Dedicated to all those people who keep emailing

Hello hello hello!!!!

For those of you in Canada it is currently 5am your time, or 10pm here. I'm settled on the couch, my laptop on (of all things!) my lap and a really really long cable connecting me to the internet. It has been almost two weeks since I updated this last to which I say I'm sorry! I'm having a hard time getting myself to update. It is so easy to just wait until I have something to write about and today I do.

Since I updated last I have sat under trees and counted fruit (it was to see if the rats were eating them); helped build a new enclosure for Kiwi birds (this translates to moving many many many wheelbarrows of dirt); ripped english ivy off a hillside (invasive species); helped to replant a wetland; and today we checked traps at Rimutaka Forest Park. When I feel slightly more motivated I will post a movie of changing the trap and some photos of the park. Lucky viewers, my camera-lady Mellissa didn't like seeing/touching or otherwise considering the animals in the traps so the trap we recorded was empty and I was just changing the bait.

So Rimutaka, the beast of a hike. Mom I think you would love the scenery here, the thing is almost every single track I've been on has sections that are either immediately beside a cliff or with a drop off just beside your foot. It reminds me of doing the trek up the mountain when we took our family trip out west.

How it works: we did about 14km of trail and checked 50 traps. The first 13 traps were on a switchbacking section of trail that went up about 6ft at a time over 500 or so metres and doubled back increasing your altitude another 5-6ft higher over another 500 or so metres. It was sooooooo bloody steep! It might have been at most about 3 or 4 km and it took us about 2.5 hours to do those 13 traps. The rest were done in 2 hours. I hurt in muscles that I had forgotten even existed but may (at the very least) have some sweet leg muscles when I get home.

The highlight for many was how I could handle picking up a dead rat and snipping a piece of the tail off but when I opened a trap and saw a skitter out of the corner of my eye I jumped back and screamed like one of my campers. Stupid big spider.

Tomorrow I go to some sand dunes and monday we get to help out at the zoo! Tuesday, because all these days are simply flying by, I go to the south island. There, Wednesday morning, I will set out to hike the Queen Charlotte track. For more info on the track you can click here. It will take me 3 days at 20km a day but thankfully I wont need to carry my own pack.

Update you all again later, cheers!