July 10: We made it! Croesus Hike Part Deux

10 hours across two days uphill (or at times it seems like it) both ways. ; )

Changing plans for good weather on the hike paid off.  Beautiful, clear skies at night and no wind along the exposed saddle backs along the top...

Words to describe our adventure:

rewarding, steep, adventure, challenging : ), scenic, sweaty, pain, refreshing, breathtaking (for more than one reason), trippy, wow, exhaustive, only three more hours, quiet and starry

And a few pictures:

The hike from Blackball to Barrytown

And after a yummy Asian dinner, we were off to a good night's sleep to ready for our next adventures.  Sweet Dreams Everyone, m : )

Saturday, July 9th: We've been here a week and we are off on a nice long hike up a mountain

Weather is clear, sunny, and beautiful (still cold as it is winter after all, but...) and the gang is off on a hike up the Croesus Track!  They will stay at the Cess Clark Hut under NASA-photo like sky and will return Sunday with all manner of wonderful tales to tell.  Stay tuned for photos. m : )

Thumbs  up - decent day for a hike!

Friday, July 8: From the Canterbury Plains to the Alpine Forest to the West Coast Rainforest all in ONE Day

We changed around our course schedule in order to take advantage of sunny skies on the West Coast for our big 5-day trip and overnight hike.  Getting to the West Coast from the Canterbury Plains involves going across one of two passes - we traveled across Arthur's Pass here and will return through Lewis Pass later in the week.  When we left, it was cold and raining, but that did not stop our enjoyment of all of the fun and interesting points of interest along the way...

Giant doughnut art in Springfield -Doh!

Castle Hill - these wind and water worn limestone rocks are beautiful to explore (even in the sleet?).

-6 C/21.2F at Arthur's Pass National Park, but the weather is starting to clear as we head west and we are enjoying seeing the terrain turn to Alpine Forest.

Still very cold, but a Kea (large alpine parrot) still came out to greet us!

Weather continues to improve at Arthur's Pass and we got warmed up hiking up to Devil's Punchbowl Falls.

We made it to Greymouth on the West Coast in time to watch a beautiful sunset over the Tasman Sea.  It was so clear we could even see Mt Cook south down the coastline!

After dinner, we got all of our supplies together and packs ready for the Croesus Track hike up to Cess Clark Hut in the morning.  As hoped, it should perfect weather the next few days for our West Coast adventures in the rainforest. m : )

Travis Wetlands

We started the day off with a lecture from Dr. Colin Meurk on Ecosystem Restoration. He covered the dimensions of restoration, which include vision, planning and maintenance. We also reviewed the concept of landscape connectivity.

After the lecture, Dr. Meurk joined us in the van as we headed to Matariki Gardens where we met up with Simon, a geology student at Canterbury University.

 Next we headed to Travis Wetlands where we saw Puekeko birds which looked like small blue velociraptors. They were very curious little birds, and they clearly wanted us to share our lunches. 

Dr. Meurk and Dr. Hostetler classified many of the plants we saw, like Coprasma, Kanuka and Five Finger. We then broke off into groups of two to do bird counts. The first kind was the semicircle point count. From a lookout dock, we counted and classified all the ducks in a 40 meter radius. We did this for 10 minutes, also counting ducks that flew into the radius during that time. Next was the transect count. For that, the students walked a set distance and counted the number of ducks within 40 meters. Some of the birds we saw were Black Swans, Shovelers and Paradise Shelducks. Our data can be compared to data from previous years.

After we looped around the entire wetland, classifying flora along the way, we headed to the Naked Baker for tea time. The hot drinks were a nice break from the cold. 

Next we headed to a nearby beach. It was rather windy and brisk, so we took a few pictures and headed to the playground across the street. Everyone swung down the zip line, and a few of us climbed some trees. 

Finally, we all piled back into the van and headed home. 

 ~Emma

Banks Peninsula Trust and Birdling Flat

Our first stop today was tea-time at a coffee shop cozily decorated with artwork from local artists. The warm drink was much appreciated on the chilly morning. We stopped along the way for a scenic look at Lake Ellesmere whose beauty neatly hid the pollution beneath the surface.

Arriving at the land convent we were greeted by two women, Marie and Annaliese, from the Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust who spoke to us about the purpose and mission of the trust. The conservation trust is a nonprofit that helps landowners voluntarily protect their plots through a legal covenant. The voluntary basis of landowner’s decision to participate in conservation is a powerful approach to citizen support for conservation and sustainable land management. The trust's goal is to achieve balance between habitat connections, farming, and other land use activities. Visit their website at: http://www.bpct.org.nz/

After learning about the trust we were introduced to the invasive exotic Barberry.

 Its origins are in the Western Himalayan’s. The growth of the plant among indigenous species smothers surrounding vegetation. It is a tricky plant to eradicate, but manual and chemical removal proves successful. The plant is prickly, but younger stages can be easily pulled from the ground. More mature plants require sawing and application of herbicide on the freshly cut stumps. The wood yielded a curry-like dust while sawing that made it easily identifiable. When removing one must be cautious not remove indigenous plants with similar phenotypes such as pigeon wood and native ash.

We ate lunch outside a beautifully glassed house on top of the hill from which we were working.

