Mt. Ruapehu

Hello everyone!! Sorry it’s been so long. We had essentially zero wifi during the last three weeks. I've been able to get online very briefly during the sporadic dinner in town but only to send “Proof of Life” texts to Mom, Dad and Jackie. So I have a lot to share, even to them. I'll pick up where I left off, and each post will be about a new location/module. Woot.

On January 23^rd we drove from Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty on the north east of the north island to Mt. Ruapehu in the center of the north island. On the way, we stopped near Rotorua and explored geothermal rocks / vents / pools. It was so cool.

~Close up~

bathroom at the geothermal place (@pa would like this. sign hunt continues)

WOW!

We continued on our merry way towards Mt. Ruapehu but soon it became obvious that we were entering a massive hailstorm.

We’ve since described this as “the night of the Sideways Rain.” We could only see several feet in any direction and we had to hike up what was basically a rocky cliff to get inside our lodge, but once we did it was so nice and cozy. There were two lodges, and the instructors were staying in the lower lodge, so every time we had things to do we had to bare the sideways rain and go on a mini hike. We loved it there!!

Sarah in the Sideways Rain

Caroline in the Sideways Rain

(High visibility vests are weirdly a big thing in New Zealand. We thought it was funny that our trip leaders gave them to us for field work in the bush, but then we noticed that a lot of Kiwis will wear high vis vests while biking or just doing things even if they aren't directing traffic or doing construction work. Tourist shops sell them too. So maybe they are trendy here??? TBD.)

Our lodge was full of games, cards and puzzles, so we had a lot of fun staying up and drinking hot cocoa and tea and playing around. I learned how to play poker!! SWAG!

Weather was bad the following day (more Sideways Rain) so we stayed inside and learned about tectonics and volcanism, quite relevant as we were staying on an active volcano. A new instructor came and gave us surveys to decide our roles for a hazard simulation. (It’s a bit much to explain here but my friends and I successfully advocated for better gender representation in the assigned roles and I helped lead a very productive conversation about women in science, socialization of genders, and skewed surveys!! This was the same day as the march on Washington in the U.S. so this was like our mini march on Mt. Ruapehu.)

It began to clear up in the afternoon so we went to a pool heated by geothermal energy. It looked exactly like a regular swimming pool except the water was nice and warm, so I didn't take any photos. By dinnertime, the weather was REALLY clearing up. We could finally get a good view of where we were staying and the mountain was an entirely different world. Jagged rocks everywhere with beautiful moss and GAH the snow-capped volcano in the background made it all so majestic. We just climbed around our lodge for a while after dinner, amazed that this landscape had been here the whole time.

WEEEEEEE!

I feel like @mom would like this

Children spotted playin' on the world's greatest play spot

THIS VIEW!! WHO KNEW

Later that night, one of my friends Caroline organized a game of “salad bowl,” which is like a hybrid of taboo, charades, and more, on steroids. SO fun and would be great with @schodack @wustl and @edgemont friends.

Salad bowl in action

A salad bowl "bonus round" suggested by Jack. DM for a better explanation.

The next day we did some sketching of outcrops, went on an hour and a half hike to see some different types of rocks from different types of lava flows, and saw a pretty waterfall. I forgot my phone that day!! SORRY!!!!! Anyways, these pictures would pale in comparison to those from the Tongariro Crossing, which we did two days later, and you will see shortly. After dinner we prepped for the Volcanic Hazard Simulation we’d be doing the next day and did a homework assignment, plus some more games and puzzles. :P

The next day was the Hazard Simulation. Our instructors made it feel pretty realistic. We were all assigned specific jobs on specific teams. I was a media person for the geologists so I wrote press releases and prepped the leaders for speaking during “press conferences.” It was kinda stressful but in a fun way and lasted about 6 hours (!!!). Later we learned from our leader Dan, who is Maori, about the indigenous stories about the volcanoes in our region (the same volcanoes we were dealing with in the Hazard Simulation and the same ones we would hike the next day). More card games after dinner. Good day.

