Oh Where Have I Gotten to Now?

Nepal and India

2010-03-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

Full Photos Nepal/Darjeeling/Sikkim:http://picasaweb.google.com/snailhugger/NepalJan2010#

Full Photos India: http://picasaweb.google.com/snailhugger/India2010#

When I arrived in Nepal I discovered that their immigrations department has a new policy. You have to pay for your arrival visa in some currency other than Nepali or Indian rupees. They like US dollars or Euros so there was a money changer, but no way to actually withdraw money. They also require a picture, just because. I hate the Nepali bureaucracy because it is nonsensical, but at least the people treat you pretty nicely. They don't know why their government has these requirements either, but they are just cheerfully doing their job and they try to be helpful. This is sooo much better than India or the US. They held my passport and let me go out into the masses to use an ATM, but the electricity was off, so the ATM didn't work. Fortunately Yadab was there waiting for me, very excited to see me, and the first thing I did was ask him if he had the equivalent of 60 US dollars on him. That is a small fortune in Nepal. A local could easily live for a week on 60 bucks. Strangely he did have the money so I got myself sorted, photographed, and legally entered the country. We headed into Thamel, as tourists do. It was surreal to be back after only 8 months. It wasn't as cold as I thought it would be, about the same as New Zealand.
I spent the first few days just hanging about in Kathmandu and applying for an Indian visa (those bureaucrats are not helpful and I dislike them very much), which takes a week to process and you don't get to find out how much it will cost till the end. In the mean time, Yadab and I went on a short hike to Namu Buddah. We were going to take 3 days to do a nice little hike. The first day, we had a bumpy ride to our trailhead, just above the smog line, and hiked up through the orchards and terraced fields toward this incredibly huge (and expensive) monastery. The place was crawling with monks and they had their afternoon ceremony which we watched for a while. It got really long and boring though, so we left once we got tired of staring up at all the decorations on the walls and ceiling. The views from the monastery of the Himalayas were excellent!

Afterward, we continued our hike toward a town where we could spend the night. We ended up getting there quite late so it was a bit dark when we got shown our room. It turned out to be a real dump. The bathroom probably hadn't been cleaned in some years. There was a stockpile of other people's used soap in the bathroom, used water bottles in the room, and used condoms in the trash can. The food was not very good either. And then, some time around bed time, my stomach got angry. It got angrier and angrier all night to the extent where I was bent over with stomach cramps wondering which end the explosions would come from first. They never really did. I took some ciprofloxin and managed to throw up a bit but still didn't feel much better. I slept a bit, but couldn't bring myself to leave the room till noon. We decided to bag the hike and go back to Kathmandu. Taking a people shaker bus with horrendous stomach cramps is one of those things I never said I wanted to do when I grew up. It was really really painful, actually as painful as when I stuck that stick up my arm. No fun! I got back to Hotel Karma, where I always stay in Ktm. They put me in a room and I just laid around for a few days waiting for the cipro to kill my belly villains. I felt better sometimes, worse at others. I read a 600 page book. I finally got up the energy to go sort my visa out with the India consulate. I got to abuse their toilet a bit too. After a few days, I was generally feeling better, although not great, so Yadab and I decided to head out across the Terai toward Janakpur, Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, and then across the border to Darjeerling and Sikkim. We had a thrilling jeep ride south from Kathmandu on winding roads to Hetuada and then we sped on to Dhalkebar dodging macaques on the roadway. On the people shaker bus into Janakpur, my stomach began to act a bit dubious again. I thought it was just too much rice. We strolled around the town a bit to find accommodation, food, and check out a few of the numerous temples people come from all over India to see. Janakpur is a shit hole. I say it is where the gods shat, that must be why it is so holy. The temples were ok, but nothing spectacular. The most interesting thing there was watching bus loads of Indian pilgrams stroll to temples barefooted and contemplate what they had stepped in to get there, and then watch them cook their chipatis on dangerous looking little gas stoves by their buses in the evening. They seem to sleep on the buses too. I thought I traveled cheaply!
That night, I discovered that I had not recovered from my stomach bug and stayed up most of the night writhing in pain praying for relief, but nothing would leave me. At this point I decided it must be amoebic since my gut was intermittently angry and not really responding to cipro the way it usually does. I started a course of anti-amoebic drugs. This seems to have helped but I really couldn't stomach much food for quite a while and riding buses across the terrai was a real challenge.
We gladly left Janakpur and traveled all day to Koshi Tappu. We stayed in another filthy little hotel and attempted to explore the wildlife park the next day. It is world renowned for its bird life – a major migratory stopover with additional resident birds, home to gangetic dolphins and all kinds of other amazing wildlife. It was a little bit of a let down though, because the forest officials wanted us to pay extortionist's prices for hiring a boat to go out on the wetlands and stuff. We had been given bad directions by people as we headed there too, so we were not really on the side of the park we wanted to be on, but there was a stupid strike so we could not get road transport to the other side either. We opted to just walk around on the flood control levee and watch for bird and wildlife through my binoculars. It was very foggy. I saw quite a number of birds, about 50 species I had never seen before, so I wasn't all disappointed. And the villages were interesting too, and we saw a tiny baby elephant with its mum.

