Penguin video

This video is one that I meant to post ages ago, but the connection speed at our flat in Dunedin was a little too slow for my tolerance level ;)
Behold, the majestic yellow-eyed penguin coming ashore for the night at Sandfly Bay.

Musings in the now

I'm looking at my calender and realizing that I only have 10 days left in New Zealand....This is both good and bad. It's bad because, in some respects I am only just now getting to know people in my NZ world and because leaving means the end of collaboration with Robert, who is a really good scientist and a positive influence for me. Of course it also means that I won't see Kristin again until she returns to the US and our respective paths are manipulated to cross again. The other major bummer is that I never got the chance to go to Stewart Island or visit the North Island. I guess I'll just have to come back! I never saw a kiwi or a tuatara either....Hmmm...

Leaving is a really good thing, too. It means that I can earnestly search for a job, see my family again (fawn over my mom while reveling in the sweet fact that she's even still here), pet my horse again, run with Rover again, and take very long naps with Jillian again (the only person I don't mind literally cuddling up to in sleep...sorry AP).

My favorite cuddle buddy and partner in crime.


And, of course, I'll see AP for the first time in 4 months. In four months time, our 1 year anniversary has come and gone (oops...me = bad gf), I've basically forgotten what it's like to share a bed comfortably, and in all likelihood have neglected my personal appearance by a substantial margin, favoring the "who've I got to impress" scenario. But, hopefully, we can pick up where we left off and enjoy a summer like the last one, with fishing, grilling, trivia night in Mankato and the usual laid back Minnesota Summer together.

I miss you, AP! And I can't wait to see you soon :) :)


Paddle boating around in Eveleth, MN with my much missed AP.

Roadtrip Part Three: Westland and Central Otago

Kiwi-crossing sign in Okarito.

OK! On to the last leg of my roadtrip:

After leaving the northern tip of the South Island, we headed west. We stopped for the occasional sight-seeing along the way, including a stop at the longest swinging bridge in New Zealand, that, while very long, wasn’t all that different from the “Be Kind to your mother-in-law” swinging bridge in good old hometown Croswell. Just the kiwi-one is higher up and about twice as long! And the Buller Gorge puts the Black River to shame as far as beauty and ruggedness go. The Black River just can’t compare to a glacier-fed, raging New Zealand river. Oh well.

Buller Gorge Swingbridge.

VS.

Croswell swinging bridge!

From there, we headed to the west coast to see Pancake Rocks. They’re a geological anomaly. Layer on layer of flat rock stacked up in columns and falling into the Tasman Sea.

Pancake Rocks.

I really enjoyed looking around there, because the tourist path was literally cut through the rock!

Me emerging from the pancake staircase.

We stayed the night in Greymouth on the west coast that night, officially in nephrite-Jade country. New Zealand prides itself on the production of greenstone art and jewelry. It’s beautiful stone and can be carved into many shapes and sizes of necklace. The acquiring of a piece is significant, however. No one is supposed to buy their own jade. It must be received as a gift. When a person gives a greenstone to another, they are giving a piece of themselves with it. Kristin and I decided that we would buy each other a birthday gift, and we each picked the one we wanted and bought each other’s. Kristin got a dark green koru, which is a Maori symbol of a young fern unfurling (probably my favorite of the Maori symbols).

Kristin's koru greenstone.

I picked a bright green one that was a combination of two korus curling towards each other, looking almost like two tiny waves crashing into one another.

My dual-koru greenstone.

After spending a heap on our mutual Jade, we went to the most beautiful river I’ve ever seen! It was in Hokitika Gorge…So blue you could barely believe your own eyes. It was the color of a Tahitian beach. Turquoise and perfect. The glaciers send a lot of particulates down the rivers, apparently lending them this blue color. The pictures of it can’t even do it justice.

Me, at Hokitika Gorge.

