Robinson Creek Oct 4

I decided to start a month of fieldwork and traveling with my friend/field assistant Ryan by checking out one of the canyons near Haast Pass en route to my field area.

It was one of those mornings that did not exactly motivate one to undertake grandiose plans that would potentially involve intense suffering. The day got a slow start as we ran out of the car into the blistering cold to check the water levels in Wilsons Creek before rushing back to the safety of the car heater, which slowly defrosted my brain. Water levels: check. Hmm...not so sure about the snow falling from the sky though, and the 1 degree Celcius temperature, and the fact that we are already getting a late start to what would promise to be over 8 hours of partial or full submersion in near-freezing water. A long, slow discussion followed, which mostly consisted of putting every extremity next to a heated vent and staring blankly out the front window. At some point it was decided we should go canyoning since we were here, but that a fully committing day did not sound too smart given the conditions and potential for hypothermia (I had only a 4mm/3mm wetsuit). We would instead go for Robinson Creek, another new one to me and only about a 2.5 hour trip.

And so we suited up at the car and plodded up the hill to the start of the canyon. The drop-in had snow everywhere and light clumpy snow fell from the sky in waves. Perfect New Zealand canyoning weather (intense sarcasm)! Robinson builds slowly with a few small rappels and jumps and then before you know it the creek plunges eerily and ominously into a dark cavern whose bottom is not immediately visible. A beautiful 25m rappel skirts the full blast of the waterfall and drops you into a magnificent dark chamber. Where the obvious reaction from the top of the rappel is one of foreboding, looking up into the chamber from downstream inspires feelings of awe and appreciation. The circulating blast of the air from the falling water suspends the whole chamber in mist and in places actually forces the waterfall back skywards! The noise was deafening. Just downstream the canyon inter-fingers in a dark slot with enormous chockstones overhead. Shortly after the cavern section, the creek emerges from the depths of the glacial bench it has incised. Apart from a minor snafu on the last rappel and the constant cold, it was a very enjoyable trip. A short while later we were quickly peeling our freezing wetsuits and huddling next to the car heaters as I drove towards a sunny West Coast to do fieldwork.

New snow in background!

Rappelling into the dark chamber

Martyr Fieldwork Sept 16-21

Six days, one pair of wet socks. With a solid weather forecast, I headed off to the coast to get in some fieldwork before my big push for more challenging fieldwork in October. I answered a few questions I had and created twice as many new ones with some outcrops I came across. I did some "gardening" and "diverting" so that hopefully some outcrops will be improved next time I return. This was the first time I went without a field assistant since I avoided rappelling and rafting this time, which really wasn't too bad.

Some lessons learned from a week of solo fieldwork:

-West Coast rivers are always deeper and swifter than they appear.

-If a log appears rotten, it probably is.

-If a log appears fresh, there's a good chance it's rotten.

-My field area contains some of the slipperiest rocks in NZ.

-I don't know what everyone is talking about, I am an excellent conversationalist.

-If you want to know whether it's possible to get somewhere, befriend a helicopter pilot!

Above: Lake Ellery and the confluence of the Arawhata and Jackson rivers

The Alpine Fault is between the Southern Alps (Pacific Plate) and the rounded hills in the coastal plains (Australian Plate)

Alpine Fault core (looking down; Pacific Plate to top of photo)

Alpine Fault core (looking NE; Pacific Plate to right, Australian Plate to left. A lot of my field photos look like they were taken in the dark because the bush is too thick to take photos without a flash. Many outcrops require some degree of gardening...

Around Dunedin

This seems as good a time as any to share an amalgamation of Dunedin photos I have taken. As I mentioned in the last post, I have been bound to Dunedin for the last month or so. I have been coping by exploring my fair city on runs, bike rides and drives in a scavenger hunt of sorts.

One thing I absolutely love about Dunedin is the plethora of street art- be it commissioned murals or clever graffiti- I have never been anywhere where they were so abundant. In particular, Dunedin's bus stops are a simple joy to me. The vast majority of the bus stops (over 60!) were painted by the late John Noakes, who also painted many large murals around town. The most common themes are sea creatures, space/sci-fi, and seascapes with towering islands. Many have to do with the local area in one way or another. Blue seemed to be his weapon of choice.

