Botanic Garden, Museum, and Hike

Nearing the end of the course (sigh!), the class explored the Christchurch Botanic  Gardens and Canterbury Museum. The Gardens contain quite an assortment of exotic and native plants. Many of these plants came from around the world, but in addition to the exotics, there was a section of New Zealand native plants. Here the class could review plants that they have seen  on the trip.

The class in the gardens

Giant Sequoia

The Canterbury museum has quite an assortment of natural and cultural history. One highlight was displays of Moa skeletons and a display of the Haast eagle that hunted them.  There was also a display of the Pau House, that a couple in Bluff decorated with Paua shells and was a famous house in New Zealand.

Students looking at display at Garden visitor center

Maori display

Pau house

To my delight – there was an exhibit on spiders in New Zealand.  I enjoyed this display = so please forgive the number of spider pictures below. The only native, venomous spider in New Zealand is called the Katipō, These spiders are rare and only found on beaches.

Jumping spider

Katipo spider

After lunch, we headed up into the Port Hills for one last hike.  This look out point allowed us to view Lyttleton harbor and the Canterbury plains at the same time. A southerly blew in and it was a bit cold and windy at the top. We did see an awesome 360 view. 

Gatorwaka and peewakawaka

Lyttleton Harbour

On the edge (but safe!)

Another view

Of course, we had tea time on the way home. Cheers Dr. H

White Flippers and Victorious Tititipounamu

Amazing how just a few degrees more and no wind can make one feel warm, even if it is only 53F degrees.  So we had that kind of morning and the sky was clear and the sea was calm when we arrived at our first destination for the day - Cave Rock (it was so clear, we could see all the way up the coast to the Kaikoura mountain range).

Cave Rock

Exploring tide pools

A tide pool

After checking out some of the anemones in the tide pools on the rocks, we headed over to Taylor's Mistake to hike the Godley Head track and look for endangered White-Flippered Penguins (and http://www.penguin.org.nz/resources/WFPT-Document-1.pdf).  The morning stayed perfect for our exploration of the small 200 meter-stretch of nesting boxes that are protected by a predator-proof fence (built in 2010), lay down a very steep ladder, and are at the base of the cliff and edge of the sea.  These boxes were put in place to both help protect these penguins that only nest in this one spot and off a nearby island, and to help with scientific study of this species.  To our delight and amazement we found two of these beautiful little penguins each in their own little box.

At the start of the hike in search of penguins (we will go almost all the way out to the land mass behind us before we go straight down to the rocks at the water's edge)

Predator proof fence from above

Heading down the ladder to the sea

Exploring the nesting boxes along the shore

A nest box

Amazing!

Hanging out by the nest boxes

Back up at the predator proof fence

After lunch, we explored The Tannery (a historic building from the 1800s that has been rehabilitated into shops) for a short time.

The Tannery

Then, the weather turned colder and cloudy and a little rainy, but we still showed up for our Cricket lesson/match.  Team Tititipounamu was victorious over Team Morepork, 43, 31, and we were all thankful when it was all over.  We did have a fun time learning the game, but think that 5 day matches might be agonizing.

Team Tititipounamu up at bat defending the wicket with Team Morepork out in the field

Victorious or not, happy to not be going on for four more days : )

Thanks for another fun day all! -Meryl

Tussock restoration at Quail Island

We ate breakfast on the go today as we traveled to Lyttleton Harbor to catch the ferry that would take us to Quail Island, which had been used as a leper colony and had school for delinquent youths over the years, among other things. The island had already been cleared of most of it's native vegetation by the time Europeans arrived in 1850, so restoring it is a serious undertaking.

The leper colony

 We met Ian, our leader for the day, in the harbor and he explained our tasks when we arrived at the island. We would be planting Silver Tussock fragments, or parts of the larger Silver Tussock, in to small pots. The tussocks that we planted today will be planted in the ground by more volunteers in several months. The process was simple: fill the pot about half way with soil, place the tussock fragment inside, and then fill in the soil around the tussock to hold it securely in place.

Talking tussocks

We were like a well-oiled tussock planting machine

Found a friend in a pot!

The fruit of our labors. 320 in total!