Unfortunately, I was feeling wrecked from the tummy bugs and was now getting a cold. I didn't have a ton of energy and Yadab just doesn't get as excited about birds as I do, so we went back to our hotel in the early afternoon so I could get some rest. My belly was getting better and I was digesting my diet of ramen noodles somewhat normally, but my cold was getting worse and worse. We headed to the border the next day and dealt with a lot of crammed bus rides and one of India's finest bureaucrats at the border. He stamped my passport with the wrong date which caused problems later and he was a huge jerk. He got my cranky pants in a bunch. Nevertheless, we made it to Darjeerling that afternoon and checked into a chilly basic room with incredible views and a hot shower. Despite having arrived in more comfortable accommodation, my health crapped out. My cold had turned into an infection which I could feel moving into my chest and my lungs. Once again, I sent Yadab off to the chemist with a list of meds I would need to treat this and I spent the whole day in bed. This wasn't easy because I very much wanted to go outside and see the sites. To boot, Yadab didn't understand the difference between having a cold and having a respiratory infection. He couldn't seem to figure out why I would not just get out of bed and go out for the day. He didn't want me to just lay around. I wanted to lock him out so I could sleep.
The next day, I motivated and went to the Himalayan Zoo and Mountaineering Academy. The red pandas cheered me up quite a bit. I really love them! The zoo was surprisingly great and the mountaineering academy was great. It was started by Tenszing Norgay, the sherpa who climbed Everest with Sir Edmond Hillary. Anyone who climbs Mt. Everest is a little bit mad and probably superhuman in my book, but to see the gear these guys did it with....well they were ruthless thugs! It is just amazing! The boots alone looked like they weighed more than my pack.

We generally had a very nice time in Darjeerling, but the ultimate destination for us both was Sikkim. Yadab had never been, nor had I, so off we went to get permits (a walk all over Darjeerling with me spitting up my lungs) and then a long wait at the taxi stand for some Gurka Land demonstration to finish so cars would be allowed to use the roads again. I don't really understand why the demonstrators felt the need to foul up traffic in their own “Gurka Land”. There might have been a couple of local political affiliates that were mildly inconvenience by the strike, but everyone else who had their day stuffed up was already in support of the cause. People in this part of the world seem to love a strike and demonstration, they are just not very good at planning them in a way that may reach the notice of the target audience. Strange! In any case, we got to Sikkim. We went up to Pelling and met some good characters on the way, including a woman who works with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and a Polish guy who thinks global worming is a farce. We enjoyed our days in Pelling, but for all the effort I made to get there, I really wished I was not hacking up my lungs and struggling to walk 200 meters, so I could have really gotten out to see the area. I had incredible views of Katnajuta from my room and we did make it up to an very old monestary and some palace ruins. I had to spend more time in bed than I preferred though. At least I got to catch up on a little bit of discovery channel. I watched this great special about king cobra conservation in India.

Next thing I knew, it was time to head down to Siliguri and catch a flight to Chennai to spend a little time tree touring with my legendary friend Yoav BarNess. It was hard to say good bye to Yadab. The poor guy had just spent 3 weeks with a sickly, cranky, often disappointed me. I don't think it was quite the holiday either of us had hoped for, but I guess that is life on the subcontinent. The worst part was that he ended up having to ride the bus all the way back to Kathmandu. I just can't imagine!
Yoav is doing a project that is funded by a Fullbright scholarship he was awarded. He is traveling all over India photographing, mapping, and collecting information about important individual trees (http://www.treeoctopus.net/india.htm ). A lot of them are temple trees, some are just really old, some are lone trees in the middle of cities, some are in the middle of crop fields, but they are all special, so he is doing this project to help people meet them. This involves traveling all over India in search of special trees. He has been at this for about 2 years and even took a Hindi language course to help out. I just tagged along for 12 days, but it was good fun.
When I arrived in Chennai, I was met by a sick Yoav. He had a fever. I was feeling quite a bit better thanks to the antibiotics but was still hacking to the extent where Indians (the people of the greatest phlegm producing country on earth) were staring at me with that concerned look on their faces – you know the one you would use if you saw an 8 month pregnant woman walking up a set of stairs with a limp and a black eye. We were fortunate enough to be spending the night with Rachel, a friend of Yoav's who lived near the beach on the south end of Chennai. She has a large fan cooled unit with beds with real mattresses, clean showers and toilets, bread, and her very own clothes washer!!! And she let us use them!!!!!! We both slept about 11 hours that night. After we woke, hydrated, and cleaned ourselves, we realized we were feeling surprisingly good, so we went on an adventure. Yoav needed to deliver a report for some forest inventory work he had done to a man at the Crocodile reserve down toward Mahabalapuram. This turned out to be Rom Whitaker who I had watched on the discovery channel's king cobra special. I was going to his zoo/breeding and snake venom collection facility. He and his partner and son met shared lunch with us and showed us around. They were such amazing people, full of fascination with their work, but operating with careful thought and consideration for the people and animals they are involved with. Gently and considerately engaging people with animals they typically fear and trying to help them understand why animals like snakes and crocodiles are important and worth keeping. This is not the Steve Irwin style of connecting the public with large herpetiles. I had met human jems! Rom has set up a facility where 500 families are supported through the harvest of snake venom for anti-venom production. These people were traditionally snake charmers and hunters. His facility gives them a way to continue using their traditional skill set in a changing India.