For the most part people seem to respect the murals and public art- "tagging" someone else's art is rare. Some graffiti has a pointedly political purpose, others are just for fun. For example, the devilishly smiling cartoon giraffes someone has taken to painting all over town. I have seen over 20 of these little buggers, sometimes in the most unlikely places and sometimes when you least expect them. Some are in love, others are pirates. Once you start opening your eyes to look for graffiti and art instead of tuning it out, you start seeing it all over the place.

Note: Many of these photos utilize HDR. This was the only way I could capture all the detail in the shadows and highlights of some of the bus stops.

Feel free to leave a comment. It would be nice to know if anyone actually looks at this :)

Giraffes

Past in Present

Robbie Burns

Church of Chris

In case you ever wondered where driftwood ended up

Boat shed

West Coast Field Trip Aug 28-Sept 1

I managed to escape Dunedin for the West Coast field trip after being confined to the city for well over a month. It was good to get out and travel a little after working so hard without a break. The trip wasn't too noteworthy except for the impressive lightning/thunder storms that are a rarity in this country. We toured classic NZ geology, looking at sections through the Haast and Alpine Schists and visited the more accessible outcrops of the Alpine Fault. All the outcrops had deteriorated significantly since I last visited them in 2006- it really is amazing how dynamic the landscape is on the West Coast. The highlight of the trip was a talk I attended at Franz Josef educating the locals on the very real hazards of a large Alpine Fault earthquake. It was a beautiful moment of science with a purpose. I found an obscure trail at Franz Josef glacier I did not know existed before- cables and ladders to the best view of the glacier. Also saw a couple Fiordland Crested penguins (New Zealand's rarest) at a West Coast beach. It was particularly neat to watch one swim up the creek to its nesting site.

Two Thumb Range July 25-26

I will be brief as I think there are only so many ways to describe white snow and blue skies and the pictures probably say it all. Two days of exceptionally clear and still weather seemed to be all the motivation I needed to go for a play in the snow. Snow conditions across the island were extreme, with a high risk of avalanches and a recent death, so we planned a route following ridge lines as much as possible and were extra cautious. The plan was to depart from our car at the head of Lake Tekapo, hike up to the snow where we donned skis and snowshoes (snowshoes for me), traverse a ridge to where we could drop in to a saddle and cross into the next drainage where there was a mustering hut we could stay at. Reality proved slightly different as impressive cornices and unstable snow meant dropping off the east side of the ridge towards the hut would be a risky endeavor. After considering our options we opted to camp on a flat spot on the snowy ridge at an elevation of about 2200m. Needless to say it was a cold night, especially for me since I was the only one in the party sporting leather boots (everyone else had plastic). It was however a beautifully starry night and so calm that we lit two candles out in the open which happily flickered. The morning treated us with beautiful alpenglow on the east face of Mt. Cook and views of Lake Tekapo, the Southern Alps and even of Banks Peninsula far to the east. We tried to continue along the ridge but found ourselves at a place demanding some snow or rock climbing with consequences. We had several options to choose but in the end decided going back the way we came and then dropping down to a different ridge and walking along the Macauley River back to the car would be the sensible thing to do. My feet were quite destroyed by the time I made it back to the car from my stiff unbroken boots.

Lake Tekapo and the Southern Alps

Mt Cook in left background

Stewart Island July 6-11

Stewart Island, known to the Maori as Rakiura, is the anchor stone of the great waka (canoe) Te Wai Pounamu, otherwise known as the South Island of New Zealand. I got to the island via a 2 hour trip on the University of Otago's research vessel, the Polaris II. I spent the journey in a beanbag on the back deck, gently rocking back and forth, listening to good music and watching small islands go past as the sun set (it was a little cold but otherwise pure decadence). We had beautiful weather the whole week- warm considering it is winter and the next thing south in Antarctica and just enough rain to give us a near-constant supply of rainbows.