We hiked the Tongariro Crossing the following day (the 26^th). This was INCREDIBLE. Best hike of my young life, hands down. It was about 19km and took around 7.5 hours including lunch and pee breaks. It began on hot flat ground beneath the volcano but very quickly the air cooled down and we heated up as we hiked LITERALLY THROUGH CLOUDS to the tops of these mountain/volcanoes and then crossed between them. We saw craters and crater lakes and GAH the view was the best I’ve ever seen. At some points of the hike there was ice and rope to hold or it was so steep you just slid down but it was not even scary!!! It was just plain beautiful.

Ingrid, with Mt. Ruapehu in the background at the beginning of the hike. (Mt. Ruapehu is where we were staying.)

ACTUALLY THROUGH CLOUDS

Sweaty selfie pause

AMAZING!!!!!! Mt. Doom to the right. Red crater in front.

Me on a ledge overlooking crater pools!!! They were such beautiful colors!!

Hike down was 4 out of the 7 hours and included this fun zone ^^

Scene at the end as people wait to be picked up. POOPED!

Our leaders cooked us a Mexican feast that night (we obviously destroyed it) and then we had an end-of-module celebratory fiesta in the lodge. Later that night we stargazed on the mountain, which was truly spectacular. So many stars!!!!!

Module 2 on the mountain really solidified the bonds between the 26 of us. I love them all so much!!

On to Module 3 and 4….. (it may take a while for me to post these next few too. Blame the internet not me!!!!)

xxx Jules

Goodbye to Whakatane

Hi everyone! It's 4:30 pm on Saturday and we've finished up our last full day of module 1 in Whakatane. Tomorrow morning we drive out to Mt. Ruapehu, a volcano, where we'll be staying for five days. PSA they have no wifi. Soooooo, what have I been up to since we were identifying barnacles you ask? I'll pick up where I left off on Tuesday.

We took an evening swim and after dinner we went over NZ geography plus some basics about their political system. Most interesting: there is legislation in the Treaty of Waitangi (New Zealand's founding document) that requires deference to Maori when it comes to environmental concerns. It hasn't been followed throughout history, but recently that law is getting more attention. Aside from that fact, their political system seems to be much more representative than ours and its a multi-party system. (hits home amirite?!)

The next day we went into the bush FOR REAL! We measured biodiversity around a stream in Matata, a nearby town where there had been a lahar, or watery rock-slide, about ten years ago. Frontiers Abroad students have been measuring biodiversity at this location ever since the lahar occurred. The measuring was slow-going because we are not experts on the plants in the area so the identification took a while, but it was fun to be hiking through the water. There were no trails in there, so we mostly waded through the stream for the path of least resistance.

Me and Sarah

Fashion! Bill Cunningham status!

Me, Jack, and Luke (New Friends)

We had an amazing evening seminar about science and indigenous knowledge. This has been SO interesting, since I didn't know much (or really anything) about polynesian culture and history before this trip. We've had a few more seminars since, and they are consistently eye-opening. I could say a lot more about this but not enough time!!!

Yesterday, we weren't quite sure what we'd be doing. Our trip leaders drove up to dam on the river, and when we got out of the vans we met a Maori man named Bill who has been single handedly protecting the eel population for the past 40 years. Our day's activity was then revealed:

baby eels in a bucket, leaving dangerous zone

During the migrating seasons, Bill has a system down where he physically moves eels to protect them from the dam. Eels are culturally significant to the Maori and an important part of the river ecosystem. Bill has been working very hard for a long time for their conservation but recently the hydropower company began to talk to him about engineering a solution so that he doesn't have to do it all himself. (This is very good because Bill is 80 years old. Not the most sustainable system.)

baby eels in a spout, entering safe zone

Calm Behind the Dam

After we helped him complete his daily task, we went to Bill's house where we met his wife and then he gave us a "lecture" of sorts about eels and history of the river and conservation efforts:

BILL IN ACTION!!!!!!

