Classy Camping

I'm a little behind on posts, some of us went camping this weekend and I couldn't get on my computer. I guess I should start getting used to that, soon we're going to start taking week-long trips and there will definitely be no internet. Here's a little catchup:

Thursday: lecture in the morning, then we did a gardening lesson after lunch and kayak training before dinner. Planting a vegetable garden was actually 100% more fun than I thought it would be. I really liked the wet dirt in your bare hands feeling, and putting all those delicate little plants in the holes. Haha, I don't know, gardening was a new thing for me! Then we did kayak training in the ocean, learning how to use the currents, how to deal with sting rays, and how to rescue someone (or be rescued) if the kayak flips over. Everyone should learn like this! Hands-on and in the dirt school

Friday: Weekend! Some of us packed up our tents, 10 bottles of wine (hence the "classy" camping) and spent the night on a mountain top in the Hunua range. We saw the sunset, set up tents, and were drinking (you have to finish the wine so you don't have to carry those full bottles back!) by the time we all went to bed, it was seriously storming outside, I thought we were going to blow away. 15 people on a mountain in 7 flimsy tents!

watta view

my super hot tent-mate

ukulele strumming. typical

This ensemble made sense at the time.

The next day we were going to hike back to camp... a distance I gotta admit I had no idea what it was. I probably should have checked that before I signed up for this little getaway. 3 girls decided to turn back and go the short way back to EcoQuest, which I was tempted to do but went with the group into the muddy mountains to hike back. It ended up being a 20k hike! That's 12.4 miles!! I'm signing up for double-digit mile hikes on my days off?? Also, I was voted "least complaining"... WHO AM I?? Haha, I felt like a superhero at the end, I'm glad I went, but at the same time, I hurt a lot. A lot a lot a lot. Need to find a New Zealand masseuse, pronto.

Hike alongside stuff like this ^ all day, worth the sore body? And this is on the North Island, it's the South Island that's supposed to be the "beautiful" one!

Other details of the hike: saw the first wild mammal in NZ this trip on this hike. There are no native mammals in New Zealand, all the ones that are here came over later with humans or otherwise. People here do not like mammals except the ones they keep for pets. There are traps all over the place to try and keep the rats, feral dogs, feral cats, stoats, and possums from destroying the bird populations here. A lot of the birds are flightless because they never had any significant predators, and now are being wiped out by invasive species. 

Also with all the storms from cyclone yasi have caused a lot of slips and mudslides on the Hunua mountains here. We spent a good deal of time trying to get over felled trees and piles of rock and mud. It required a lot of teamwork, pushing people over, pulling people up, and moving the giant backpacks over obstacles and under trees. We saw some amazing sights like GIANT trees that have been uprooted, and trees that are now growing out of the side of the mountain instead of the top. I'm glad this group is so easy-going, teamwork makes the dream work! haha