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

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