Hello! Welcome back!
I, along with all other students, spent the last week on the Wharekawa Harbour Spit in Opoutere, New Zealand. All students and staff members were awake by 4am on Tuesday morning in preparation for our departure to Opoutere. 26 students and 4 mentors had bags packed and organized in the vans, lunches made, food for the week placed in the large white trailer, and kayaks packed in the wired trailer by 6am. Needless to say, it was a crazy morning. Mentors that came along for this trip were Maree, Ric, John, and Rebekah. In order to get to Opoutere from Kaiaua (EcoQuest campus), students and staff drove 45 minutes to Thames and then an additional 70 minutes past the Pinnacles and through the hills of the Coromandel Peninsula. Though almost every student experienced car sickness by the time we arrived at the hostel, the landscape was quite the view. The hills were similar to those in Kaiaua except these ones were much taller and more jagged.
We arrived at the Opoutere Youth Hostel Association (YHA) around 10am. Mentors gave us a tour of the hostel and assigned our rooms. There were 4 rooms. The largest was an old school house that could sleep 12 people. I was not part of this room, but it acted as a great place to hang out as a team. There was also a fireplace inside, which was use every night. Connected to the school house by a boardwalk were the bathrooms, remaining cabins, and kitchen house. I stayed in one of the rooms within the kitchen house with Emily, Lauren, and Kyle. Inside the kitchen house, there was also a large dining room and a lounge with a pellet stove (also used every night).
After everyone was settled, we packed our lunch and went out for what our mentors called a "surprise." We walked down the driveway of our hostel and along the main road for a while. The main road was barely a road at all. There were few houses and many bamboo and palm trees. After some time, the group veered off the road to a forest path. Eventually, we hit a wooden bridge that welcomed us to "Wharekawa Harbour Spit, Opoutere, New Zealand." Ok. Spit. Meaning beach. So where is the sand? Looking across the bridge, all I could see were mangroves and pine trees. We continued on the forest path for another 5 minutes until we finally hit sand. I immediately took my shoes off and felt the sand between my toes. So soft and warm. It felt just like summer. As we kept walking, I noticed that the trees were growing shorter and shorter. Not long after, there was a clearing and then I saw it. The most beautiful beach I have ever seen in my entire life. The sand was pure white with white shells and the water was the most wonderful shade of teal blue. White waves broke not too far off the shoreline. To the left and right of the horizon were mountainous islands. What a view to see in person.
The mentors mentioned that we had 2 hours on the beach to eat lunch, explore, and do whatever else we wanted to do in the area. My close friends (Emily, Lauren, Mary and Hannah) and I ran to the waterline and felt the ocean. Not as cold as I thought it would be, but still fairly chilly. Within moments, I was excessively hot; I remembered Maree mentioning that it only takes 8 minutes to burn in the New Zealand sun. 8 MINUTES! That's crazy. The heat felt so warm and welcoming on my face. This was a feeling that I definitely missed this summer while in Sweden.
When our 2 hours were up, the mentors gathered everyone up and we headed back to the hostel. At the hostel, John divided the students into 2 groups: the first would head up the Pā site with John behind the hostel and the second would head down to the estuary with Ric to work on transects. I went down to the estuary first.
The transect clan followed Ric down the bridge near the beach. The tide was clearly out, which you could see and smell. Ric told us to divide into groups of 2-3. He then gave us our assignment: complete a vegetation profile based off of a floodplain transect. I have done this before in my Techniques class. This was a very tedious but important project.
In addition to simply looking at the view, John handed each of us an assignment that would be due later in the week. The assignment focused on drawing in a vegetation guide to a preexisting map of the Wharekawa Harbour estuary.
Before dinner, the mentors brought us into our lounge, lit the pellet stove, and gave us our weekly oral presentation groups and assignments. Every week, we will be split into groups of 4-5 with a designated group leader. Each group will be given a certain topic with general questions and associated reading material. At the end of the week, the group leader will present the acquired information to the rest of the students and mentors. This week, my group focused on riparian zones, where Jack was our leader.
The rest of the night was ours to do as we wished. Some people walked down to the beach in the dark to star gaze while others (including myself) made a large thermos of hot chocolate and told stories while creating a hair-braiding train.
The focus of Wednesday was to start working on assigned readings. Each group had until after lunch to do as they pleased with their time. After lunch, everyone reconvened and we all took a walk along the estuary. The tide was out so the mentors decided it would be fun to trample through 2 feet of mud. The smell was the worst part. Some few hundred feet later, we reached the sand spit on the other side of the estuary. Over near the sand spit, Maree informed us of dotterels, native birds to New Zealand. These coastline birds have had drastic decreases in population due to high rates of predation and human disturbance. My favorite piece of information that was given to us: dotterel chicks hatch the size of a bumble bee. Cut. It. Out. So cute. I really want one.
After lunch, Ric gave a lecture on current issues in the Wharekawa estuary, such as accelerated sedimentation rates through forestry. The rest of the night was ours, but most of us ended up working on the large project that we have due next week.
Thursday was a great day…. other than the fact that it poured. Part of the weeks program was to kayak out into the estuary at high tide and get a close up view of the surrounding vegetation. In order to kayak at high tide, we were up and at the boat launch at 4:30am. We were early birds with lots of coffee. We spent the next few hours in minimal sunlight and pouring rain exploring all corners of the estuary. As cold and wet as it was, this was definitely one of my favorite educational experiences that I have had this far. Learning in a kayak along an estuary is not a bad way to have a lecture. The rest of the day was left to the groups to finish any additional work for Friday's oral presentations. Around 10pm, most everyone gave up with trying to learn/study/read/write. So my group decided that we were going to give everyone a spirit animal. We snuck a white board from the study room and began to write everyone's name down with their spirit animal next to it. I was given the otter because I am playful and spontaneous. I would have settled for "because you like to swim," but that works too.
We moved out of the hostel the next morning. Lunches were made, bags were packed, rooms and living areas were cleaned, vans were filled, and kayaks were loaded onto the vans by 8am. We drove down the street to a local school house for oral presentations. Topics that were covered throughout the presentations included: riparian zone (my group), environmental awareness, mangroves, and public survey sufficiency. The presentations came out great and were extremely informative! The mentors were very proud of us students for exceeding their expectation level. This was a great feeling!
After the presentations, it was time to head home. Technically, I, along with a few others, were signed up to adventure deeper into the Coromandel Penninsual and camp for the remainder of the weekend. But looking at the forecast, we decided to head back to campus this weekend and lay low. I was originally sad that I wouldn't be exploring but not anymore. Emily, Megan, Erin and I are sitting in Grannie's all warm and cuddly while watching the Jurrassic Park series. As I sit here writing this post, all I can here is the sound of the rain POURING on the roof. I can tell that I have made the right decision to come home and hopefully be able to squeeze in a dry hike on Sunday. Wet tents are never any fun.
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