The next amazing side trip was interesting in an entirely different way. Using a book called “Hot springs of New Zealand” and armed only with a shovel, we followed some questionable directions in search of thermal hotsprings. We pulled up to the place where our path “began”. The road had fallen into the river and was blocked by a boulder pile. Instead, we walked along the extremely steep drop-off to the river through some farmland, and crawled through some people-trampled tunnels that had been carved slowly out under low hanging trees. Poor Mike had to almost crawl through…These passageways were more Emily-sized. Or Hobbit-sized. Whichever. We crossed a wrought-iron bridge and walked another 200 meters or so to a very vague “trail” leading off towards the river. We followed it and lo and behold, we hit the river bed and saw signs that others had been there and dug out hot pools recently! We spent over an hour there, digging out hot pools of our own. Once you walled your pool off from the river (glacial water is NOT warm), the thermal vents would heat you up quickly!!

Me, in my personal hotpool! I dug it myself.

The next day, we went to the gorgeous Franz Josef glacier. It was extremely lucky that we didn’t get rained on, because it rains there about 90% of the time. We got outfitted with water proof coats, pants, and boots (none of which fit me properly. Plus, my raincoat smelled like horrible body odor which was emanating from the armpit-region so ferociously that Kristin {stuck sitting crammed up next to me on the bus} chose to cover her nose with her hand for the entire ride! YUCK.)

ill-fitting and smelly gear. Note the awesome crampons, though.

But anyways, I guess that’s the breaks when they put the same gear on tourist after tourist after tourist. At the end, I told the guide that it needed a good washing and I believe he said “Oh really?” while tossing it right into the same pile as all the others.

I have digressed. The glacier. Right. It was about an hour or so of walking just to get to the base of the glacier. Then, we had an enormous gravel hill to climb. It had come pouring out of the glacier’s mouth a few years back. It took about ten minutes of steady uphill switchback-climbing to get to the glacier on the other side of the gravel pile. Wisely, we had decided to go with the “slow” group. We got to take a little extra time climbing and walking and in general were pansies compared to the other group. My theory was that I had paid a ton of money to be out there, and I’d rather not feel rushed or physically exhausted. Good choice.

We got onto the glacier and actually squeezed through a crevasse so narrow my hips didn’t fit square-on. I had to turn them sideways. You also couldn’t put one foot in front of the other, instead shuffling them each forward at the same rate, right in front of left.

Dorky self-picture? Yes. But it nicely captures the narrowness ahead!

We also got the chance to climb up the steepest parts using a hand-rope. This was the most challenging part for me. You had to pull yourself up the steep ice slope and I sorta neglected to spike the ice well, so I ended up working really hard to drag myself up with my arms and when I finally got a foothold, I took the biggest step my short legs could manage and totally pulled my quad muscle. Oops. After the hand-rope, though, we were at our highest point! It was cool. Little holes in the glacier had created neat little crystal clear pools of frigid water. I wanted to drink it. The return trip back down was also really cool because we got to go down a crevasse wall. We had to spike one side of the wall and then drop down and spike the opposite wall, until we got to the bottom. That I handled well (gravity is my friend). It was interesting being suspended however briefly between two ice walls.

Me, down in the crevasse.

We were pretty damned tired from the glacier trip. It was physically more demanding than I had expected, and we had sore feet from several hours of walking in borrowed boots. We hit the road, heading for Wanaka, and some amazing Mexican food for dinner.

The next day was Kristin’s birthday! I attempted to make tomato and cheese omelets using crappy pans from the hostel…they turned out pretty lame-o, but still tasted ok. We also fried up some bacon and made toast and sipped coffee, just enjoying her b-day morning. Then, we headed for wine-country! Central Otago is known for its red wines. Particularly Pinot Noir. I was the DD on this leg of the trip so Kristin and Mike could partake of the tastings at most every vineyard. Each vineyard is unique…One had this bizarre statue.

Strange, bizarro-erotic statue. We counted 4 people in it. The guy on the right side looks uncomfortable staring at his own junk for eternity.

Another had no one to greet us other than this really cute puppy (who melted my heart).

Cutest puppy ever. Too bad she had no opposable thumbs to serve us some wine.

