We thought we were going to get rained out yesterday, but after a quick shower it ended up being a decent day. It was actually rather warm and really humid. It reminded me of being back home, when it’s humid all the time. The streams were kind of hard to navigate again (supple jack ahhh!) but Paul and I found some sweet bedrock to slide down on. The habitat was pretty bad so my 2 transects went by really fast, but Paul was actually able to find 2 frogs in his! There was a large yellow one which we got a lot of pictures of (we named her Ferrari) because she jumped out from her spot, landed in the water, played dead, floated downstream, and got caught on some leaf litter. Clever little creatures. It’s crazy to think that they have barely changed from an evolutionary standpoint for almost 100 million years.
We did our best to get “tidy” after being in the field (I even put on deodorant) and headed to Henderson (aka Horendeson), a suburb of Auckland, and went to the movie theater to see Harry Potter 7, part 1! It’s funny because I’ve probably seen it earlier than a lot of my friends at home, because it doesn’t seem to be quite as popular here and even on its 2nd day in the theater, the room was only half full. Well either way, the movie was great, we were all giddy and little school girls going in and laughing/gasping/crying throughout the whole movie. It was quite a treat for Wendy to bring us. Getting out of the parking garage was kind of a shit-show because the van was barely short enough to get in, but the exit ramps were even shorter so we were just scraping by (literally) and ended up denting the roof a bit haha.
On the drive home we stopped at Huia Point again, which is an overlook of the harbor. The clouds were moving in from the sea and the colors were beautiful behind it from the setting sun. There was a guy (probably a few years older than us) sitting by himself and looking at pictures of himself and a girl. We talked to him a bit (he joined in on the conversation we were having) and told us about the time he ran away from home and came to this very spot. He was really cool, but I had a feeling he was there to mourn the loss of the girl in the photo, because he seemed a little somber and he had flowers with him.
Today we actually did get rained out so we didn’t go out in the field and had the opportunity to sleep in (until 8:00 wow!). We cleaned up the Project K lodge and let me tell you, we left it in MUCH better shape than when we arrived. I just zoned out on the way back to Whakatiwai and listened to music and read some National Geographic. Being back at base is great, and seeing everyone again was overwhelming. It was another sad reminder of how much I’m going to miss them when the program ends. I loved the excitement of everyone telling each other stories of their adventures in different places. Some groups went to Mangatautari, some went to Motuihe Island, and others stayed at Ecoquest the whole time. No matter what the location was, there were many stories to be shared. The only unfortunate part was that we got back on their day off, and our day off is tomorrow so the partying happened last night and everyone was stressing out tonight over papers due in the morning, so the 6 of us froggers took a walk to the pub around 9:00 to check out the scene (hah) and the doors were locked by the time we got there.
Either way, it was a really nice walk. It was great to reflect on the amazing week that we had. It’s funny how close you grow with people that you work and live with 24 hours a day. I’m pretty sure there were points where we were no longer speaking coherent thoughts and just communicating in song, laughter, and strange noises. We were an unlikely bunch from the start, but now we’re all even better friends than we could have imagined. This week’s experiences are invaluable. I learned so much and it was great to have the independence to lead our searches and carry out the work that we needed to do without feeling like we had a babysitter, as has been the case in some of our smaller field projects so far. I loved that every day was a new adventure. We were able to fully immerse ourselves in the forest for 8 hours a day. I could definitely do something like this for the rest of my life.
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