The trust responsible for the restoration of Quail Island was established in 1998 and has since planted about 80,000 trees, as well as eradicated mammalian pests like the rat, stoat, and the hedgehog. There are many exotic plants on the island, such as the Monterey Pine and Cypress trees that tower over the landscape. The large trees may not be the most disruptive exotics, though. Exotic grasses shade out native seeds dispersed by birds and don't allow them to grow. The trust hopes to bring back healthy populations of native birds by restoring natural vegetation. Quail Island has nesting populations of Bellbirds, Keruru, Grey Warblers, and even White Flippered Penguins! We didn't see any penguins, but that may have been for the best as they are easily disturbed. 

A nesting box for penguins

When we finished planting the tussocks we headed over to a cabin for our PB&J lunch. We were treated to a fire, and Dr. Hostetler found a book of jokes that were terribly cheesy, even by his standards. 

We ate our lunch here

Before Dr. Hostetler broke out the joke book

After lunch most of us took off on a walk around the island. We stopped at a small structure with information about the island, and read signs posted at various portions of the trail to learn more about the island. Dr. Hostetler told us about the vegetation we saw, but Jamm and Meryl made sure to keep him on his toes and challenged some of his IDs. The views from around the island were incredible, but the most striking thing by far was the wind. I think I would have flown away if I wore baggier clothes. We looked out over the cliffs for the first part of the walk, then made our way to a rocky area where we found a skink and a couple of geckos. Afterwards we passed a shipwreck and made our way down to a beautiful beach, where we spent some time before heading back to the dock to catch our ferry. 

Paula has a vision for Quail island

It was a rite of passage for young Maori to climb these cliffs and retrieve bird eggs

Walking around the island

Trying not to get blown over by the wind

The island's namesake!

Small gecko found under rocks

Tupelo's large gecko

Shipwreck!

It was a cold, windy, but awesome day. After stopping in Lyttleton for some hot drinks we made our way back to Lincoln to eat dinner and pack for our next adventure. It really feels good to be able to participate in restoration projects like this one and make a difference while we're over here learning and enjoying ourselves. 

- Derek

Travis Wetland Restoration

We woke up to a very gloomy and rainy day. It was chilly waking to breakfast and walking to the Gator Waka. We managed to get through cold. once in the Gator Waka we went to the Riccarton Farmer's Market. It was on of the biggest Farmer's Market we have been to  in Christchurch. Plenty of great food for everyone. We all got to munch on some delicious hard candy that Tupelo bought with Dr. Hostetler. Kacie and Paula even got to try a very creamy pasteurized milk. Niko was able to finally buy the bread he was waiting so long for.

Tasted Delicious

After the Farmer's Market we were on our way to Travis Wetland, at least we thought we were. No one realized we were head in the wrong direction, until Dr. Hostetler admitted he was somewhat lost. Thanks to Kacie's GPS we were able to find our way to Travis Wetland.

Are we going the right way?

Finally made it :-)

 Once at the wetland, Dr. Colin Meurk gave us a little history of how the restoration project started and he gave us a brief explanation of what we were going to be doing there. According to Dr. Meurk. the restoration project started 18 years ago, when the council was able to fund raise enough money to buy off the land in 1997 (see http://traviswetland.org.nz/). The project as been able to stay a float by the amount of volunteers that come in every week. The piece of land being restored is about 56 hectares big and it is a very harsh climate, due to the extreme water level changes.

Learning is always fun!

Let the Hard work begin. As soon as Dr. Meurk finished talking we began by removing the plastic coverings from the plants that had out grown the plastic covering. The plastic covering is used to protect the plants from predators and invading weeds.

Making New Zealand a better place

Lots of work to be done

Since it is a wetland, most of our feet were drenched in water after we finished. Like always a hard working Kiwi always gets its well-deserved Tea Time. After tea time came the most exciting part of the day, Bird Counting. We conducted transects that have been done by previous classes. We got to see the many different birds that live in the Travis Wetland. We observed Pukeko, Grey Warbler, Fantail and many more native species of birds.

Yass Tea!

Serious about bird counting

Beautiful Black Swans with babies

The day was concluded with this beautiful view of Momma swan and her adorable babies. We saw them wobble away into their nest. From here we went back to Lincoln University to have dinner.

-Paula