Punakaiki

I would like to apologize for the delay in posting since our return from the West Coast. We have been very busy, and when we are not, Susan has to use her computer for work. We are down to counting days in single digits now, and time is an oh-so-precious commodity. Consequently, my posts will probably be shorter and less frequent. I have created a bunch of new posts that have no writing whatsoever in them. Uploading the images is quite time consuming, so I took care of that first since it is likely the pictures are all anyone is interested in anyway. I think I will go ahead and publish the pictures and come back to add the commentary as time permits. If I don't get a chance to revisit the posts, you can just look at the pictures and make up your own story to go along with them.

The pictures here were taken on the west coast in the Punakaiki National Park. The rock formations are called the Pancake Rocks. These great sentinels of rock are some sort of limestone/something harder formations right along the coast. The limestone and 'something harder' are neatly arranged in alternating two inch thick bands that erode at different rates causing the dramatic configurations you see here. They are neat to look at, and there is a very nice walking trail that goes through and among them. There are a bunch of caves at the base of these formations and the waves crash up into them - there are also sinkholes amongst the formations that act as blowholes when the air and water gets trapped inside from an incoming wave.

Stay tuned for more on the following bunches of pictures...

Hokitika

During our stay on the west coast our base of operations was in the town of Hokitika. Hoki is a gem of a town that we discovered on our last trip. Susan and Lesa decided to try incorporating it into the program this year and it turned out great. The students loved it and we were very happy to get back here again. Hoki has an incredible past, during the great gold rush of the mid-1800's, Hokitika was one of New Zealand's most populous cities. The main street was bustling with over 300 stores and over 50 of them were hotels. Today, the population stands at about three and a half thousand and the town consists of two pubs (one closes at 9:00), a gas station, a couple of motels and a couple of backpackers (hostels) and the rest of the town is pretty much comprised of shops that sell Greenstone, shells, bone carvings, and hand made crafts.

Being on the west coast, they enjoy wonderful sunsets on their beautiful beach. It is pretty much deserted most of the time, so our students enjoyed collecting up driftwood and having party time around the campfire on the beach. A former UD student from the Middletown area came to visit us. He was contacted by Lesa prior to the trip - he is a former student of the College of Ag. He is living and working in NZ as a glacier guide on the Franz Josef glacier which is situated about an hour and a half south of Hoki. He brought his guitar with him and led the festivities around the campfire singing old Johnny Cash tunes. This delighted Aidan because his favorite song is "Ring of Fire". Johhny agreed to sing it for him, then he let Aidan do the strumming on the guitar, while he fingered the chords and sang it again - it actually worked out pretty well. The locals were having some sort of a driftwood sculpture contest on the beach, that what the big fish and the giant are all about. Susan met a greenstone carver in one of the shops who told her about some friends of his who were going to burn their sculpture one of the nights we were there. The name of the sculpture was 'Effigy', and they had a big party on the beach with the burning as the centerpiece. Dozens of people came and brought every manner of musical instrument you could imagine, from sticks and rocks, to tom-toms, to didgeridoos, to dinner bells - you name it. They banged and clanged their way through some sort of cabalistic ceremony, then torched the titan - who burned long into the night.

We stayed in Hoki for two nights. We visited the Hokitika gorge, which rates a separate posting (see below), and the local A&P show (think Harrington Fair 50 years ago). We thouroughly enjoyed our visit, and look forward to coming back again. The one place to eat after 7:00 at night is called Stumpers. They have the best beer battered cod I have ever had in my life. My mouth was absolutely watering by the time we rolled into town - I had been waiting for another go at that cod for three years!!! They did not disappoint me either, it was delicious. The final picture of Susan is actually up at Hokitika gorge. It is quite typical of what the native bush is like on the West Coast.

West Coast Trip

Hokitika Gorge

Random things

International Antarctic Center

This coming weekend...

We will be going over to the West Coast this weekend. Yeahhh...another long bus ride. Aidan loves riding the bus - don't let the picture fool you. Leaving first thing tomorrow morning and not coming back until Sunday night. No new posts will appear on the blog in the meantime. Take the time to enjoy the photos from previous posts if you haven't already. If you click on the pictures themselves, they will pop-up on your screen full-sized. Talk to you soon.