It is hard to believe, but we are coming up on our three month anniversary in NZ. We feel quite settled at home but are still figuring out what our exact roles are at work. There are a lot of projects going on, so I suspect our roles will evolve over time. Pete's broad skill set and wealth of knowledge has not gone unnoticed, so he has been going out in the field a lot the last few weeks. I've been getting out about once a week and spend much of the rest of my week analyzing data and figuring out how our work is connected to the rest of Auckland Council. There are about 9,000 people working for AC so understanding the connections is no small job! We are getting more and more tasks handed to us and are starting to feel like there are not enough hours in the week to get everything crossed off the to-do list. I think our honeymoon period is over...
We have still been trying to get out every weekend to explore a different part of the Auckland area. There are 35 regional parks in the region and all of them are free. Some are more extensive than others, but they have all been great thus far. We have had visitors the last two weeks to help spur us onto our adventures. It is crazy to us that we have already seen three friends from the U.S. in the three months we have been here. I guess NZ is a more popular place to travel to than we anticipated! None of our visitors have come to NZ explicitly to see us, but we are grateful they have made time for us.
A few weeks ago we drove a short distance south of our house to check out Ambury Regional Park on the shore of Manukau Harbour (a natural harbour). This is one of the two major harbours that frame Auckland and is a significant habitat for shore birds. It is also home to a working farm that you can explore and get up close and personal with the animals. It was father's day (NZ celebrated mother's day on the same day as the U.S., but father's day is celebrated on the first Sunday of September) so we thought this would be a fairly quiet park to explore. There were quite a few kiddos around the farm animals, but we had the coastal walk mostly to ourselves.
The barnyard:
Two weeks ago I was invited to participate in a United Nations workshop on biodiversity and ecosystem services. It was an exhausting five days, but I learned a lot, met good people, and got to spend time with my friend Spencer. One really neat thing about the workshop was the artists that listened to our discussions throughout the week and then synthesized our ideas into graphic art. They were amazing!!
We have still been trying to get out every weekend to explore a different part of the Auckland area. There are 35 regional parks in the region and all of them are free. Some are more extensive than others, but they have all been great thus far. We have had visitors the last two weeks to help spur us onto our adventures. It is crazy to us that we have already seen three friends from the U.S. in the three months we have been here. I guess NZ is a more popular place to travel to than we anticipated! None of our visitors have come to NZ explicitly to see us, but we are grateful they have made time for us.
A few weeks ago we drove a short distance south of our house to check out Ambury Regional Park on the shore of Manukau Harbour (a natural harbour). This is one of the two major harbours that frame Auckland and is a significant habitat for shore birds. It is also home to a working farm that you can explore and get up close and personal with the animals. It was father's day (NZ celebrated mother's day on the same day as the U.S., but father's day is celebrated on the first Sunday of September) so we thought this would be a fairly quiet park to explore. There were quite a few kiddos around the farm animals, but we had the coastal walk mostly to ourselves.
The barnyard:
this country has a lot of sheep...which means
tonnes of cute lambs in the spring!
tonnes of cute lambs in the spring!
pukeko (swamp hen)
Pete standing on a lovely basalt lava flow
(Mangere volcano, one of Auckland's 53, is behind us)
(Mangere volcano, one of Auckland's 53, is behind us)
mangroves are about the only
things growing on the lava flows...
things growing on the lava flows...
...and lichens
Two weeks ago I was invited to participate in a United Nations workshop on biodiversity and ecosystem services. It was an exhausting five days, but I learned a lot, met good people, and got to spend time with my friend Spencer. One really neat thing about the workshop was the artists that listened to our discussions throughout the week and then synthesized our ideas into graphic art. They were amazing!!
by the amazing artists at reflectiongraphics.com
and emphasise.nz
and emphasise.nz
After our workshop, we headed down to Nelson to spend the weekend with Spencer and friends from my research days down here. We got to see Robyn's property, pet the ponies, and meet Stacie's youngest kiddo. We also entered our first rogain event, a sort of orienteering adventure race. We got a map with a whole bunch of locations marked on it and had three hours to navigate to as many of them as we could. No phones allowed...only a compass and the map. And it is handy if your compass is from the southern hemisphere. Robyn is a pro at these things and her team won the combo event (six hours of walking/running and mountain biking). We were not in a hurry at all and finished last. But we managed to get to seven locations and the pie shop. We felt accomplished for the day!
Spencer, Robyn, and Brownie
Pete and Huntsman
(Brownie, Huntsman, and Robyn were in the 2nd
Lord of the Rings movie as Riders of Rohan)
(Brownie, Huntsman, and Robyn were in the 2nd
Lord of the Rings movie as Riders of Rohan)
looking for fossils
view from the top of our fossil hike
the members of our rogain team
location finder, extraordinaire!
pies were a requirement of the day for Spencer and Pete
Last weekend we had friends from Minnesota staying with us so we headed to the west coast for a bit of ocean time...definitely something they can't see in Minnesota. We hiked to Kitekite falls, had a sand-infused lunch on the beach, and a lovely drive through native forest.
cabbage trees!
Kitekite Falls through a tree fern
Kitekite Falls
the tracks here are amazingly well built
stream crossing
south Piha Beach
north Piha Beach from Lion Rock
Lion Rock on Piha Beach
Te Henga (Bethell's) Beach
black sand beaches are lovely!
cool sand formations along the river channel
our visitors!
