Conservation Volunteers NZ - Week 2, New Zealand

Monday 19th Jan

For our second week of volunteering we were heading back towards Christchurch through Arthur’s Pass to Craigieburn Park. We did a quick stop for provisions in Greymouth and then another stop for some lunch, food (and beer in my case!) in Arthur’s Pass.

Our old friend Long John was still prowling around looking for scraps of food:

Stumpy


For our accommodation we would be staying in an Education Centre used for schools groups. It was right in the middle of a beech forest with some great views of the mountains beyond. It also had some weird occupants inside:



Hey my armpit smells


What do you mean I fly like a girl!


What did I just hit!

When we arrived we were met by another Ray our contact who showed up in a rather unusual car for a ranger - an old VW beetle. Ray showed us around and then took us to where we would be working for most of the week - cutting down and pulling up small pine trees

First a bit of background. At some time in the 50's some twat in the then forestry service had the bright idea of planting some pine trees in areas of Craigieburn forest. They did this to try to stabilise areas of skree which they believed had been unnaturally caused by grazing of introduced animals. By the time they had figured out that the skree was perfectly natural and was supposed to be there the pines had natured and had their seed blown all over the valley below. Even then they did nothing until recently when pine trees started sprouting as much as 17km away for the initial site.


Ray's Beetle - not your usual ranger car.

They have now, finally, decided to try and tackle the problem. That’s were CVNZ come in - we were given the job of tackling a single side of one small valley.

So off we went in a totally haphazard way of cutting, lopping and pulling up any pines we seen - until Ray got us to stop and do it right. In order to catch all the pines - including the tiny seedlings we had to go up the hillside in a line as if we were searching for a body.

It was slow and methodical and pretty darn boring as well but it was the only way to be sure we got every tree.


The valley we were working in - this is where they filmed the Cronicles of Narnia!


Cutting down pines


Get out of the road DM!


DM Helping cut down a pine


Taz proving devils can climb trees




Alpine flowers we will be saving from the pines



Tuesday 20th
We worked all day Tuesday going up and down the valley cutting down any pines we came across. By the end of Tuesday I was ready to hunt down the bastard who planted the trees in the first place (if he was still alive!) and string him up by his short and curlies. Anyway by the end of Tuesday we had completed our first side of one small valley and we could stand back and admire our work.

The only problem with standing back and admiring our small valley was that we could also see the other valleys that stretched back up the mountainside and were all covered in pines! Ray had told us that they had a 3 year plan to eradicate all the pines in the area using various volunteer groups, rambling groups and contractors (for chain-sawing the large trees). I think he is living in wacky-baccy land if he thinks that. In 3 years time the part we were doing would be still sprouting pines from dormant seeds in the ground!


Wednesday 21st Jan

On Wednesday we were given a reprieve from the pines and went checking stoat traps instead. As I have already said stoats are a major problem in New Zealand and Craigieburn was no exception. The traps were placed every 100m just off to the side of one of the way marked tracks in the forest. We split up into 2 groups of 5 - one group taking the odd numbered traps and one taking the even numbered. In my group was me, Lukas, Sam, Karl and Sun. The other group consisted off Karl, Lisa, Sophie, Kate and Brecht.

What we had to do was quite simple.

1. See if there were any stoats caught in the trap
2. Check the trap works by setting it off
3. Check and replace any bait
4. Reset the trap

In practise it was anything but simple. For one thing each box had not one but 2 traps in it (to try to catch a stoat or rat which would come in to feed on the first one caught!) The second thing about these traps are that they are designed to snap a stoats spine in several places and as such are very strong - able to take a misplaced finger off with great ease.

To set the trap you had to pull back the mechanism using your fingers in such a way so that if it sprung by mistake it did not take your fingers with it. It required a lot of strength using your thumbs as leverage on the box. Once the first one was done you had to be doubly careful when doing the second one which was set up to spring in the opposite direction. In our group we each took it in turn to set the traps (except Sun) in order to give the others time to recover the feeling in their fingers from pulling the traps.