We drove through wine country, stopping and going all day, finally winding up in Moeraki, back on the East coast. Moeraki is home to Fleur’s Place. This is a particularly esteemed seafood restaurant literally right on the ocean. The menus are written in pencil because they depend on what gets caught and cooked that day! I got blue cod, Mike got Salmon, and Kristin literally got an entire baked cod! It was all delicious and amazing. Including crème brulee for dessert. Yummy.

My cod with tartar sauce served in a paua shell!

Kristin's whole, baked, birthday cod from Fleur's.

Then, we headed back into Dunedin. And here we sit. No longer on vacation. SAD. It was such an amazing trip.

Now, though, it’s all business. Kristin and I both have much work to do. I have only 19 days left here, and still have an experiment to run and fish to dissect in the lab. I can’t believe it’s almost over. I’m truly enjoying New Zealand. Actually, though, winter is coming and it’s starting to get cold. I’ll be heading to the northern hemisphere just in time for summer! I can’t wait to see AP, my family, and all my friends in Minnesota and Michigan again. I miss you all! And I’ll be seeing you soon.

Until then, more precious quality time with this cool chick:

Roadtrip Part Two: Marlborough Sound

OK – I need to tell you about my trip. It lasted 10 days. I'm taking a cue from Kristin and writing this in parts so as to give full attention to each aspect.

PART TWO: MARLBOROGH SOUND

Picking up from where I left off, in Kaikoura….

We had to leave Kaikoura a few hours after we finished up with the dolphin encounters (though we did sneak in some serious shopping first!) Check out this cool mural on the side of one store in Kaikoura:

We drove then another couple of hours up to Picton, where we stayed in a cabin at a cute little holiday park with funny kiwi-paintings to make sure we understood what different rooms were for.

At this holiday park I had my first ever experience with coin-operated internet. $1 per 10 mins. Now I have a better idea of how much time is wasted online daily. Ten minutes goes by FAST when you’re paying by the minute!

For our time in Picton, we planned to take full advantage of the gorgeous Queen Charlotte Sound. We took a water taxi to nearly the mouth of the sound (about an hour boat ride) and were deposited at Ship Cover to begin a 15km (9.3 mile) leg of the Queen Charlotte tramping track. Naturally, we started out very motivated. The first leg was quite a steady, moderately steep ascent to the top of the first saddle. Once we reached the top, we had an excellent view of the sound. We also enjoyed the sunshine and well-packed track, edged by tree ferns and palms.

A view of the Queen Charlotte Track.

About halfway through, we came to a small stream crossing…not a big deal, really. But, because I’m like the paparazzi, I wanted to document Kristin’s stream crossing. I whipped out my camera and snapped a pic of her hopping across. Then, I stumbled, or something. I dropped my camera right smack into the mud. Thereafter, my beautiful Canon camera, that AP gave me as a going away/Christmas gift, that I cherished and used almost weekly since arriving, that was the most important accessory I possessed on the trip…was broken. It wouldn’t turn on. I felt crushed! How was I supposed to enjoy nature without looking at it through a lens?! (besides the obvious way of using my eyes, duh). Part of the fun of traveling for me is trying to take the best picture I can manage so I can relive my feelings and thoughts later when I look at the pictures. Having my camera broken made me feel like I’d just lost the ability to function as a tourist. After trying unsuccessfully to resurrect the camera, I grudgingly put it away, and trudged forth. With somewhere around 4 miles left to go, I was not a happy camper. It seemed like every view we came to was picture-perfect. I watched as Kristin and Mike happily snapped their cameras at nature’s wonders.

Kristin took this picture from somewhere along the QC-track.

Ooh. Just before I realized how much my camera was damaged. Still hamming it up.

Meanwhile, I grew more and more sullen. On top of my general demeanor degradation, my (theoretically awesome) hiking boots were rubbing me raw. Blisters had started forming within the first mile of our trek and, if they weren’t bothering me before, they sure as hell were now that I didn’t have the camera to distract me. Luckily, I had packed my Asics running shoes…for just such an emergency. You see, someone with hobbit feet such as mine can never have too many footwear options. Truth. I completed the hike wearing running shoes! They felt like heaven for feet!! We were supposed to have 5 hours to complete our track, with the average Joe taking around 4 or so. We took 4 and a half, roughly, but had to hustle because after calculating a bit, we realized that the morning boat had dropped us off about a half hour late. We made it to our destination with about 5 minutes to spare, downed some beer, and hopped on our boat. We all slept quite well that night!