Late that night Yoav and I boarded an overnight train to Visakhapatnum. The train trip was a complete kerfuffle and late of course, but Vizag (as the locals call it) was more than we could have hopped for. Yoav had arranged to meet up with Vinod when we arrived. Vinod had recently moved to Vizag training to become a submarine engineer for the Indian military. He is a unique specimen. I have never met another Indian guy like him. He had mastered he arts of sarcasm and crassness and he was he was keen as to go advernturizing around the city with us. We had lunch, then went to the beach, where I found some intriguing critters on the rocks. This was quite the curiosity to the locals who weren't used to seeing white ladies and wondered what I was so excited about. The guys then dragged me off kicking and screaming (in joy) to a wildlife preserve area that was just a 20 minutes from the beach. We hiked around and tried to find routes up the numerous hills. Apparently you have to get let out of the well hidden but impenetrable fence that locks the main public use area from the rest of the preserve. We failed to do so but still saw some spotted deer, a few birds, beautiful forests, and lots of sneaky lovers holding hands.

We went back to the beach in the evening, had fresh juices, enjoyed the sunset and visited the local aquarium, which wasn't quite as cool as the monterey bay aquarium, but was still pretty fun. We spent the night in some crappy little hotel which was run by boys and thus never cleaned but the bathroom had been recently re-done so at least there had been fewer people dirtying it before I got there. Early the next morning we got on a train to the Araku Valley. We lucked out and got window seats for the scenic trip. We visited a cave and photographed a few heritage trees. After lunch, we decided we should head to Araku but there was no public transit so we would have to hitch. As we stepped out of the restaurant, I looked up and a little red car slowly passed by with two foreigners in it. I thought, crud, there went our best chance for a ride. Then the car stopped, and a man got out and asked us if we wanted a ride. I said yes! This was Wolfgang and his partner Barbara who made our day! They took us along with them to a few interesting stops, including a coffee field and a beautiful overlook. They had been traveling in India for something like 30 years. They were so interesting! Wolfgang is German and Barbara Danish. She actually has a degree in Indian studies. I can think of no better travelers to meet. We chatted about all manner of things over tea and then Yoav and I went to get a bus on toward Jeypur, but they chatted with us while we waited. They had such great insight about India and how things have progressed in the past decades.

We stayed in a pretty nice place in some town on the way to Jeypur and got some much needed rest. We did a little tree scouting and bought some juice and really nice cotton head scarves, then headed off to meet Shakeel who was another couch surfing contact. He met us as the train station in Jeypur and then helped us get a bus to his village about 2 hours away. He is from a Muslim family but grew up in the area, which is populated largely by the Gond people, one of India's under-represented tribal groups who was there before the hindus but now takes their place at the bottom of the caste system. They are farmers – mostly of rice and goats. Shakeel lives in a mud home in the village but he is very well educated and a man of the world. He has worked for several NGOs on community development and sustainable livelihoods programs. He has lived all over India and has been to Amsterdam. He has the unique ability to understand the alien culture that Yoav and I belong too as well as the mainstream Indian culture, and the Gond people's culture. And, he enthusiastically shared his thoughts and home with us!
Shakeel took both of us around on his motorbike to the nearby national park so we could see some giant old trees and the incredible limestone formations in the riverbed that divided Chattesgar and Orissa. He took us to a couple of limestone caves. One was frequently visited by religious people and inhabited by a holy or holey man (he had a very holey singlet) who showed us all the features including the shiva linga (literally god penis) that I was to put my hand on and wait for a drop to fall on my hand and make my wish come true. See the photo! The other cave he too us to was not open to the public and was amazing inside. It was about 6km long so we didn't explore the whole thing but we saw bats, crickets, geckos, frogs, and huge spiders in it. The formations were great and best of all, we were the only humans in the cave!!!