Checking the Traps


One dead Stoat


Which looks like its been grilled

Halfway through doing the traps we ran out of fresh bait to put in them so could not do any more. Instead we climbed up to the top of helicopter hill to look at the views on the valley below.

After coming back down from the hill we continued to check the traps but did not bother to reset them as we had no fresh bait. By the time we got back to the centre we had found 4 traps with stoats in them out of about 60 checked traps. I am not sure if this is a good or bad tally - but at least the traps are working.

Wednesday night was my turn to cook. This time I decided to make an old Irish recipe - sausages and champ! It was quite weird what happened - I did all the preparation for the champ by peeling the spuds and chopped the spring onions then started boiling the spuds. Sam had volunteered to make his special gravy but had to do a vegetarian version as both Kate and Lisa did not eat meat.

The spuds were half boiled when I started grilling the sausages (Lisa and Kate had veggie burgers). Then I boiled the spring onions in some milk (as per recipe I hunted off the internet!) The spuds were ready to be mashed which I managed to get Brecht to do. In the end I ended up doing nothing! Sam was feverously working on his gravy (which was not ready) and Brecht was frantically mashing the potatoes. All I had to do was watch and turn the sausages - It was great.

The meal went rather well (even though I say so myself) I am not sure what the Koreans made of my champ as they had probably never tasted it before. After dinner two cakes were produced as we celebrated Obama officially becoming President of the USA (rather strange as none of us were actually Americans) I did the usual thing of drinking my beer outside on the porch.


Thursday 22nd Jan
Back to the pines. This time we started on another part of the valley which had a lot more trees in it.

Heres the before and after pictures.


Before


After - only another million or so to go!

The sun was belting down by this stage which made the work all the more tiring. We did manage to get a good bit down however although we did give up quite soon after lunch – it was just too hot!

Friday 23rd Jan
On our last day we tidied up the education centre and once Ray came back to take back the keys we made our way back to Christchurch.

It was there we said our goodbyes. Lisa, Karl, Kate and Sophie were all heading back to the North Island to continue with volunteering. Lukas was heading home to Germany. Me, Brecht, Sun and Karl were all staying in Base that night. Brecht was going to be heading back to Punakeiki on Monday with Sam to continue on that project.

All in all I am really glad I did the volunteering. I learnt a lot about what is happening in New Zealand in terms of conservation and met a lot of great people. The only criticism I would make is that I would have liked to see a proper plan for the pine eradication - I just got the feeling we were like sourcer's apprentices chopping up broomsticks only to see twice as many take their place - it was very disheartening. Still it’s a good reason to come back to New Zealand to see how things have gone.


Things I have learnt:/
Communications

Belgium is a funny country. Its made up of two sets of people who seem to have nothing in common and speak totally different languages and yet seem to get on reasonably well. Brecht is a Flem and can’t speak much French and Sophie is a Walloon and can’t speak hardly any Flemish.

Through out the two weeks when we travelled on the mini bus I sat between them and used my diplomatic powers to mediate between them (ok I stuck my oar in when ever I could – as in telling them about the Belgium sketch on Not the nine o’clock news which nobody knew about – young whippersnappers) I tried looking it up on Facebook but could not find it.

Sophie had problems understanding a word I said anyway (nothing new there).

Eg when I said the word Outside to her she thought I was saying something in Flemish like Ouut-Sede.

Mind you it wasn’t just me she did not understand. While listening to her Shrek 3 sound track she asked me to explain what they were saying in a certain song.

It sounds like ‘She is high’ or ‘Cheesy Buy’ She said – I do not understand.
I had a listen and was soon able to put her right – he is saying ‘It is I’

One intellectual conversation I had with the two Belgium’s (what are they called!) concerned how to say bands which have numbers in their names.

Eg Blink 182 would be said as Blink One-Eight-Two in English

But how would you say in French? Sophie said she called them Blink Cent Quatre-Vingt Deux but I argued that that translates as Blink One-hundred and eighty-two not blink 182. Apparently in Flemish its blink hondert en tween tachtig. Yes intellectual conversations indeed!