It was a bit too cold to swim yesterday (*tear*) but instead we walked to town and got Thai food. It was great.

Today, we revisited a lot of places we'd already been this past week, but this time our guide was Anthony, a local Maori and kaitaiki (guardian of environment/historical knowledge). He told us Maori stories about the land at each location. It was really different this second time around and more interesting now that we have all of this background knowledge about the earth system in the area and about Maori culture.

Now we are relaxing until dinner, and tomorrow morning we head to location 2. It's going to be much much colder there and it apparently snowed a few days ago :O.  I'll post again when I have wifi!

(update 10pm) I tried "hokey pokey" ice cream tonight, which is a kiwi favorite and includes butterscotch. Approved.


xx Jules

P.S. A couple of nights ago we watched another kiwi movie, "What We Do in the Shadows." I think @dad Roger Widmann and many more of you would enjoy. It was a mockumentary about these kiwi vampires who are pretty bad at being vampires, set in Wellington, NZ today.

P.P.S. SAD FOR AMERICA

Hi from Whakatane!

I'm writing from a courtyard in a Maori University in Whakatane, New Zealand. (Maori are of Polynesian ancestry and were the earliest settlers of New Zealand. Their language is also called Maori, and Whakatane is pronounced Fa-ka-tan-ee.) I've done so much in the past few days, but I'll start at the beginning:

@ihaveathingforskies

I arrived in Auckland about 24 hours before my program started, so I met up with my friends Sarah and Ingrid from Wash U. Sarah and her family had been traveling in NZ and Australia for a couple of weeks already, and Ingrid met up with them a couple of days before I did. I managed to sleep well on the second leg of my trip from LAX to AKL so I was actually awake and energetic when I got off the plane. I bought a SIM card and hopped in a cab to downtown Auckland to meet them.

We walked to the water from their hotel and went on a harbour cruise around noon. (My computer is trying to autocorrect harbour to harbor but I won't do it! This is the commonwealth! God save the Queen!) We got a great view of the city and the famous Sky tower, plus some neighboring islands. JUST LOOK HOW PRETTY:

We ate lunch on the water at this place called "Originals." I got a fish taco, delicious. Between lunch and dinner we organized ourselves for field camp the next day and rested. We ate dinner at "Odettes," which was actually so tasty and would be @infatuation approved I am SURE. After dinner Sarah, Ingrid and I went to this bar about a 15 minute walk from the hotel and I ordered my first ever legal drink! Hooray for legal drinking! I used my PASSPORT! Bless UP! We went home and right to sleep and then got up early the next morning to meet up with our group for field camp.

To clarify, I'm on a program called "Frontiers Abroad: Earth Systems." We are traveling around NZ while learning and doing environmental science, learning about the Maori, and New Zealand as a whole. It's amazing and will be a great introduction to the country before I start my school-semester in late February at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch.

On the first day of field camp we drove from the airport to this Maori University in Whakatane where we will be for the next 5 days or so. In their introductions, one of our "professors" told us that he knows we are learning if we are having fun. They just want us to have fun! They are so cool!!!! (Our professors are the ones who SHOW us where to cliff jump and swim!!) The professors will rotate in and out based on our location/their areas of focus, while our trip leader Max and our TA Olivia stay with us throughout. They are also so great.

We arrived in Whakatane on Sunday afternoon. Almost immediately after arrival, we drove 3 minutes down to the ocean to take a swim. It was a little chilly by that point in the evening and the waves were huge but that was not a problem.

HAPPY!!!!

Me, Sarah, and Ingrid. (WashU friends.) SO HAPPY!!!!!!!

