Discovering new places

Here's a fresh blog again! The last two weeks were really busy and internet was not always available, in those beautiful hills of our secret kiwi island! On Sunday morning the 16th me, Natasha and our supervisor Isabel went for a long drive up to the north of the North Island. Somewhere 'near' Auckland is our precious island, with loads of kiwis ready to be researched. I can't tell you where it is, otherwise people will disturb these nice birds ;) Don't be afraid, I can show you pictures of the nice surroundings. Where was I? Oh yeah, Sunday morning. So, after a long drive, some nice sandwiches, a good hot drink and a $1100 bill at the supermarket we arrived at the bay. There I could meet loads of people I had or had not seen before, it was really nice to meet all of them. As soon as the boat arrived, the truck loaded with the results of the large bill was driven onto the boat. With a little bit squeezing and some wet bags everyone managed to get themselves including all their stuff onto the boat next to allll the food. The boat trip was a nice one, because in between the spraying of the sea, you had a beautiful view on the island and the surrounding land and sea. After a short trip, the boat arrived at the beach, near a building with a really nice and big kitchen. First task: putting all the food away! After that, it was cooking time. Luckily there were wraps, so it was quite easy to do after a long day. When the meal was over and after some talking we went to the place where me, Natasha and some other friends were staying through the week. The next morning it was kiwi time! We went to one of three gullies in which the kiwis live, and tried to find them using radio telemetry (aka a big antenna). It wasn't too long until we found the first kiwi. That's the easy part. After this you have to catch them, and that is definitely not easy. This kiwi, Mauro, hid in the grass for almost an hour, but when we finally got him, we were really happy to have our first kiwi. Every kiwi we caught (all 48 in total!) received a new transmitter, was being weighed and we measured the length of its legs and bill. The second day me and Tim went to a different gully, to look for the kiwi burrows there. These burrows are being used for the tick research I'm doing. It took some time to find them, but in the end we had seen the whole gully, so that's a good thing. On Wednesday me, Thurid, Melanie and some other people from the group went to the sheep farm near the camp to help collecting wool of the shearing. It was really fun to do and after all the work, my shoes were nicely rubbed in with wool fat :) On Thursday, I went to find burrows again in the same gully, this time alone but with good directions so I was able to find almost all of them! Friday was the last day, on that day me and a couple of other people stayed at the camp for cleaning. In the afternoon we went swimming and after a couple of hours, unfortunately the boat came again to pick everyone up. Only me, Natasha and another friend (Alex) stayed on the island for some extra research. The goodbye was quite funny. It was low tide so the boat had to go to rocks covered in mussels, and the truck and another car had to drive over that to come to the boat. When the trucks were loaded, the ramp of the boat got stuck on the rocks, because the boat became so heavy. Most of the guys tried to push the boat, but it was really stuck. After several attempts and some help of the motor of the boat, it finally came loose and the last guys had to jump into the water to walk to the boat through the water. After a lot of waving the three of us went back to the cottage, the place we stayed. The next day Natasha wanted me to walk through the hills to find my way to and in the gullies. When I went into the gully alone a couple of days before, I lost my way in the hills, and it took me an hour to find my way back, so Natasha wanted me to know the way. I managed to miss two paths that I wasn't able to miss according to her, but hey, I found my way ;) The last day I walked into the third gully, which was an easy one with a clear track. Now I know my way there so hopefully no more being lost!

After all these adventures, it was not over yet! After some lovely Indian food, Natasha took the bus back to Palmy, because she had work to do, and me and Tim dropped of Alex after a 40 mins. quest through Auckland for coffee (it was a Sunday!). When we finally found their coffee and had dropped her of, we went up north to the Bay of Islands were Tim's very own sailing boat was :D We arrived there around 2 am, so we were really tired. Still we had to load all the bags into Tim's dingy before we could go to his boat. It was a 15 mins dingy ride in almost pitch black conditions, but the things I could see were really beautiful. There were a lot of nice hills and land was everywhere around us, including a really nice milky way. When we arrived on the boat, we loaded everything in and went to sleep immediately. The next day I could finally see the boat and the bay well, and they were really nice to see. All green hills and a lot of water birds and even mangroves! Well, I saw the mangroves actually a couple of days later. The boat itself had three beds, one of which was for the captain during sailing, and one 'master bedroom' with a big bed for when the boat is lying in a harbour. There also was a fully equipped kitchen, it even had an oven! The oven is built onto an axis, so when the boat is swaying, the pots won't fall off. There was fresh water and a tap for sea water, for washing hands and stuff. I met some of Tim's friends that were laying in the same bay, and they were really nice. They liked to talk German though, because they were all German except for me :P In the next couple of days, we did some stuff on the boat, and Tim managed to find a mooring ('boat parking spot', from the Dutch word 'meren' or 'aanmeren' :P) so he can stay there legally for a couple of months. We had dinner with his friends twice, which was really nice with nice food. During the days me and Tim worked on the boat, and part of the time he went out to arrange boat stuff and during that time I could work on my research proposal. On Wednesday we went out for a longer dingy trip, to see the mangroves. I've never seen them in real life before, so it was quite impressive! We could see a lot of big mangroves, with seedlings next to them. In between the seedlings there were a lot of holes, apparently from insects or shells that live in the ground. I also saw some kind of eel wriggling in the shallow parts of the water, which was quite a surprise. On our way back to the boat we saw a beautiful sunset which you have a lot in New Zealand (see pictures!). On Thursday afternoon it was time to go back home. We loaded all the bags back in the dingy and went off to the coast were the van was waiting for a 10.5 hours drive back home. We arrived there at 00:30, where we had a happy reunion with Natasha and our other flat mate :)