In addition to all this nature Shakeel shared with us, he took us to the local tea shop and translated so we could chat with the locals. Very few foreigners go here, ever, and few of them are female. I might have only been the 3rd or 4th foreigner woman ever here and probably the first from the US. The ladies had interesting questions for us, like what age we get married and how far we came from. I answered anytime between 18 and the time we die for the marriage question. As for how far, Shakeel translated that I had come 40 days by bus because these folks have no concept of a world map or the ocean. It was fascinating! The villagers – the Gond lend their name to the former super continent of Gondwanaland which was Antarctica, Australia, India, South America, and Africa but they have no concept of these land forms. The fossils that helped form the theory were found on their land. Their livelihoods are changing and so are their land use practices. Unfortunately this puts pressure on the nearby national park, which suffers from deforestation along the edges and over hunting. This situation goes on in part because the forest officers are easily bought off and because no one is really focused on this area. No foreigners come here. There are probably heaps of new species there, but it isn't on the scientific map. This is a blessing and a curse. Since there are no tourists, the system is not really valued for its biodiversity as many other places in India are, therefore the biodiversity is not a priority for locals or government officials. On the other hand, the lonely planet doesn't contain a chapter on it, so it is not crawling with tourist jeeps and expensive “eco” resorts. While it is not valued and conserved at the level I would prefer, I am so very grateful to the local people for leaving what they have, for the considerations they have made, and for graciously keeping this place as wonderful as it is so that I could see it. The glass is definitely more than half full! I hope my enthusiasm will help them see the other values of the park, not just as a place for resource extraction. I hope they keep it like a special secret.

It was hard to leave Shakeel's hospitality, but Yoav had his mission and I was along for the ride. We returned to the coast and traveled up to Gopalpur by Sea, a seaside place where Bengali tourists go for holiday. It was funky and the beach was covered in excrement, but we had a nice little roof top room and the views were great. We found one good place to eat and one bad one. We remained faithful to the good one for the day and a half we were there.

After regaining our insane desire to get on another bus, we headed up toward Bhubaneshwar passing Chilika Lake on the way. In Bhubaneshwar, we met with a turtle activist to learn about the local conservation issues and get our bearings. He was a big family man, involved in many things, and very helpful. He told us the turtles weren't breeding yet, but that we could go see Irawadi dolphins on Chilika Lagoon. We spent the night in Puri, a former hippy hang out which lacks the laid back luster of old. Now it is just an out of the way beach with really average food and over policed accommodation. We had a hard time getting to the lake the next day, but were determined as I was nearing the end of my stay, so we hired a rickshaw which was ludicrously expensive – over 10 bucks! We arrived in the afternoon, but the ride out was stunning and we made a few short stops to look at birds and water buffalo in the roadside wetlands and rice paddys. Once at the lake, we quickly arranged a boat out to see the dolphins. The boat man said we could also go see birds at the wildlife refuge the next day if we wanted. This appealed to me given my Nepal extortionist disappointment and my general love for birds, so we decided to stay the night. The dolphins were great, spectacular actually. We watched them for about an hour fishing, feeding, and playing with each other. We saw over 10 different individuals.
After dolphin viewing, we visited the local natural history museum, which was fabulous, then retired to our hotel for dinner and a much deserved rest. The next day, we got up early and headed down to the docks for our boat ride to the bird sanctuary. It took two hours to get out to it they said. We saw several cool birds on the way out as we navigated around prawn fishing structures. There were lots of terns and shags. I saw two sea eagles, a brominy kite, and an osprey. As we reached the edge of all the prawn structures, the boatman stopped and we could see the bird sanctuary island just another 2,000 meters away. I figured he had to fuel up, but he just sat there, and then offered us snacks. We asked him to take us to the island, but he refused. Combining gestures and Yoav's very basic Hindi, we determined the man was telling us the sanctuary was closed and he could not get within 2 km of it. I was disappointed to the point of devastation. I would have just walked off if I had been in a vehicle. I couldn't believe we had been taken 2 hours in a boat to within 2km of a closed bird sanctuary, and then they would expect to be paid for it! It was a painful return trip and then we went to find the boat man boss who had set the whole thing up. He had left town!!! We had to find a translator to tell the poor fisher dude that we would only be paying him half price for the trip as his boss had ripped us off and would have to accommodate any further expenses. Bleh!!!