Animals I have seen:
Rifleman – Craigieburn 19th Jan
Bellbird – Craigieburn 19th Jan
Tomtit – Craigieburn 20th Jan

Tomtit

Facebook pics

Conservation Volunteers NZ - Week 1, New Zealand

For the two weeks from 12th – 23rd Jan I was booked in to do more conservation work this time for conservation volunteers New Zealand which is basically a recently formed arm of Conservation volunteers Australia and has only really been in operation for the last two years.

I learned later that the organisation had only recently – as in the start of December, started projects in the South Island. The North Island is where they had been doing most of their work.

Mon 12th Jan

I had to be ready to be picked up at 7:30 that morning and so was outside with all my stuff for 7:20. If there were other people doing the same volunteer work then they should have gotten the same 3 nights accommodation as me and should have been waiting outside as well. There were some people including some quite cute girls but they ALL got shuttles and buses so I was left there on my own (bugger!). I was beginning to think my worst nightmare would come true and it would only be me on the trip.

At around 8pm Sam our team leader turned up and introduced himself to me. There were in fact two other people also waiting – a Korean couple called Karl and Sun (easy to pronounce thank good!) so there were at least going to be 3 of us. We put our stuff in the bus and then Sam dropped a minor bomb shell in telling us that he had to pick up another volunteer from the airport at 12:30 so would not actually be leaving until after 11:30. We were given the option of staying and doing our own thing or coming with Sam to pot around the botanic gardens etc. As I had seen them before I decided to have the time to myself and went and had some breakfast before going to the library for more free internet time.

Finally we were on our way via the airport were we picked up Brecht, a Belgium from the Flemish part of the country. ( I should point out that any attempt at proper pronunciation of his name requires spitting out your tonsils! ) Then we were on our way to the other side of the island where we would be working.

The journey there was split up by several stops on our way through Arthur’s Pass. The scenery was amazing and would have looked even better in springtime when there would be more snow on the mountain tops.

We stopped for some lunch at Kura Tawhiti Scenic Reserve - an area of impressive limestone rock outcrops from the mountain side. You are all probably getting fed up with me putting pics of rocks on this blog so I will do another link to the facebook if you want to have a look at the pics! (to be honest my photos do not do the place justice – I bet it would be a lot better at sunset!)

Then it was through Arthur’s Pass (more pics on facebook)

We did another food stop at the town were we got our first look at the cheeky Kea parrots including this sorry looking thing with only one leg! I nicknamed him Long John Silver – because he’s a one legged parrot (parrot / pirate - geddit? Suit yourself!)



Having only one leg didn’t seem to stop him stealing food at every opportunity he could get!

On again past the Otiga Viaduct where we watched some mountain bikers slogging their hearts out to climb up the valley (suckers!).

Eventually we arrived at our volunteer house in Punakaiki (see Glossary update) where I was introduced to the other volunteers who had already been there from the previous week.

I think its best to do pics as I introduce the gang (even though these pics were taken the following week!)


Lisa from Newcastle, England


Kate from Leeds, England


Brecht the Flem!


Sophie complete with built-in earphones - also from Belgium but from the French speaking part


Karl from Lancashire, England


Lukas from Germany - in one of his rare awake moments


Sun and Karl from Korea


And finally Sam are volunteer coordinator who was from England.


Of course everyone with the exception of Sam was half my age so I naturally thought this was going to be crap – fortunately it wasn’t.

Another member of the team Dave the project manager was arriving later on and I was told two interesting things about him.

1. It was his birthday that day – 55 years old and
2. He looks like the Movie star Will Farrell! (I do not have a photo – will nick one off one of the others off facebook when I get a chance)

Another thing I was told was that no Alcohol was allowed in the Volunteer centre due to insurance issues (aaagh!) Thankfully you could drink outside or at a local pub which just happened to be 100 yards away from the house – happy days!

As soon as Dave arrived and the others produced surprise birthday cakes it was off to the pub for some drinks to celebrate. We played some games of Pool and also watched as Kate and Karl played the longest game of darts I have ever witnessed in my life (double 1 finale which Kate eventually won!) before heading back to the house for our first nights sleep.

Unfortunately as I was one of the last to arrive I was stuck with a top bunk for the week – great!

