Tamping the beaches and the bush

Erik’s nature logic part 1: Cities=smog, mountains=fresh air, therefore weekends=population movement out of cities and into the mountains.  This is just as true in Anchorage and the Chugach Mountains as in Auckland and its local range, the Waitakeres (called the Wai-taks for short).  The Waitakeres lie on the western edge of Auckland City, and whatever they lack in vertical rise they make up for dense vegetation and variety of plant species.  Tramping in many places in New Zealand is truly like stepping into the rainforest (minus the tigers) I have found.  All the necessary elements are there—dense green vegetation, plentiful undergrowth, boisterous birds, and wet soil.  In fact, I don’t think there is ever a time you can go tramping in the Waitaks without getting muddy boots.  Must be a law… the law of the jungle?  Well at least jungle tramping.

On Saturday the 17^th of October, I took my car out for its first outing to Karekare Beach, where three friends and I set off on a tramp into the Waitaks.  The tramp began on the beach, passed over a few wetlands, then ascended into the mountains.  The weather forecast had been miserable calling for thunderstorms, but three months in country had taught me, don’t trust the Auckland weather forecast, and I’m glad I didn’t as it turned out to be a beautiful day.  We hiked up some muddy slopes and through the clear blue creeks (I haven’t been on a tramp yet where your boots stay dry—a stark difference from Alaska).  If you’re interested in the route simply click the map link on the right or scroll to the bottom of the blog where I have embedded by adventure map.  On Sunday I returned to the Waitakeres with a larger group from the uni tramping club to hike the Te Henge track, which follows along the coast going north from Piha.  It was absolutely gorgeous, as the photos below attest.  This is certainly a tramp I would recommend to anyone looking for a good day trip in the Waitaks.  At the end of the day we went down to the beach and I found both a natural bathtub carved into the rock and a quicksand pit.  (To see more photos click here.)

Over the week I have been staying busy working on my thesis and cooking tasty meals (or going over to my friends when they are cooking tasty meals).  I’ve now got a pretty mean chicken curry recipe down and the salmon stir fry is also quasi-gourmet.  Unfortunately, a number of my international friends are leaving soon, including Marcel, who flies back to Germany on Saturday.  I promised that I would go visit him in Landsberg however and he is very keen on coming to Alaska sometime.  This is part of what the ambassadorial scholarship program is all about—making friends for life. 

My Rotary presentations have also been taking off and in the past two weeks I have spoken to four different Rotary clubs and at the District Rotary Foundation Seminar.  The presentations seem to be quite well received and I always get a number of intriguing questions at the end, which I thoroughly enjoy.  One of the presentations I held last week was to my sponsoring Rotary Club from Eagle River.  Arranging a presentation via Skype and Powerpoint was quite an undertaking, but with the help of club president Pete Mulcahy (a former Signal Corps Officer) things worked out quite well.  Technology truly is rapidly changing the way we communicate.

Last weekend I signed up for the uni tramping club’s advanced bush skool, which was held in the Kaimai Range south-east of Auckland.  The dozen or so participants (generally the more experienced members of the tramping club) were broken up into three teams and left to supply themselves with everything they needed.  In my case that meant bringing fruit salad, rice pudding, and cake along with all my other tramping gear.  Boy did we have a delicious dessert!  We arrived latish Friday night and tramped through the dark to our first campsite, then woke up a few short hours later to work on navigation and “bush bashing” techniques—the NZ equivalent of what dad calls “the alder thrash.”  Well I must say, the kiwi bush is a little more tricky than Alaskan alder, namely due to a vine called “supple-jack”, which has surprisingly tasty buds, and will catch onto anything and everything you wear.  Off-track bashing a short 2 km downhill took our group a good four hours, to give you an idea of what it was like.  We got back a little late Saturday night again (10 hour tramp) and set up a bivouac under a lattice of sticks and ferns, which did the job (granted it did not rain).  On Sunday we hiked out and practiced stream-crossings and pack floating in Karangahake Gorge before heading back to Auckland exhausted from another great weekend.

Finding a wagon and learning to raft guide

Buying a car can be stressful!  I learned this two weeks ago when searching all over Auckland and cyberspace for the perfect set of wheels.  Using three major selection criteria—reliability, affordability, and capacity to carry lots of gear—I decided I was best off getting a station wagon.  After attending the local car auction—read: high stress purchasing experience—and placing an unsuccessful bid on an Opel Astra, I decided more research was required.  Since I had purchased some ski gear previously on trademe (the kiwi version of eBay) I decided to start there.  The only problem was how to go check out the car and make sure it was operationally sound.  The best option presented itself by attending the Ellerslie Carfair, which draws hundreds of buyers and sellers, and allows you to have the car checked out by mechanics on scene.  The only problem was that the carfair is on Sunday and, as you know, I generally like to get out of Auckland on the weekend.  Well, that weekend I stuck around and it paid off.  My Rotary counselor Paul Monk kindly met me at the fair and we together checked out a ’98 Mazda Cappella, which I was interested in.  We took it for a test drive and it ran smooth, so I offered to pay cash on the spot and got the price lowered a few hundred dollars.  As a result, I have a nice car to go exploring New Zealand this summer (and on the weekends too)—see pictures below.

Between research for my thesis, a geovisulation project I am working on, and involvement in various outdoor clubs and Rotary, I have been staying busy.  The research is going well, though obtaining GIS data from government agencies (particularly the Auckland Regional Council) is proving to be a sticky issue.  I’ve been reading lots of interesting articles and thinking through ways to generate and analyze traffic models, which should prove useful.  In addition to my thesis, I am auditing a geovisualization class, which requires students to create their own project relating to visualizing spatial information.  I chose to gauge perceptions of Auckland’s ethnic diversity by mapping census data and deriving diversity levels throughout the Auckland Region.  I then altered cartographic variables in ArcGIS (classification scheme, color, and aggregation level) to generate multiple maps a basis for comparison, from which I created an online survey.  To get the data I wanted on perceptions I made a big push to get the survey out and ended up maxing out the web host’s limit of 100 responses, which I am satisfied with.  Now I’ve been going through analyzing the results, which I will present in class.

The past few weeks have been lively for my Rotary involvement.  I’ve now finalized my presentation schedule, which has me traveling all over the Auckland Region over the next few months to speak with Rotarians.  In my presentations I speak about the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar program, my background, Rotary District 5010, and my master’s thesis topic.   My first few presentations to the Rotary Club of Newmarket (my host Rotary Club) and the Mt. Roskill Rotary Club have gone very well and I am looking forward to the upcoming engagements as well.

Over the past two weeks, the canoe club (a misnomer as everyone in the club seems to kayak or raft) put on a raft guiding course to teach members how to be competent raft guides with the club’s two new boats.  The course was run by Dave, a club member from Tasmania who has worked as a certified raft guide in both Australia and Canada.  We did two evenings of theoretical training before hitting the water this past weekend and putting our skills to use.  We rafted two sections of the Rangitaiki River, first an easy grade II section on Saturday, followed by a far more exciting grade III/IV section on Sunday.  Amazingly we did not lose anyone out of our rafts on any of the rapids, so we had to set up staged rescue scenarios.  All ten of us taking the course had a great time though and learned some valuable skills to include throw bagging swimmers, lining rafts down dangerous rapids, unwrapping stuck rafts, and safe whitewater swimming techniques—in addition to guiding rafts that is.  I’m looking forward to putting these skills to use in the coming months, helping others enjoy a safe and pleasurable canoe club whitewater experience.