Before heading back to Lincoln University we visited Birdling Flat. The beach was covered in water-smoothed rocks. We walked the beach picking up stones and searching for the transparent agate stones.

To end the day we stopped at a rock shop with an amazing collection by a local collector.

               

 -Kathryn

From Ancient Forest to Beautiful City

We started off the day by heading to the Landcare Research headquarters in Lincoln, and hearing a lecture from Dr. Colin Meurk about New Zealand's natural history and the ways that its people are working to preserve the natural environment.  

It was great to hear from someone so knowledgeable about these subjects. We learned about New Zealand's unique "land mammal free" natural history that created a bird and lizard ecosystem in which flightless birds (like kiwis) took over the roles of land mammals. This was all disrupted with the arrival of exotic land mammals like possums and stoats that were brought by European settlers over the last two hundred years. We also got to hear about how the Landcare Research organization works with the New Zealand government, private businesses, and volunteers around the country, in order to restore and conserve New Zealand's biodiversity and overall ecosystem.

After teatime, we went to the Riccarton Bush forest, and got a very informative tour from Dr. Meurk. Walking through the forest was characterized by Dr. Meurk as traveling back in time around 60 million years. This is because New Zealand's isolated natural development allowed some plant and tree species to survive that are quite similar to the those that existed around the Jurassic period. The forest of about 7 hectares (15+ acres) is protected by a fence designed to keep out any exotic land animals.

We walked along the amazing trail through the forest with the wildlife right at our sides.

We admired the 100 ft. plus trees, such as this kahikatea tree that is around 600 years old.

After the forest tour, we walked all around the Christchurch central business district, and saw the wonderful job that the people of New Zealand are doing at rebuilding the city after a terrible earthquake in 2011. Here we are walking by the chalice of Cathedral Square. 

We also enjoyed playing on the large city playground where we, and many other adults, seemed welcome to play on the equipment, such as this ropes course type section.

Later, we shopped at the Re:Start mall in downtown Christchurch, which was one of the first restored areas after the earthquake and makes use of shipping containers that have been re purposed to be parts of the shops.

We finished the day off with teatime at the C1 Espresso cafe. Hot chocolate, tea, coffee, and macaroni and cheese with bacon were some of the great snacks that we dug into there. Much of the food was given to us through an air tube system pictured below. 

Our experiences in both the amazing Riccarton forest, and the vibrant city of Christchurch made this a day to remember on our adventure here in New Zealand.

- Santiago M.

SOPHIA Flying and Observing Out of Christchurch, NZ for Winter

So we did not get fanfare and fireworks for July 4th; however, I came across this spectacular fun fact that might make up for things.

The Stratosphereic Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is here in Christchurch for the next few weeks!

Sweet dreams under beautiful, clear, NASA-photo worthy skies, Meryl

July 4th – Kiwi Style

Well, today is July 4^th in New Zealand but it is actually July 3^rd in the U.S., but never mind that, we consider it July 4^th anyway. This morning, the class started the morning with a hearty helping of beans and toast, cereal, and perhaps Vegemite on toast!? They had orientation and several lectures in the morning and early afternoon  – and they stayed awake! – a very resilient class as jet lag can take several days to recover.

Lectures covered principles and techniques to conserve and restore biodiversity in New Zealand. New Zealand has many endemic plants and animals (found nowhere else in the world) and with the introduction of humans (Maori about 800-900 years ago) and then Europeans, many species went extinct and currently many are in danger of going extinct. Due to habitat loss and the introduction of many invasive exotics, such as brushtail possums and rats, both New Zealand plants and animals (including humans!) are under pressure.  Some of the large birds, called Moas (see dramatization of Moa being hunted by Maori), use to roam the forests and took over the browsing role of mammals. Terrestrial mammals were not historically present in New Zealand. Hence the introduction of possums, rats, deer, etc, have caused havoc with New Zealand flora and fauna. Native plants and animals do not have defenses against them and plants are eaten at will and mammal predators eat native birds and lizards.

Two quests for the class (over there stay here) are to find a velvet worm, (do see this video of velvet worm hunting a beetle) and a huhu bug (do see this hunt for the elusive huhu bug ). The Maori have been eating these huhu grubs for centuries and it is supposedly quite tasty, and I (anybody else?) will try one (if we find it!).

After lunch, we had several more lectures covering design, construction and postconstruction issues surrounding green developments. Green developments are not easy to do but do minimize impacts on our natural resources if designed and managed well. 

The classs decided to go on a hike and  we stopped for “tea time” at coffee culture to sample flat whites, hot chocolate, and muffins.

At Coffee Culture

Hmm Mochaccino

We continued on to Halswell Quarry for hike that led us to some adorable black-faced sheep (probably Suffolk breed – see many New Zealandvarieties here ). heard a new term for these sheep “Shangles.” (angelic sheep).

Up the path - towards sheep

SHEEP!

Uhhh - more sheep?

How the light changes in New Zealand

In front of a Korean Sculpture in the gardens near Halswell

We hiked around the quarry where early pioneers used the stone to build homes and roads in Christchurch (see history ). We encountered several native plants including, cabbage tree, Ngaio, hebe, manuka, and kanuka. Manuka honey is valued throughout the world as having healing qualities.

We ended the day with a beautiful sunset and a trip to New World supermarket before dinner. Nighty night! Dr. H

Sunset over Christchurch