The next day we went sea kayaking on Queen Charlotte Sound. It was an overcast day, but still gorgeous for paddling. Not too warm! We paddled about 6km of the sound and just enjoyed the day.

Our guide, Paul, and I paddling along.

We finished our kayaking trip around noon and commenced with hitting up Marlborough Sounds wine country before heading to stay the night with Kristin’s friend, Deanna, in Nelson. The Marlborough region is really well known for its white wines, particularly sauvignon blanc (which, after many, many tastings, I have concluded is my favorite). I was the driver, so I only did tastings at about every third vineyard. Some had neat cellars.

From wine country, we continued on to Nelson, where we stayed with Deanna and Matt, who cooked us amazingly delicious food. We all drove several hours the next day to stay at a holiday home, or “bach” (pronounced batch) near Golden Bay. That also happened to be my birthday! We had wine, cake, and homemade pizza. Our bach was really neat, too. It had a sod layer on the roof and straw in the walls. We had a pretty relaxing time playing on the beach, exploring beautiful places, and drinking our delicious wine selections.

Myself, Kristin, and Deanna enjoying a late afternoon on the beach.

That concludes Part Two!

The next installment will be Part Three: Down the West Coast...which I will get to soon(ish). I hope

Roadtrip Part One: Dunedin to Kaikoura

OK – I need to tell you about my trip. It lasted 10 days. I'm taking a cue from Kristin and writing this in parts so as to give full attention to each aspect.
PART ONE: DUNEDIN TO KAIKOURA

Emily -Stalker of all wild things.

Kristin’s friend, Mike, flew in from Minneapolis and we started our travels almost immediately!! The first thing we did was head out to Sandfly Bay to try for a glimpse of Hooker’s sea lions, New Zealand fur seals, and the elusive, adorable yellow-eyed penguin. We certainly saw all three!! The sea lions were really active and super close.

The extremely rare yellow-eyed penguin.


The only bugger about Sandfly bay is the MASSIVE sand hill you have to go up at the end of the trip. Down…Down is FUN. I’ll post a video of that as soon as I have a copy.

We left the next day for Kaikoura with the car packed to the gills with all the “essentials”, including camping gear (which we never used) and heaps of food (which we ate just about all of). The initial plan was to be as frugal as possible while still dropping hundreds of dollars on touristy stuff. Kristin had carefully researched cheap backpackers/hostels to stay in. They usually run about $25/night for a bed in a quad room. Not too bad, although we certainly experienced a vast difference in quality and value for that price! One place gave us our own (spotless bathroom) and an in-room TV for $25, while another gave us sketchy beds with lumpy pillows sharing a room with a sickly German hiker and disgusting piss-smelling bathrooms accompanied by hair-clogged, flooded showers….Like I said. Quite a variety. Anyways….onward.

We arrived in Kaikoura after an 8hr drive north out of Dunedin, stopping a handful of times to see some sights, including Moeraki Boulders (my 3rd time, Kristin’s 6th) and baby fur seals playing on some rocks. For the record, fur seals are about 50X more attractive than sea lions. See photos for comparison.

Exhibit A: Adorable baby New Zealand fur seal.


Exhibit B: Grouchy Hooker's sea lion

We met Jess at our first hostel: The Lazy Shag (a perfectly respectable place). There we chatted for over an hour with a very hilarious and colorful British girl named Emma. Emma was disenchanted with British men, and having dated an American guy, was convinced that living in the suburbs in a big house was a fabulous way to go. She also applauded the way that “women have total control” over men in the US and queried us as to why American men are circumcised while explaining how shocked she’d been to discover that fact the hands-on way. It was an interesting chat, to say the least.