We had lunch, hitched a ride on a tourist bus and went back to Puri where we found that the pizza place we had been so looking forward to eating at was not open, so we had a tea and then went back to Bhubaneshwar to wait for my night train back to Chennai. We had a nice dinner and reviewed our adventures, sure our paths will cross again before too long.
My train ride to Chennai was 20 hours and it wasn't late, but it still sucked, fortunately I got to hang out with Rachel once I arrived. I rested and spent my last day in India shopping for my allergy medicine (it costs 10 bucks there instead of 30) and getting a pedicure, then I flew back to Australia via Singapore. I flew with Tiger Airways which was like a typical filthy crowded Indian bus except it could fly. I had a day in Singapore so I went to the bird sanctuary which rocked my socks off!!! I really loved it.
Now I am back in Australia enjoying the cleanliness and blander food. I did a trip to Kangaroo Island and had my mom out for 2 weeks, but that will have to wait for the next blog post. I think I would get carpel tunnel :)

Thailand

2010-03-21T21:48:00.000-07:00

FULL PHOTOS: http://picasaweb.google.com.au/snailhugger/ThailandJan2010#

Going to Thailand wasn't really a planed destination, I would have stayed in New Zealand at least another week, but flying on new years eve was hundreds of dollars cheaper than any other flight in January, so that's what I did. My friend in Nepal was out working till Jan. 8th, so I figured I would just have a nice taster of Thailand in between. I arrived in the Bangkok Int'l Airport – the quite new one that doesn't have any comfortable substrata to sit on, but plenty of shopping – at 11pm on the 31st of December. I had tried to couch surf, but no one wanted a guest on new years eve, so I decided to do as tourists do and go stay at Kohsan Rd. For safety reasons, I asked a young couple if they wouldn't mind me sharing a taxi with them. I thought maybe she was Nepali because she looked very much so. Turns out they were Israelis and before they could really approve, two more Israeli guys – obviously going a bit feral after their military service – strolled up and must of asked them something to the effect of “can we tag along with you, wherever you are going, for the rest of the evening” in Hebrew. Hence I was sucked into little Israel. I hadn't managed to make a proper booking (I know shame on me, but I always leave it till the last..) so I ended up staying in the place where the Israelis – mine and 90% of the other ones in Kohsan – stay, had dinner and saw the new year in at an Israeli restaurant, and followed it all up with breakfast at the same Israeli restaurant/travel booking office. Don't get me wrong, these people were extremely nice. I really liked them, but it was so weird to be in such a cultural bubble. People just assumed I spoke Hebrew and everyone was excited to go places in Thailand together. As an independent traveler, I found this a bit weird. Didn't they leave Israel to be around other kinds of people too? Or was it just about hanging out with each other in a slightly changed scene where the food/service was cheaper? What about the the pointy gold topped buildings, the lady boys, the amazing Thai food??? I found no answer to these questions. I spent one day in Bangkok checking out the temples, which were hopefully the most crowded they get all year being Saturday and New Years day.

Then I flew to Phuket. This was a mistake all together. Phuket is a hole filled with inconsiderate tourists and a few sex workers. It wasn't my scene. I been invited to go meet my friend Sam in Tonsai, but had some trouble getting much in the way of directions from him, other than that he was at the Green Valley Inn. I swear, there are only about 15 place names in Thailand and every province has at least one place each of the 15 names so google earth just doesn't help the way it does in say Australia. Some tourist “help” desk guy sent me to Tonsai on Koh Pi Pi. When I arrived I was very surprised at the tourist bustle but I just figured my friend had found some quiet corner or was really having a piss-up of a holiday. The beach was lined with fancy resorts and the back streets were lined with bars, shops, restaurants, and more affordable lodging. There were herds of plump, pink people – mostly speaking Hebrew (which I now recognize and can say the equivalent of “good on you” in) and British. I searched the tiny over crowded hell hole for the Green Valley Inn, but didn't find it. I checked my email and discovered I was in the wrong Tonsai. Doh! I booked a snorkeling tip for the marrow and a room at this cheap little place from a woman who was just opening it that day. It was clean, but I should have checked the thickness of the walls and the nature of the bar across the alley a bit better. Koh Pi Pi is obnoxious during the day, but at night, they kick it up about 10 notches. The bar across the alley turned out to be a Thai kick boxing place which was ridiculously loud and filled with scummy looking sausage till around 4 am. To boot, my “wall” was made from that fake wood stuff that is about 8mm thick. I did manage to pass out from exhaustion from about 9pm till midnight, then I got woken up and, well, it was horrible!
I got up early the next morning and went on the snorkeling trip which took me over to the place where the film “The Beach” was filmed. It was a beautiful spot, but it was absolutely covered with tourists. The snorkeling was ok but nothing too exciting. All of the large fish were gone and the coral was pretty badly damaged.

Still interesting enough, but by late afternoon, I was gladly on a boat headed to the correct Tonsai where I found an extraordinarily cheap place to stay in a cute little hut and found Sam and his matching counterpart Don living it up at the Green Valley Inn.
Tonsai is a rock climbing destination in a small by on the mainland near Krabi. It is accessible to most people only by boat, but the intrepid can climb over the rocks to a tiny resort in the next bay over that is linked by road. The bay is shallow but still has some interesting things to see. Terrestrially, Tonsai is a gently sloping valley surrounded by huge limestone cliffs which are both beautiful and provide ample climbing challenges. Since all the people in Tonsai are there to rock climb, they are all fit. There was only about 100 people around during my stay. The locals sell good basic thai food in stalls and there are a couple of restaurants. All the accommodation is in cheap little bungalows. There were no marauding herds of plump pink people. I loved it. I didn't bother going anywhere else in Thailand. The company was fun, the food was good, it is beautiful, and I even got to try rock climbing, which I wasn't overly successful at, but I did discover some muscles I didn't know I had.

