Flat Tires

First day off….and it's raining. But that's ok because not waking up until 9am felt like an accomplishment. In terms of meals, days off are a bit different. Steph and Joy left us a list of ingredients and where they were located. The rest was up to us. Everyone decided to pitch in and create various stations: eggs anyway you wanted, juicer from fresh fruit, local bread for toast and oatmeal. As usual, breakfast was delicious.

After breakfast, Mary and I were on a mission to figure out what to do on this rainy day that didn't involve being inside. We found an add for Miranda's Bird Sanctuary that was 10km away from campus and decided to ride bikes there. Rounding up the troops, only two additional students wanted to come. It was raining after all, so I didn't blame the others. After singing out, gathering our gear (helmets and bike locks) and grabbing the bikes, Mary, Erin, Hannah and I were off. Not far from campus, we saw two baby sheep. One had a green collar while the other purple. They were the guard dogs of the house; we could hear them "bahhing" from a mile away. About 3km from campus, we passed the Pink Shop. Apparently, the Pink Shop will act as our mini grocery/convenient store. 5km into the bike ride, there was a "pop." Erin ran over a piece of glass and her rear tire was flat within seconds.

As a group, we decided to head back to campus and save the birds for another, preferably sunnier, day. On the way back, we took a side journey up a hill off of the main road. When we got to the top, the view was incredible. We could see the main street below us, the Firth of Thames and all of Thames across the bay. While itching to explore more, we came across 2 bulls. They weren't so friendly, or photogenic for that matter, so we decided to head back towards campus, briefly stopping at the Pink Shop.

Arriving at campus, the rest of the students were crowding around something. For a moment, I thought something was wrong. Did someone get hurt? An animal? What was it? Then, between one of the students' legs came a baby sheep with a purple collar. Then another with a green collar. These were the same baby sheep that Mary, Erin, Hannah, and I saw on our earlier bike ride.

The caretakers of the sheep were also there. They explained that these sheep were only 6 weeks old, a boy and a girl (not brother and sister) and that they were their pets. The caretakers explained further that they would NOT be eating the sheep or selling them for such purposes. Rather, they would use their wool for clothing when the time was right. I was relieved, for it seems like many of the animals in this area have the purpose of satisfying humans.

For dinner, the majority of us walked downtown (5km away) to Kaiaua Fisheries, home of New Zealand's famous Fish and Chips. Will everything I eat here be delicious? It was the perfect portion of fish to fried. Walking back was not so fun. It was not only still raining, but it was now dark. While walking back, I remembered what I had read in this morning's paper: "Tomorrow (Monday) northern area targeted by remnants of northern cyclone. Prepare for all weather." So that's where this weather is coming from…

Which reminds me. Tomorrow is our first "field experience," as our mentors call it. Tomorrow afternoon, the 26 of us, along with a few mentors, will head up to the Hunua Range. If the weather is fair, we will be staying over night and heading back into campus on Tuesday. As nice as it has been to relax on campus and adjust to this new land, I am ecstatic about exploring somewhere else tomorrow! Our mentors warned us that this would happen. That we would be craving more, asking better questions, setting higher goals and learning new lessons.

So what did I learn today?
Flat tires are not always bad - they may just prevent you from missing something better than what was planned (like baby sheep).