Three months!

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:

this country has a lot of sheep...which means
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)

mangroves are about the only
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

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)

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!

The Hunua Range

A couple weekends ago we explored the far southeast corner of the Auckland region. Our first stop was the Clevedon Market, one of the best-rated farmers markets around Auckland. The market is about 20 km south of the city center and is far enough away and remote enough that Pete was starting to doubt that there would even be a market. When we arrived, the place was packed. Because it is still winter, there is actually very little produce at any of the farmers markets we have visited. This market was no different. There was one produce stall and one plant stall, and the rest were food vendors or specialty products. Our plan for the market was to find lunch for a hiking picnic, so the mix of stalls was perfect. They even had gluten-free crepes for me!

not the lightest hiking snack...

From the market, we continued further south to the Hunua Range. The Waitakere and Hunua ranges contain the largest swaths of native forest and also supply Auckland with much of its drinking water. Many of the tracks in the Hunuas were damaged by massive flooding in March, but we were still able to piece together a nice hike that included a waterfall, stream crossing, dam, and lots of hills. 

Hunua Falls

kidney fern - one of my favorites

native trees lining the trail

cool bark patterns

the Cossey reservoir

hound's tongue fern

water spillway or entrance to the center of the earth?

The photo below is of a kill trap for possums. There were a number of these close to the trail in one area. Possums were introduced from Australia (the only mammal native to NZ is the bat) and love it here...which is a bit ironic because they are endangered in Oz. Anyway, the possums are terrible beasts here because they eat the eggs and chicks of native birds. There are a number of birds here that are flightless (they didn't evolve with mammals so had no reason to fly), making them even easier pickings for the possums. A lot of money is spent in this country trying to get rid of possums (and other mammal pests) and the entire country is trying to be pest free by 2050. One of the most effective ways to reduce the possum population is to drop a pesticide into infested areas. As you can imagine, that is controversial, but it also isn't a good method around water. Enter the kill traps. What intrigued me about the traps is the bait they use. It seemed so obvious after seeing it, but if you had asked me what they used as bait, I never would have guessed. If you look closely at the photo you will see an egg. No cheese, peanut butter, or poison. Just an egg, one of the possums favorite foods. 

spring is coming!

One good thing about moving to the southern hemisphere on the winter solstice is that our days are getting longer, and we get to see the landscape bloom into spring for a second time this year. California had a pretty spectacular spring, but any burst of color on the landscape--small or large--is always a welcome sight for me. The daffodils have bloomed in our backyard and magnolia trees across the city are starting to blossom. 

Last weekend we walked through the city to the Domain, the oldest city park in Auckland and one of over 50 remnant volcanoes in the city. The Domain is home to the Auckland Museum, which we visited again, but it is also home to the Wintergardens. The gardens are comprised of a fernery and two glass houses that display temperate and tropical plants. Both houses were in full bloom and the rich colors took the edge off the chill in the air. 

the tropical house has a fantastic collection
of carnivorous plants, like this pitcher plant

this plant is not for touching!

giant water lillies

A hike in the Waitakere Range

Since we have been in NZ, the weather pattern has been such that we get sunshine every other weekend. The weather changes very quickly here so you have to take advantage of the clear skies when you get the chance. Last weekend after signing the lease to our new flat (more on that after we move in), we headed just west of Auckland to the Waitakere (pronounced why-tack-ery) for a hike in Cascade Kauri regional park. The Waitakeres are a mostly undeveloped area that lie between the edge of Auckland and the west coast beaches. 

It has been raining quite a bit here so Pete chose a walk that was partially on a paved trail and partially along a tram route. The trail led from the car park down to Waitakere Dam, one of five dams in the Waitakeres that collectively provide about 25% of Auckland's water. At 25 meters tall, the dam was an impressive structure.

Walking across the top of the dam

Looking up at the spillway

Native vegetation at the foot of the dam

The base of the dam gives way to a spectacular waterfall

Tramway to the dam and the water pipe that
takes water from the dam to the treatment plant

Walking through a soggy tunnel along the tramway.

A much needed trail umbrella

There was a lot of native vegetation along the trail.
This is the native Nikau Palm.

This is a stump from a tree fern.
Not very good for Pete's woodworking
projects, but so cool!

Scalloped bark of the tree fern

The NZ International Film Festival started in Auckland this week. Neither of us have been to showings at a film festival before, but Pete recognized a movie that he was interested in and it was showing at a theatre that is usually a venue for musicals and plays. The decor of the Civic Theatre in downtown Auckland is reportedly amazing, so our tickets to the show doubled as an inexpensive way to see the inside of the theatre. It is a beautiful theatre! We just found out there is an Andy Goldsworthy documentary showing on the weekend as part of the film festival, so we will be back for round #2!

The elephant and buddha bedecked foyer
(there are 414 elephants in the entrance area)

There is a pair of lions protecting the stage...

their glowing blue eyes are a tad freaky.

Beautiful stage curtain and parapets 

rising to meet the starry sky.

And today, I got to go into the field for the first time! I tagged along on a stream sampling run to the southern sites. It was really good to see some of the sites we monitor. I've done most of my research in relatively isolated coastal areas. The work we do for the Auckland Council is crazy impacted by humans. We had a couple of really lovely sites today, including one reference site that is meant to represent good water quality conditions. Others, however, were not in such good shape. One stream smelled like cow poo, many looked like chocolate milk, and one was threading through a mall parking lot. Hopefully the data we collected today will help make a case for improving how we manage streams as Auckland continues to grow. 

One of our less impacted urban sites.