Amazingly, this little place had an internet cafe and I discovered that someone at Arcata FWO wanted to interview me for a job I had applied for a few months before. This posed a bit of a problem, since my next stop was Nepal where the time difference would be worse and the electricity is hardly ever on. I managed to have a somewhat successful interview from the tiki bar/internet cafe at 11:30 pm in this crazy little place. Definitely the most adventurous thing I did in my travels. It seemed to have gone well, but I didn't get the job. Oh well. Perhaps next time.

It quickly became time for me to head off to Nepal, too quickly, but I will get back to Tonsai at some point.

New Zealand - The Land of WOW!

2010-03-20T19:40:00.001-07:00

Adventures in New Zealand Complete Photos (yes there are many more!): http://picasaweb.google.com/snailhugger/NewZealandDec2009#

Because it was so very very hot in the outback and there is very little contract work in December and January, I decided to treat myself to a trip to New Zealand for a bit of hiking and literal chilling. It was about 6 degrees Celsius (that is 42.8 degrees F) when I arrived in Christchurch, on the south island of NZ. I spent a couple of days in Chch as the locals text it, enjoying long walks through the botanical gardens and making friends with random dear old ladies as I do in. I hitched a ride with a friend of a friend down up to Kaikoura and spent the whole day hiking around the headlands, exploring the rocky intertidal, and sussing out the seals and sea gull colonies.

I headed up to Nelson, which is at the north end of the south island. I used this town as a hub for hiking the Abel Tasman trail, hanging out with my very good friend Danna the cephalapod-iatrist, and then meet up with a different friend from Perth to hike the Heaphy Track. Both of the hikes were stunning in their own very different ways.

Abel Tasman was a stroll in the park - literally. I did the whole thing in two days. It was very popular, but for good reason. The scenery is stunning! I really enjoyed poking around on the mud flats in the afternoon and all the stream fording made the hike a little more challenging. Once I reached the top, I took a boat back down to the starting point. Brilliant!

The Heaphy track was 80 km, but extraordinarily easy. We stayed in huts and the scenery changed quite a lot each day. We saw numerous wekas - a type of rail that is unusually bold and a few carnivorous land snails. On one of our shorter hike days, we assisted one of the national park's biologists putting out mammal traps to reduce the influence of introduced predatory mammals (mostly stoats) on the native birds.

Due to previous difficulties hitching out of the Heaphy track back to Nelson, I decided it would be best to rent a car for the remainder of my south island explorations. This would allow me to see more in the short amount of time I had. I headed out of Nelson toward the west coast. I stopped briefly at Nelson Lakes National Park before hitting the coast at Westport. On the way, I picked up a hitch hiker who happened to be a yank, mostly, he works at Yosemite NP in the summer. I dropped Sam, my temporary passenger and Westport and headed out to Cape Foulwind to see the beautiful rocks and fur seals, then used up the remainder of my day light getting down to the tiny village of Punakakai.

I spent the night in my compact rental car on a high coastal overlook. Unfortunately it rained all night, so the amazing dimly lit views I got on arrival were just soggy grey fog in the morning. I persevered and decided to go hiking to a nearby cave despite the rain. I donned my keen sandles and short shorts to enable me to cross the streams, however, I quickly realized even this would not prepare me for the actual trail conditions. The trail was a stream and then it became a river! I saw some good birds and nearly stepped on an eel the size of my thy so it was still a worthwhile adventure.

I drove back into town and had a hot lunch at the pub and waited for Caren a German born, British sounding physical oceanographer from Norway who I had met on the Heaphy track. We spent the avo looking at pancake rocks and discussing how to escape the nasty weather on the morrow.

We decided that there might be better weather on the east side of the island so we headed up to the divide between east and west – Arthur's Pass National Park. As we drove up the winding road toward the park, we realized we had made the right decision. The clouds were lifting to reveal spectacularly beautiful scenery. We did a short hike up a spur with INCREDIBLE panoramic views. We thought this must be the most underrated hike in all of NZ because neither of us had ever heard of it, but it was 4 hours of WOW!!!

I dropped Caren at another trail head as she had decided to do a 3 day walk in the park and I had a tighter schedule. When I dropped her, there was another guy starting the hike who happened to be from Colorado but knew about 3 of the people I used to work with in Carlsbad, again small world! We exchanged government gossip and I headed off to get back to the coast. I drove till the long day ended all the way to Okarito Lagoon where I stayed in a campground at the beach. I woke in the morning to walk on the beach and marvel at the southern alps on the horizon. I hired a kayak and went out on the lagoon to look for the rare white herons and paddle my way up a lazy stream into the forest. It was positively the best kayaking adventure of my life. So beautiful!

