West Coast = Temperate Rainforest?!

So the internet cafes in New Zealand started giving me issues.. and rather than come back bald from pulling my hair out in frustration, I decided to finish things up from home! Yes, I am currently battling jet lag and enjoying the unlimited wi-fi of my home. Here's the post about the west coast trip, which happened during the last 2 weeks in November. Enjoy =)

I couldn’t help but think about my favorite computer game, Oregon Trail, as all 25 of us packed up our belongings, loaded up our caravan of big white vehicles, stocked up on provisions (ie. food), and dreamt about what it would be like as we ‘headed west’ for our 10 day Terrestrial Ecology field trip. Thankfully, we have petrol instead of oxen and much more than 40lbs. of potatoes to hold us over. We forded a stream only once (take that greedy ferry man!). And there are no snakes of any kind in New Zealand (no unexpected deaths from snake venom).

A map of our journey

Driving up

Our first stop was Te Nikau Lodge.  I could not believe I was still in the same country! The west coast is a temperate rainforest, dense with amazing tree ferns and Nikau palms, and moss EVERYWHERE. For those that are curious, this habitat is due to the rain shadow effect: the westerly winds bring in warm air that gets forced upwards when it hits the Southern Alps that run down through the middle of the South Island. When that air rises, it cools and condenses, leading to lots and lots of rain. Just to give you an idea of the range of rainfall in the South Island, the west coast has had as much as 40 FEET of rain; the driest part of NZ known as the Otago region is just east of the Alps and usually gets 14 INCHES of rain a year.

The beach.. a short walk from the Lodge

This sunset knocked my socks off.

Our professor, a recently retired Messiah prof named Joe Sheldon, is an avid birder (his binoculars never left his neck), and very passionate about ecology. He taught us all about the geological history of NZ, species/population/community etc., and a whole lot more. But the great thing about having an ecology course in NZ is that you get a handful of powerpoints and a truckload of actual exploration to learn it in the field. We had to keep really detailed field notebooks throughout the trip, identifying all the plants and birds we could. Most days were spent on different tracks in the surrounding area, nights were for lectures and discussion.

Exploring!

Jonny, an MK from Russia, introduced us to a card game called Du Rok (Russian for “idiot”). Du Rok swept our CCSP community into a card playing frenzy – we played constantly! And then we got sucked into the world of Monopoly Deal. It’s seriously addicting. I’ve added it to my Christmas list.

DEAL BREAKER!

We stopped by a glacier. Imagine a really big dirty ice cube stuck in between 2 mountain sides. And you have imagined a glacier.

Franz Josef National Park

The gang

WHEATON REPRESENT! With Kaitlyn Cambell and Caleb King

 The last part of our trip was spent at Cass Field Station, a research station owned by the University of Canterbury.  Sunday was a much needed brain-off day: I spent the Sabbath sleeping in, enjoying a late breakfast, going for a run where I was surrounded by mountains and had cows galloping alongside me (no joke), more eating, more Monopoly Deal, and then a worship time at night. Pretty ideal, I’d say.

Inside the research station

In Arthur's Pass National Park

Monday and Tuesday we started our group research projects! I worked with Laura, Halle, and Chimene, and we studied the species diversity and density of all trees, shrubs, mosses, and lichens in two mountain beech forests in Arthur’s Pass National Park. If you really want to know about that, I’ll send you my recently completed research paper. But the amount of different moss species really is cool – 32 different kinds in one forest?? God even cares about decorating the forest floor in patches of unique moss species. So He definitely cares about you.

MOSS MOSS MOSS!

look closely.. there's 3 kinds of moss in this one small patch!

 On one of the car trips to the Beech forests we studied in, we got up close and personal with the parrot species local to the west coast, KEAS! Which happen to be my initials as well. Hence the immediate connection pictured below:

Wednesday morning we reluctantly left Cass. But our disappointment was lifted once we found out where we were stopping on our way home… Castle Hill – where the battle scene in Narnia was filmed!! It was probably one of the best moments of the trip for me. I was climbing all up the limestone rocks (which are from the sea floor, pushed up by tectonic plate collision), and then a bunch of us filmed a re-creation of the battle scene. As the tall blonde wearing white that day, I was selected to be the White Witch. It was epic, and Darin edited it to include the battle music and everything. It will be on facebook sometime soon!

Re-enactment

Work hard

Play hard

So we arrived back in Kaikoura.. and Thursday was technically Thanksgiving, but most of the day was spent working on our research papers and presentations that were due on Friday. We did have a big meal complete with chicken, stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, salad and corn bake for dinner. I went for apple pie for dessert, a la mode, along with a cup of coffee. Delicious!

Halle and I on Thanksgiving, out of hiking clothes for once!

So ends the last course of my CCSP semester. Following this field trip I only had 2 weeks left in New Zealand... one last academic week to write an Integration paper, and debrief week - blog posts to come! Thanks for reading!