Glossary Update:

As well as normal English place names in New Zealand there are also Maori names which have their own meaning. They all seem to have rather a lot of P’s K’s T’s U’s and O’s, and I was constantly making a mess of saying every single one!

P:
Punakaiki – Pun-a-Ky-kee. Maori - from puna (spring) and kaiki or kaika (lie in a heap).

Various attempts by me to say it included:
Pocohontas, Puky-kaikee, puny-kacky and Punaranium

I did eventually get it right (I think!)

Beers I have drunk

Monteiths Celtic – very nice ale!

Tuesday 13th Jan

Our first work day started with some Gorse bashing – oh joy! For anyone who does not know what Gorse is it’s a type of bush from Europe which has extremely prickly branches!

First we were given a bit of a introduction to the project we were going to be working on which I think deserves mentioning here.

The place we would be working on was originally farmland hallmarked as a mining operation by rio tinto which is one of the largest mining companies in the world. What they were supposed to be mining was the mineral ilmenite which, we were told was used in the production of poison gas in WWI! They decided against actually mining it and gave it over to DOC (Department of Conservation) for developing back into a natural habitat (probably not a big market for poison gas anymore).

The project was going to take 10 years in total and CVNZ volunteers would be helping DOC in doing some of the finer work such as what we would be doing on the first day – removing Gorse from along a stream to let the native plants grow back. The project had literally only just started so we were doing some of the very first work carried out.

But the real benefit of this site is because in the hills at the back happens to be the ONLY nesting site in the world of the Westland Petrel:

Rather than bore you with the details of it here is a link just in case you are interested:

Featured animal: Westland Petrel: (Maori Name Taiko)

Because this site will be placed back to native habitat it will ensure the continued survival of the nesting site as the place could have been a prime candidate for construction of houses which could have disturbed the birds.

For most of the morning and afternoon we slogged away at the gorse concentrating on one side of the stream’s bank. Another good thing about being at the start of a project is the tools are new – I had the pleasure of using a large ratchet lopper which is probably the best thing since sliced bread for dealing with things like gorse (I want one for back home for helping CV Fingal!)

That night after tea Dave took a group of us in the minibus to Bullock creek for a walk down to the creek itself. He drove us up through an impressive gorge before we walked the rest of the way there which took about 40 minutes – only to find that the creek was dry. Well dry is not exactly the right term. There was water but the whole area was made of limestone complete with caves and underground rivers. Apparently Bullock creek had recently diverted underground – so no river.

Another thing about Bullock creek is that it is the scene of a terrible tragedy. In 1995 14 children on a school outing fell to their deaths from a viewing platform that gave way. Here is some info and the plaque in their memory.
InfoPlaque


Wednesday 14th Jan

At the start of the day we continued our gorse bashing until we were rudely interrupted by a very large cow that had somehow gotten on the property and decided to chase us out of the field!


One very big and angry cow!

After morning tea our guest Rueban arrived. There is Blue penguin colony on up the coast from Punakaikia and on Rueban who is involved with the colony was supposed to show us how to make nesting tunnels for the birds.

However when he arrived with all his gear etc and we looked at the plans it soon became apparent that we were not making nesting boxes but stoat traps!

Things I have learnt:

Some people may be shocked to see conservationist's building traps to kill animals but here in New Zealand stoats, rats and especially possums are a big problem. They are not native animals and compete with or kill the indigenous bird life which has already caused several species to go extinct.

In fact I learnt that New Zealand is one of those weird places where you are encouraged to hunt – to misquote a phrase from animal farm ‘two legs good, four legs bad’. Basically if it’s a wild mammal then kill it with the blessing of the DOC.

Reuban showed us a stoat pelt before we got to work on building the traps. We were soon beavering away but ran out of nails and had to stop and return to the gorse bashing – once Sam had gotten rid of the cow!


One very dead stoat!


One very alive cow being chased away by Sam

That night it was my turn to cook and I decided to make some chilli. Things did not quite go according to plan and I managed to burn the rice before getting it right at the second attempt!