Stewart Island has a permanent population less than 400 people in one small township along a few scenic bays (1 grocery store, 1 pub/hotel, 1 church, and a few others stores and restaurants mostly closed in winter). 95% of the island is pure wilderness and because of aggressive campaigns to eradicate pests, native wildlife is overabundant.

I was helping teach an ambitious sedimentology field trip with the goal of looking at active and recent beach deposits and to characterize offshore sediments using seismic, side-scan sonar and grab samples from the seafloor. I spent my time on Ringaringa and Ocean beaches (the former somewhat sheltered and the latter exposed to the sea) helping the students identify different sediments and processes. Getting to Ocean Beach involved being dropped off by boat for the day (survival gear, emergency radio and all) and a short bush walk where I saw two kiwis in broad daylight! In the afternoons I usually had about an hour of daylight to myself to go for a run or take some photos, which was very nice. To summarize: I was paid to sit on a remote beach for a week and teach students about geology!

Central North Island June 17-26

Despite some of the shortest and coldest days of the year, we were blessed with a blocking high parked over the North Island, which gave a solid week without rain and allowed me to fit in everything I hoped to do with my visiting brother and sister. There was a curious, almost eerie lack of tourists everywhere we went which I thoroughly appreciated. The North Islanders were friendly as always.

The trip started before I even left by waking up early, semi-consciously noting the abnormally cold bathroom floor, groggily jumping in the shower to defrost, and then looking out the window to discover the winter wonderland that was going to make the drive to the airport an adventure. Once ready I walked out front and snapped some photos, admiring the lack of cars and relative quiet, when I started chatting to a neighbor who told me to look up the road where several crashed cars lined and filled the streets. Most cars that drove past slipped and skidded at least to some extent, while some had tires spinning disproportionately to their rate of travel. My fearless stunt driver Giulia picked me up and off we went to the airport at parade speed. Destruction and chaos were in the air. It felt a bit like driving in a war zone (or so I imagine). We passed no fewer than 40 wrecked, damaged, guttered or abandoned cars on our drive- some in the middle of the road. I think the route we took was the only possible way we could have made it to the airport successfully with other routes blocked by jack-knifed tanker trucks. We played soothing music on the CD player, but you could still feel the tension in the air as we drove. In short, I was on one of two flights that left the airport before it was completely closed for the day! It was a beautiful flight over the South Island with (surprise, surprise!) the worst weather centered on Dunedin.

Coromandel Peninsula: Once landing in Auckland and sorting out the siblings, we drove for the Coromandel. The most notable thing about the drive was a sign in a farmer's field of a baby seal holding a sign that said "Save the Human Babies" (maybe you had to be there). The next day we did a couple short hikes including a beach, a waterfall, a kauri forest and a steep route up Castle Rock for 360 degree views of islands, beaches, forestry and bush. We ended the day hiking in the dark up to the Pinnacles Hut, New Zealand's largest. The hut sleeps 80 but there were only a cosy 6 present at the hut when we finally arrived. The following day we went up the stairways and ladders to the top of the Pinnacles for more panoramic views. This area has an interesting history of mining and logging.

Photo taken by Michael

White Island: We toured White Island, New Zealand's most active volcano and some of the most spectacular volcanic landscape I have ever seen. From Whakatane, a hour plus boat found us at the island where the boat anchored just offshore and we were ferried to shore in a small Zodiac. The water at the landing site was all sorts of beautiful tropical milky blues from the mixing of the murky ash-colored crater rivulets with the dark blue sea. We landed at the remnants of old sulfur mining ventures from the 1920s and before, thoroughly rusted and corroded from the aggressive volcanic atmosphere. My brother made the appropriate (but hard-to-explain) comment that the island and the whole trip had a very Wes Anderson/Life Aquatic feel to it. The landscape within the crater was very cool- mounds and ridges emitting steam, sulfur, and boiling mud surrounded by snaking streams of various acidity, color and horrible taste. Colors abounded with sulfur yellow, ash white and rust red dominating the scene. We got to see gaping holes with violently boiling liquid- one of which was less than a week old! The crater lake (pH of -0.1!) was only visible briefly between bursts of steam. The gas masks provided were not just a tourist amusement- in this area the air irritated the back of your throat and made you cough constantly. One area normally visited by the tours was appreciated at a distance since it was sporadically shooting a several meter high explosion of boiling water with significant steam accompaniment.

