Tomorrow, I sail the world..

Today we went to the Ark in the Park again and met Boyd (58 yrs), a past Ecoquest field leader that lives in the Auckland area. Our walk on the track to the streams was about 20 minutes out. Paul and I walked out on Waitakere stream with Boyd. He’s such a cool dude! I was picking his brain a little bit and asking him about different field leaders and what Ecoquest used to be like. He asked us what our hobbies are and it turns out he is an avid mountain biker like me and we had quite a lot of talk about riding and racing. He told me about some great spots to go riding in New Zealand, so I guess I’ll just have to come back some day with my bike and do it! He also told us stories about his encounters with marine life like sharks and orcas (the most recent orca sighting was just a few days ago). “Make sure you ask Sally about scuba diving naked with sharks.” From what it sounds like, he works with the Department of Conservation or the Auckland Regional Council and is contracted through them, just like John. In the past he has trained park ranges for the Ark in the Park project, so he actually knows the area quite well. It sounds like he’s basically worked all over New Zealand, which was cool.

We had 3 transects to cover today. The habitat was not that great in most of them, and we did not find one single frog. Three days in, and our frog counter is at 1. We did, however, see quite a few eels (one almost nipped Boyd), lots of invertebrates, freshwater crayfish, and lots of birds! It’s great seeing the tags of the released birds around the park, so you definitely know that their efforts to bring back native birds are working. As we were walking along Boyd was asking us about what the forests are like at home and what kind of wildlife we see. Then when we rounded the corner, the stream looked absolutely gorgeous, but we had barely noticed because we were so busy looking at our feet. “Sometimes when you’re doing work like this, you get so caught up in what you’re doing and where you’re going, that you don’t take the time to appreciate the beauty of it all.” We stopped and took a picture on Paul’s waterproof camera and took it all in.

After the work was done, we left the park and headed for the beach in Bethels, another beautiful black sands surf beach. We only stayed for 40 minutes and Anna, Beck, and Kirstin went swimming. The waves looked beautiful, the sun was shining, it was warm out but I had just changed out of my wet clothes and… wait! I realized that I had left my long johns, shorts, and bathing suit bottom in the parking lot of the Ark. So sad. I realized that we weren’t going back until Saturday so I’ll have to bank on the fact that no one would want my stinky clothes, but who knows, New Zealander’s are an odd bunch.