The next morning we headed to Kaikoura Dolphin Encounters. Here, we were outfitted with wetsuits, flippers, snorkels, masks, and stripped of $165.00 before being herded onto a bus and then a boat and then launched out onto a choppy sea. I knew ahead of time that sea sickness could pose a threat to my dolphin enjoyment, so I took some motion sickness pills and just went with the flow. Once the dusky dolphins were spotted, we stopped and just jumped right into the ocean. I thought I’d be nervous…Literally we were set adrift in the ocean, thousands of feet deep, surrounded by fast swimming sea creatures. Luckily, the dolphins were friendly and curious and playful. They were also adorable and only about as long as I am tall. They’re Dusky Dolphins. In order to swim with them, you just swim along the surface of the water with your snorkel up and watch them. You can interact with them too. They LOVE if you spin in circles and they’ll circle you over and over again until you can’t keep up. They also like if you dive down with them…although I rapidly realized that was a good way to accidentally ingest salt water.


Jess and I suited up (minus the flippers) to go swimming with dolphins. Wetsuits make one painfully aware of one's own figure...or lack thereof.

The dolphins were so much fun. I wanted to stay in forever. Unfortunately, my body got the better of me. I started feeling really ill. Apparently the combination of bobbing in the water and swallowing salt water makes one even MORE sea sick than the boat….I was the 2nd person to come crawling, green-faced, out of the fun and I took up residence on deck with a bucket…Although many people became sea sick, I was the only one to truly “feed the fish”…I’m sure the dolphins appreciated my luring the fish in. Optimism. Mike also got sick, though he thought it was from swallowing too much sea water. I was the star puker on this trip. The bad part was that it basically immobilized me for most of the ride. After feeding the fish three times, though, I felt better and hobbled my way to the front of the ship to watch the dolphins playing in front of our boat!

Kristin took this awesome shot of a pair of duskies.


My shot of the duskies right in front of the boat.


Airborne dusky dolphin.

They’re so cool. Kristin got a video of them doing flips!! Check out http://kristininnewzealand.blogspot.com/2010/05/dolphin-swimming.html for some entertaining dolphin footage!

That concludes Part One. Part Two still to come: Picton and Queen Charlotte.

Kiwis can't fly! (But midwesterners can)

I’m about to update my blog to expound on all the fabulous details from my roadtrip with Kristin and her friend Mike (visiting from Minnesota). However, before I get too deeply into that long story, I give you this:

HOW KRISTIN AND I ACHIEVED A BADASS TANDEM JUMP-SHOT!!!!

Picture 1. Ok…we’re off the ground…fair enough. But barely (ahem…Kristin). We try again.

Picture 2. Crap…just got the landing on that one…

Picture 3. This one we never even made it off the ground! But we’re still laughing.

Picture 4. Emily does weird Michael Jackson stage bow:

At LAST!!! We are airborne…for the duration of a shutter click! Alas…I learned something about myself this day: I hop like a toad. The other key to success here is to put the camera literally at ground level. That way there is sky in the background and we look like we have mad verticals.

Ahhh....Sweet perfection.

Whelk Races and more

I've been saving up for this post! The Great Whelk Race of 2010!

So...it's not so interesting as all that, but some of my nerdier friends might find the fact that I've spent several weeks conjuring up ways to race snails if not intriguing then at least typical.

So, a few weeks ago, I wandered out to Lower Portobello Bay here on the Otago peninsula. I collected several hundred whelks, which are ferocious little intertidal vultures, basically. They hide beneath the mud, with a little elephant-trunk-like tube sticking ever so slightly above the surface. When something dies or is in distress nearby, the whelks rise up from below like so many tiny undead zombies. It's really quite creepy.

Here I am! Getting samples!


But I digress.
The point was to get a fair number of parasitized whelks and see if their speed and accuracy of food-finding was compromised by their parasite load compared to the unparasitized ones.

Once back in the lab, I stuck them in individual containers and subjected them to 25 C incubator temps overnight. This made them release parasites, if they had any.
Aww...trapped.

Are you ready for the jacuzzi?


So, to test their accuracy and speed, I didn't feed them for a few days and let them get nice and hungry. Then I placed them in a container with a freshly killed cockle (clam) and timed how long it took them to find it.
Some get really lost...