Rotorua and Taupo: After staying in Rotorua long enough to convince my brother and sister it was too touristy (about an hour), we drove on to visit three world-class hot springs, each progressively hotter and more satisfying. Kerosene Creek has several large pools with hot waterfalls and is a well-known classic. The second, which I will not name here, consisted of a lovely pool sheltered by overhanging cliffs and trees and has a 2.5m hot waterfall plunging into it. The hot vents seeping through the sand at the bottom of the pool, the lack of people, and the massaging power of the waterfall were welcome charms. Lastly, we relaxed in Otumuheke Stream, another well-known soak near the Waikato River at Taupo. Perfect temperature and steam from a nearby waterfall acted as a sauna. We also checked out the always amusing mud pots (exploding bubbling mud and rude slurping sounds) and went for a two hour mountain bike ride.

World-class hot spring

Mt Ruapehu (New Zealand's tallest volcano) from Desert Road

Whanganui River: If I had to pick a highlight it would probably be the 3-day, 92km canoe/kayak trip down the Whanganui River. In summer the trip is very popular with 20+ bunk huts and large campsites filling to capacity. Despite the cold, I found the trip thoroughly enjoyable in that we did not see another person for 2.5 days and thus had the huts and scenery all to ourselves. The scenery was spectacular with tree ferns lining the bush-river interface, interesting mudstone cliffs covered with ferns and mosses, countless waterfalls, the odd large rata or totara tree sticking commandingly above the rest of the bush, and many dark tributaries to explore. The small rapids and other obstacles (logs, rocks) were taken seriously to avoid flipping in the very cold water. We went on the side-hike to the Bridge to Nowhere, a huge concrete bridge built in 1936 spanning a deep gorge to open up land to pioneering farmers. By 1942 the valley was abandoned. Today the bush has reclaimed the land and the bridge really does feel dramatically out of place. The last day was foggy which gave a completely different persona to the valley. My favorite stretch of the trip was Te Wahi Pari, "The Place of Cliffs," where still water reflected the steepest and tallest vertical cliffs. We also stopped to check out Puraroto Caves, interesting mudstone stream passage caves. The scenery, history, solitude and adventure of being the only people around really made the trip.

The Bridge to Nowhere

Photo taken by Lauren

Waitomo Caves: I got the celebrity treatment at Waitomo Caves, which admittedly felt quite nice. A mate gave us free private VIP custom tours of the famous Waitomo Glow Worm Caves, a black water rafting trip in lower Ruakuri Cave (good clean/cold fun), and a tour of the upper levels of Ruakuri Cave on which >$4million was spent to develop as a tourist cave. Walking through the Ruakuri Cave gate, we found ourselves at the top of a huge futuristically-lighted spiral staircase. At the bottom of this circular shaft is a ritualistically-lighted chunk of naturally-sculpted limestone with water dripping on it from the ceiling far above. It was like finding an ancient altar of sacrifice inside a space station. I also revisited the Ruakuri Walkway which I still think is a work of art as far as trails go.

Black water rafting (photo by Brad)

Weirdest cave entrance I know of!

Auckland: I really don't like cities- they bring out the worst in me (and everyone else I reckon). To grasp for positive things to say, I still ran into many friendly, helpful people and the Auckland Museum was a good visit as always. I can't get over how cool it is that the Maori gave a specific name to everything from swords to instruments to a sharpening stone and they all had a history. Some Maori war clubs made of pounamu (jade) are given the name of a distinguished ancestor and treated with the same respect as that ancestor.

Thanks to Giulia, Travis and my brother and sister.

Inside the Auckland Museum marae (traditional Maori meeting house)