In the avo, I tore myself away from Okarito Lagoon, vowing to come back, and headed toward the tourist destinations of Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers. It was weird to be among such a variety of international tourists, but then the glaciers were really cool and they were so close to the ocean! Another oddity at the glaciers was the abundance of cheeky Kia (the worlds only alpine parots) that were in the parking lot exacting their indignation on the rubber weather seals on many of the parked cars. One defiant bugger refused to leave the roof of my hire car. Only about 15 km by windy road to the exposed beach where I took the liberty of camping on the beach. Clouds that had hung in the mountains all day cleared as though revealing the mountains as a special evening treat. It was a stunning thing to be able to stand on the edge of the wave line and look up and glacial clad mountains while wearing a light jumper. Wow!
The next morning, I woke to more mountain splendor at the beach, then I did a short hike to a nearby lake where the alps reflected on the still water as the morning mist lifted off the lake. Not bad for a morning stroll.

On the way out, I picked up a couple of Brazilian backpackers with huge packs lumbering toward Fox. They accompanied me for the day down to hast and we did a really nice hike down by jackson's bay. This is the end of the road on the west coast, so we headed into Mt. Aspiring National Park for some stunning views and short hikes.

I pressed on toward Wanaka where I met up with a friend of a friend the next day. He graciously hosted me overnight and gave me full run of the kitchen and even the laundry! Hurray for cleanliness. I spent the following days hiking in Mt. Aspiring National Park and did an overnighter to the Routeburn Track on Christmas Eve/Christmas am. The hikes were excellent but the weather was a bit damp and dodgey at Routeburn. However, the scenery was still beautiful.

I decided to go for a big Christmas drive and headed down through Queenstown and out to through Te Anu to Milford Sound. The weather was pretty bleak the whole way till I finished my lunch at the cafe in MS, then the clouds drew up and I got dramatic views of the sound and phenomenal views all the way back out to Te Anu. The road out was winding and surrounded by huge high cliffs with waterfalls cascading down them.

I kept on driving down to the south coast and the Catlins. I arrived just after the yellow eyed penguins went to bed but I caught them at 4 in the morning as they headed out to go fishing in the morning. I watched them for an hour and saw about 5 of them emerge from their burrows, squabble with their mates, and then waddle out to the sea. After a bit of a nap, I headed up the east coast toward Dunedin and took a boat trip out to see the Albatross colony and to see them out foraging on the ocean. This was, well, a fantastic day for me with birds. I topped it off with a trip to the Dunedin aquarium which was great!

At this point, unfortunately, it was time to head back toward Nelson, I made a quick stop in Christchurch, and endured a rainy drive up the coast. On my way, I stopped to picked up a man and his 7 year old daughter that were hitch hiking back to their small town from Christchurch. They were obviously very poor and the guy looked like he wasn't in the best of health. We had the usual small talk. They were surprised a foreign female would pick them up, but greatful. When I told them I was a biologist they got very excited. The little girl aspires to be a wildlife vet. She was obviously a soft heart because she was lamenting the lost lives of all the roadkill, which were mostly invasive possums, but she didn't know they were a pest. She started asking me all these crazy questions about how to become a wildlife biologist. It was pretty surreal. I encouraged her to go for walks and be observant, keep a list of birds she sees, go to the library, get good grades in school, and just pursue her interests, even if others thought they were obscure. I dropped them in their small town, and drove off. They had invited me in for tea, but I declined....lots of miles ahead of me... but as I got out of town I realized, I had a tidepool guide that I had gotten from the aquarium and a book on New Zealand wildlife I had picked up at a used book store. The girl had mentioned their address, it was such a small town, I decided to go back and give her the book because it might help her follow these childhood fascinations and it was two days after christmas but I had no one to share a gift with. I went to their house. They were surprised to see me but over joyed. I got warm apologetic hospitality and and tea. The little girl was over joyed to have the books. She chattered on to me about all manner of things in her life and she showed me her year book, which had no signatures. She had no real friends. It is a small town and she hadn't lived there long so she hadn't made any friends. The towns people were wary of them because her dad was sickly and jobless. He worried about not being bright enough to support his intelligent little girl. She asked me to sign her year book and then I said I had to go. She held my hand and led me down their drive way. That was one of the best christmas presents I've ever had.
I made it back to Nelson that afternoon and paid a visit to friends I had met through Danna. I had a marvelous visit with them on their little farm. The next day, I returned the car and hitched to Picton where I caught the ferry to Wellington. There I briefly visited the Te Papa museum to see the giant squid. I took a train up to Palmerston North, where no tourists seem to go, and met up with an old friend from graduate school in Humboldt, who is doing his PhD on godwits (a type of long-beaked shore bird). They migrate extraordinarily from Alaska to New Zealand via wetlands in asia. I only had a short stay, but it was great to catch up with my friend and I even got to go out and spend a little time doing field observations of the godwits.