Thursday 15th Jan
More Gorse bashing only this time in a different area around a pond.


DM Thinks he can steal my Loppers but I know better!


Just one more squeeze and I will be free forever HA HA HA - who said that?

After lunch we changed from gorse bashing to bamboo bashing before finishing early so that Sam could take us to see the pancake rocks.

Punakeiki is famous for having strange groups of rocks which are supposed to look as if they are stacks of pancakes. The place also has blowholes which are best seen at high tide on particular days. Thursday afternoon was supposed to be the best time to see the blowholes that week.

Although the rocks were unusual the lack of any weather (the blowholes are best in stormy seas) meant that the blowholes were quite tame in their spouts. Still it was a very interesting place. (more pics on facebook) I seen some interesting animals including this: Its called a hokey cokey – very rare – only one in existence!



After tea I went on a walk up the river path trying (unsuccessfully) to take photos of the amazing gorge and its plant life. The West coast of New Zealand is one of the wettest places on earth and as a result the mountainsides are covered in lush vegetation except that this vegetation looks as if it should have dinosaurs eating it. The whole area has a prehistoric look to it which is totally amazing to see. Anyone who says that New Zealand reminds them of the mountains of Ireland or Scotland needs their head examined. It is a totally different world!

Beers I have drank:

Me, Sam and Brecht went for a couple of pints in the bar that night where I tried the following:
Monteith’s Dark Ale: Even nicer than the celtic – almost a stout.
Monteith’s Summer Ale (bottle) A very sweet beer with honey and ginger – not sure about it – a bit too fruity!

Friday 16th Jan
Our last day of working in Punakeiki involved looking for seeds from the native Kowhai tree which would be propagated and then planted as seedlings later on in the year. In order to get there we had to pass a herd of cows and duck under some electric fences. I resisted the temptation to see how many volts went through the fence – I still remember my run in with the electric fence at the monkey sanctuary in South Africa!

After lunch we went to Greymouth to get provisions. I made sure I got proper provisions – 6 pack of Mac’s sassy red – yum yum. It was Sophie’s birthday today and after tea (which she insisted on cooking) and surprise cakes we went to the beach to make a fire from driftwood while having a few bevies to celebrate.


Sophie blowing out her birthday candles

You are not allowed to drink in the volunteer house – doesn’t stop you drinking OUTSIDE though – except it meant going in and out of the house to partake!



Drinking on porch outside - NOT inside!


Beach fire


Beers I have drank:
Mac’s Sassy red:

Macs Gold lager

Sat 17th Jan

It was just as well that we had Sophie’s beach party on Friday night as on Saturday and for most of the weekend it lashed out of the heavens! Saturday was spent inside trying not to bored stiff. I could now see how the area has such a rain forest.

Luckily the rain let up for a while - just long enough to go with Sam to a nearby beach to get some photos of a fantastic sunset.

Sun 18th Jan

Sunday was just as bad as Saturday – Rain, Rain and more rain. It did manage to brighten up just long enough for me to go back to the pancake rocks and see a much better blowhole display:





Check out the following Facebook link for other pics:

CVNZ Week 1

Animals I have seen:

New Zealand Harrier – Punekeiki - 13th Jan
New Zealnd Falcon – Punekeiki 13th Jan
Unlike other countries New Zealand does not have many types of birds of prey so I can be pretty sure that these are what I seen while doing the gorse bashing.
New Zealand Pigeon – Punekeiki 13th Jan – a massive bird – the second largest pigeon in the world
Tui – Bullock creek 13th Jan, A fantastic songster bird
New Zealand Robin – Bullock creek 13th Jan. When I seen this rather drab bird I commented on our robin being much more colourful. He must have heard what I said as it darted out of the bush right at me!
Pied shag – Pancake rocks 15th Jan
White-fronted tern – Pancake rocks 15th Jan

And last but not least the weka which I first seen on my first days gorse bashing.



The weka is a flightless bird which unlike the nocturnal and shy kiwi is as bold as they come and will readily come out in the open and near humans as if they don’t exist. It got to the point that I got fed up finding that every rustle in a bush ended up being a bleeding weka!