonbill in some shallow water next to the road! Some of us have been waiting and hoping to see a royal spoonbill before we leave New Zealand, so it was a welcome surprise! We finally reached a harbor called Taylor’s Mistake. Dr. Meurk explained to us that a sea captain in the mid 1800’s was sailing to Lyttelton Bay, but made a wrong turn along the way. His ship was damaged and he was in the wrong body of water. His name? Taylor, of course. 

We headed on out a hike on the Godley Head Trail. We had gorgeous views the whole way and saw many different hikers and dogs. After reaching our destination, we went inside a predator proof fence and down a steep bluff to the rocks below. We made our way along the rocks, peeking inside nesting boxes for white flippers penguins along the way. We saw two penguins nestled inside a box and were all able to look inside! We all made our way back down the bay and to the Gator Waka. We went to The Village Inn for a late lunch.

Maddie and her super cute flower bouquet

The view from our hike on the Godley Head trail

"Wow" -Maddie

Dr. Meurk rocking shorts and standing on a picnic table
to tell us about the exotic flowers we were seeing

standing outside the predator-proof fence

"Hi MTV. Welcome to my crib." -Bailey

White flippered penguin mad at the invasion of privacy
picture by Corinne Allen Titus

Group shot with a view!
picture by Amy and J'amm, because it definitely takes
two people to take a single picture

After a great lunch of fish and chips, we went to the cave rocks at Sumner beach to explore. When the sun was making its descent, we drove to Wunderbar in Sumner. Wunderbar was the only bar open in Lyttelton after the devastating earthquake in 2016. Dr. Meurk arranged for us to meet some other students from Lincoln Uni studying environmental issues there.

exploring the rocks at Sumner Beach

group pic in the cave rocks

Today ended with dinner at an Indian restaurant in Lincoln. We're all exhausted and ready to sleep in a little bit tomorrow!

Sweet dreams, 

Eliza

Fun in Kaikoura

Upon saying farewell to the Marae, we dropped off seven of our most avid wildlife observers for their anticipated whale-watching experience. Three miles off-shore, they were greeted by dozens of cheeky Dusky Dolphins and four Sperm Whales.

Sperm Whale saying hello!

Dusky Dolphins 

So cheeky

"Wow!" - Eliza

The group also saw a variety of marine birds on the water, including different petrels, mollyhawks, and albatrosses.

Giant Petrel snapped in-flight by Devin

Meanwhile, the remaining half of our group visited nearby tide pools, a new addition to the city, on our way to a protected Hutton’s Shearwater nesting site to learn about their conservation. New Zealand endured a devastating 7.8 earthquake in 2016 that left behind an elevated seafloor that is now home to a diverse community of sea stars, anemones, and shelled creatures and visible at low tide.

New Zealand Fur Seal enjoying the view

Mottled Brittle Star doing what Mottled Brittle Stars do

After many slips, photo ops, and close-up seal encounters, we made our way up the hill towards the Shearwater reserve and learned about the project along the way. The seafaring birds are native to New Zealand and nest in only two colonies in the mountains near Kaikoura. In 2005, the Department of Conservation established a third site on the Kaikoura Peninsula where their nesting burrows wouldn’t be trampled by deer or their young eaten by stoats and rats. The new site of artificial burrows is surrounded by a predator-proof fence and the birds raised in the colony are already returning and having chicks of their own.

Learn more about Shearwater Conservation

From the hilltop, we saw our own share of Dusky Dolphins playing in the water and hundreds of New Zealand Fur Seals lining the coast.

After our two groups reconvened, Dr. Hostetler treated us to a tasty whitebait fritter – a local delicacy of small fish fried in egg batter – before hitting the road back to Lincoln.

It's almost as tasty as it looks

g2g

Cole

I Got 15 Animals (They’re All Named Bob) – Wednesday, July 25

Our day started off with a trip to Pegasus, a green development including native plants and a good use of water drainage. There, we visited Pegasus Beach and were entertained for ten minutes following the lines of a stick pulled by Eliza. Well, some of us were. If that wasn’t exciting enough, the rest of us were exhilarated by yet another group photo!!! (Not pictured)

The eel didn't look this blurry in real life

Our next stop was the Pegasus Bay winery, where we walked a trail that was part of the Greening of Waipara project. The natives there were planted in 2008 and have grown a lot since then. But native plants weren’t the only things we saw; we also were able to coax native eels from the depths of a shallow pond using salami!

Cat!

Cat does not enjoy being held

Sleeper cars

We had lunch at the winery (eels were not on the menu), then continued our way up the road after stopping briefly to unload at the Waipara sleeper cars. We met Daryl, a local farmer who talked to us more about the Greening of Waipara project. This project is meant for education, bringing back native birds, and attracting insects that help control pests.