How many laps do you really need?!


X-20 is finally homing in on its victim...

Anyways, ultimately, it worked. I got most of them to make it to the food at some point. All 48 individuals got raced 3 times. That's a lot of time spent watching snails crawl.

I'm carefully observing the winning and losing whelks.


So. It was on to grander plans! My great big whelk group race! What could go wrong? Really? So, I set them all up in pairs, matching sizes, uninfected and infected. They were hungry. 6 days without food should be enough to inspire even the laziest of invertebrates.


Unfortunately, it proved difficult to keep them focused on the task at hand...as seen here:


Well, in the end...today, that is. I determined that my whelks are stupid. I can't imagine how they've survived this long. Clearly only about 1/3rd of them are in-tuned with the food-finding. I don't understand why my whelks are so dumb. But oh well. That's science for you. You slave away doing experiments and wind up wishing you'd stayed home with some tea instead. But it was pretty fun for a little while ;)

me having F-U-N.


Oh yeah...and note the disturbing little proboscis and that other darker tube that they use to feed...
creepies.



On another note, I am about to submit for publication my very first manuscript. Ironically, it's nothing to do with my thesis work in Minnesota. Instead, it's a small side-project about limpets I did here in Dunedin. I wrote it up, got input from my lab members and it's almost ready to go. So, you know, next time you're perusing the Journal of Helminthology look for Koppel, Leung, & Poulin, 2010. "The marine limpet Notoacmea scapha acts as a transmission sink for intertidal cercariae in Otago Harbour, New Zealand".
I assure you it will be fascinating! I'm not sure when I'll publish my M.S. work. It's all just about ready to go, but it's difficult to find time to work on it while I'm here and it's not as exciting as New Zealand, so I'm apt to put it off. Even though that's not in my best interest.

Other than racing whelks, not much has been going on. I have been going to a 7am Core class with Kristin that is kicking my ass. And my quads. And my abs. And the rest of my body. I also bought a pass to use the public pool 12 times. I've been a few times now, and swam laps. I also went for my first hilly-ass Dunedin run last weekend. These hills are brutal, but I decided to get serious and I ran them. Whew! I felt great though.

I haven't traveled much lately. My Fiordland trip left me BROKE. I did make a day trip up to Oamaru a couple weekends ago with Jess and Charlotte. We went to the Blue Penguin colony there. It was great! I got to see the birds really close. It turns out these penguins are only about the size of a mallard duck! TINY. But super adorable. And loud. I really enjoyed watching them. They come up out of the ocean at dusk and wander around squealing and honking at one another. They're pretty active all night, too. So I got to just watch them interact. Really cool! Penguins are pretty awesome :)

I'm attempting to locate a job in the Pacific Northwest at the moment. I'm spending loads of time surfing job websites looking for postings in Portland, Seattle, or Corvallis so I can live less than 200 miles from AP, who's been a more than patient bf considering I literally moved to the other side of the planet for 4 months. But, I'm not finding too many great job openings...Here's hoping that something opens up, or that I get into a Ph.D. program. Either would be acceptable. I applied for a Ph.D. studying penguins in Antarctica that is based out of Corvallis. In all likelihood I won't get it because I have never worked with sea birds, but it was a good one to try for! Aim high, right? Every cover letter you write, and every company you contact is good practice, I suppose. I just want to nail something down! I'm getting impatient!

In 3 days I'm leaving to go on a 2-week road trip with Kristin and a friend of hers from Minnesota. We'll be 3 Midwesterners, hitting the kiwi trail. We've got an action packed line-up that includes swimming with dolphins, cruising a sound, a day of hiking, an eco tour, kayaking, glow worm caves, a glacier hike, and a cruise through wine country....and tons of other stuff. I can't wait! Although, I'm sure I'll be sick to death of my sleeping bag by the time we get back.

Well, that's a good enough update for now. I'll have to try to be more on top of my blog. Day to day life just doesn't seem that exciting, so I don't think to write...but really, there's always something going on!