On our drive to Whakatane we learned a Maori song to sing as part of the traditional Maori greeting, which commenced the next morning, on Monday (?? I am confused by days because I lost one when I traveled and also I haven't been paying attention). A lot of the ceremony was in Maori, but as it was explained to us, it was all about having their ancestors greet our ancestors and inform them that we were in good hands. Also their mountains and rivers greeted our mountains and rivers. All of it was very lovely. Then we greeted each and every one of the staff and faculty at this university which the traditional head touch greeting.

After lunch we went out on the field. We practiced sketching and taking field notes at Kohi Point and then at a road crop (slice of rock on the side of a highway where you can see all of the layers from volcanic eruptions), while learning the basics of the earth systems in the area.

View from Kohi Point ft. New Friend named Rafa.

Next we went on a hiking trail down by Ohape beach to practice identifying trees, tree ferns and palms.

me at mid-summit

After all this we went BACK TO THE BEACH! Apparently we will get to take a swim of some kind almost every day, which is simply the best. It was still sunny on Monday and the waves were calmer so we floated around for a bit. We came back for dinner, showers and then a movie called "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" for some "kiwi cultural education." It was HILARIOUS!!! I suggest it to you all. It just came out last year.

Sleeping Situation while in Whakatane! (plus sleeping bags. Beds have since separated for optimum quality of sleep)

Tuesday was another full day. We ate breakfast and packed lunches, and headed out the Tarawara Mountain and river. We hiked along a the river and waterfall and learned about how it formed after a natural dam burst, so the bush we were hiking through was fairly young. (New Zealanders call their native forest "the bush." They use "forest" to refer to planted trees, like the coniferous forests we saw while driving to our hike.) We hiked behind the waterfall to an unbelievably clear freshwater pool, where we swam, cliff jumped, and ate lunch.

Waterfall ft. New Friend named David

Serene Pool, Before Swamped By Everyone In My Program.

After our hike and swim we followed the river down past a paper mill, where timber from the coniferous forest is processed. Adjacent to the paper mill was a geothermal energy power plant. There we learned about New Zealand's resource management and renewable energy advancements.

Next we went to a cold spring, mostly to cool off and drink the sweet water, but also to compare the clear spring to the dark brown river just steps away, which had been polluted by illegal dumping from the paper mill. New Zealand has problems too! (But much fewer problems, not gonna lie.)

Peep volcano in the background

We went into "town" for dinner - I ate some Sri Lankan curry at this place called Babinka's - and went to bed soon after because today, Wednesday, we woke up at 5 AM IN THE MORNING!

I didn't mind because of this stunning view:

Front of the Maori university

And because the reason for our early wakeup was to catch the low tide to collect data about the biodiversity of the rocky coast. We watched the sunrise as we hiked up and over a cliff to reach the rocks (a hike I would describe as Masada x 2) and spent the morning identifying barnacles, snails, algae, whelk species, and much more.

As the tide began to come in, we hiked back over the cliff and came back to our home base. We've had free time since. Most of us used it to complete our first assignments. (Yes I have some actual work too. We had to do a write up about the road crop and pyroclastic blasts, and organize our data we collected this morning on the rocky coast. But there are only 26 of us and we did it all together while listening to the Killers, sooooo I would still say that I am living my best life.)

"Class" ft. Me and New Friend named Maddy

Everyone on the program is so nice and and happy to be here. I think that New Zealand (and especially this type of program) attracts only good people.

In an hour we are going to the beach to get our swim in for the day, and after dinner we are learning more formally about NZ geography, culture and politics. I LOVE IT ALL!


xx Jules

P.S.  Here are some fun signs. I started collecting for Pa (Warren Widmann) but maybe I am just turning in to him.

 


P.P.S. we are sad from across the world about the inauguration and wish we could march in NYC/Washington :(

Test Post / ~1 month till go time

Hello hello just testing here.

This is a photo from the HBO series "Flight of the Conchords" that I recently discovered. It's about New Zealanders. Just tryna get in the spirit....