A talk from Daryl

Bear demonstrates his sheep herding skills

The one and only... Bob (the huge sheep with his tongue out)

After his talk, we drove a little ways up the road and Daryl unleashed his sheep dogs, Sis and Bear, from the trunk of his car. The dogs herded Daryl’s sheep into a smaller paddock, where we enjoyed petting Bob (his daughter’s gigantic pet sheep) and learning about some of the different types of sheep.

The wine tasting group

The card playing group

The grand trophy for the 2018 lip sync contest

After that we went to another winery, Waipara Hills, to taste and learn about wine making. There, I made the grand prize for the lip sync; a microphone-ish thing made from only the finest ingredients (cardboard, chocolate wrappers, and lots of sparkly duct tape).

Coco thinks it's been a long day

Then it was off to Daryl’s house for dinner and the long-awaited (and dreaded) lip sync contest! But first, there was plenty of time to cuddle with his adorable pets, play cards, and eat a delicious dinner and Pavlova (courtesy of Daryl and Allison). And play a game of mafia.

But finally, it was time for the lip sync contest. According to the judges, the bar was raised with everyone’s performance. Even Jámm improved from his previous wordless lip syncs and one-word songs by actually lip-syncing nine words (and in his encore performance, more than five verses!). It was a close decision from the judges, but first place for bragging rights and the microphone went to Devin. Corinne was a very close second, and I got third place.

After all of the excitement and dancing, we crashed at the Waipara Sleeper Cars. Despite the lack of heat amongst other things, it was very cool to sleep in old train cars and cabins. Most of us slept pretty well, but some unnamed people snoring (*cough cough*) kept some of us up.

Cheers,

Tupelo

Finding the End of the Rainbow

We started off a bit later today on our journey into Akaroa. The first stop was at our favorite little cafe, over in Little River. Morning tea went quite well and got us in the mood for kayaking on the open waters of Flea Bay. And on we went to meet with the Pohatu Penguins team (Ave, Ben, and Kevin). We left our vehicles behind and hopped on the tour vans. Some of us got to meet Ave's daughter as well, who likes to pretend she's a tiger (ferocious!). It was a long, winding road that led around Akaroa Bay and into Flea Bay, our kayaking destination. We got a few chances to take pictures along the way, often seeing the end of rainbows (something that was a trend today).

Akaroa Bay surrounded by fog

Akaroa to the right

On the way to the bay, Ave talked about the origins of Akaroa and how there used to be so many whales, you could use them as stepping stones to go across. Whaling greatly declined numbers until recently. These great mammals, along with other aquatic species, have been making a comeback in the last 50 years due to conservation efforts like with Pohatu. Also, the inactive volcano crater that is Akaroa was originally colonized by the French, but the English beat them to a land agreement with the Maori by only 6 days. One of the coolest things about doing the kayaking was that our "tourist activity" acts as a secondary source of income for some of the farmers in the area. These farmers are now quite involved in conservation efforts and growing back native forests. 

We finally arrived around lunchtime, only to find some friendly, yet camera-shy sheep. Once lunch was over, we prepped to go out with tons of kayaking layers and got a lesson on how to paddle. And we had a little fun with it too!

Emily enjoying the sheep

Learning how to use the kayak bibs 

Soon enough, Ben and Kevin helped us out into the bay and we took sail! Some of us forgot to grab our sea legs today but it was tons of fun and an amazing experience. We got to kayak by the Pacific while looking out for little penguins and fur seal pups. We even got to see Northern Giant Petrels at the edge of the bay. Ben explained that for a while, little penguin numbers were low, but now there are 2000 breeding pairs nesting in the area. Although, there are only two pairs of yellow-eyed penguins which we, unfortunately, did not see. This marine reserve was more beautiful than we could've imagined, especially with the rainbow on the horizon. Eventually, we had to return to shore and say goodbye to the shaky waters.

 Our journey begins!

Will we find the pot of gold at the end?

Fur seals chilling on the rocks

Primary color jackets

After landing and bringing the gear back, we got a super special surprise. Kevin went to check penguin nest boxes and we got a great look at one! We had to be super quiet and still, so we didn't stress it out too much.

Penguin Nest Box

Little Blue Penguin

We didn't have much time to waste, though. Soon enough, we were ferried off to Christchurch for a talk at Smash Palace's Tuesday Club. Although we showed up a tad bit late, it was a great talk with tons of questions. They spoke about making a global research organization focused on recovery of cities after a disaster. After the earthquakes in Christchurch a few years back, many people have tried to come together and foster creativity in a new way. They seek to bring these creative thoughts in and help create progress within disaster-affected areas. We ate dinner there and headed back to our dorms, hoping to get some rest before another long trip.

Adios for now,

Devin

Spontaneous Futsal

Some Lincoln Uni students invited us to play Futsal (indoor soccer) with them and I ended up checking it out. After playing for about half an hour, they sent me on my way with the team shirt to keep! Even though it was a very short game, I enjoyed getting to know my teammates and meeting the "locals". 

~Maddie