On the 31st of December I left New Zealand and flew to Bangkok, Thailand.

To the outback and beyond!

2009-12-01T00:15:00.000-08:00

Once more, I have been blessed with a wonderful work opportunity which involves wildlife, travel, and beautiful places. This opportunity also offered intesely hot weather, thunder storms, large agrivated turtles, and more mud than I think I have ever seen anywhere. I got hired by a slightly different arm of the Queensland gov't to conduct fish surveys and collect water quality data in permanent water holes on the Cooper Creek catchment in south-west (outback) Queensland. Cooper Creek drains into Lake Eyre which is a huge, usually dry lake bed in the center of the country (see google maps). On Nov. 14 we flew into Longreach (the epicenter of the Qld outback and original home of Qantas airlines) and spent the next two weeks driving around in 4x4s camping alongside a different waterhole every night. We would arrive in the late afternoon, put three fyke nets into the waterhole (think a series of giant hoop nets that fish swim into, but cant swim backout the way they came), do one seine netting, and then take water quality measurements. Then we would set up camp, cook dinner, enjoy the sunset, sit around the fire for a while, then head to bed. We woke with the sunrise every morning and got back into the water to retrive our nets and process all the fish. We also caught a whole lot of turtles. They did not seem to like being in the nets and would bite and claw at us while we caried the nets in. They also ate much of our catch. Silly buggers! I thought they were quite cute though.
We surveyed all around the region from Adavale to Hellhole Gorge to Winton and Stonehenge and all the way up north as far as Hughenden. Almost all of our sites were on private cattle stations. It is the middle of summer here and the drought is pretty bad, so some of the cattle were very very happy to see us - which usually resulted in severe bovine traffic jams. The waterholes usually had vegetation around them and often supported numerous birds.
During the day we just tried to keep cool. Drives between sites were long so we often got to spend the heat of the day in the AC, which was good because it got into the 100's (high of 45 celsius). Sometimes we would nip into a small town and have a cold drink and talk to the locals or check out some interesting small town attraction - such as the Muttaburrasaurus (see photo bellow).
On the return trip we took a very minor detour so we could spend part of one day hiking in the spectacular Carnarvon Gorge. We were very lucky to get to hike into the gorge with Fred, a local Aboriginal man, who explained the uses of various plants (and let us eat some), the history of the gorge, and the significance and meaning of the extensive artwork that exists in one section of the gorge. If you ever come to Queensland, this place is hard to get to, but well worth the trip. A morning with Fred just topped it all off.
I returned from this trip on Sunday and I head to New Zealand tomorrow (Dec. 3rd), so there will be more photos from a distant land coming soon. In the mean time, enjoy the ones from this trip below.

Incredible moss gardens in Carnarvon Gorge

High walls of an amphitheater like sink hole about 80 meters deep.

Outside that sink hole

Around Carnarvon Gorge

Monitor Lizard called Goana

Aboriginal artwork - this site was a place where ceremonies for the dead were held, right next door was an area where births were celebrated.

Hands of adults and children who passed away

Our awesome guide Fred telling us about the significance of this place to his people and to him personally

Around Carnarvon Gorge

Pretty faced Wallaby

Outback traffic jam

Father Emu tending to his young. Female emus do not engage in rearing activities. They leave the chicks with the males and head off to mate again. This male had 8 chicks with him and he was standing in the road when we first approached him. He seemed to be trying to make sure they all got across safely.

Signs to places which dont exist on most maps

The Muttaburrasaurus - its fossilized remains were found not far from the tiny town of Muttaburra. This was the most intact dinosaur skeleton ever found in Australia. Very exciting!

Black Cockatoos

Galah

This little guy hitched a ride out to a very remote desert water hole with us. We don't know where we picked him up, but we ended up moving him into a nice pond at a property owners house.

Hazey sunset - we had a few bushfires around started by lightning strikes

Lord of the flies! Des, Jimmy (providing ample fly substrate) and I driven mad by the flies

Male and female grey kangaroos

Unlikely couple - water dragon and a bird on the same branch

Road-killed wedge tailed eagle

Mankey leach infested hole - but kinda pretty when you're not in it

Dingo fence - this fence runs along from the central coast of Queensland at an arc down to the South Australian coast

Rainbow bee-eater

Near Hellhole Gorge

These dingos were killed and hung in the tree to keep other dingos from daring to come anywhere near

Me with a turtle

Brolgas!

Latest and Greatest in Australia

2009-10-31T05:08:00.000-07:00

Today makes 5 weeks that I have been in Australia. I suppose, in such an amount of time, I should have managed to post something interesting about my stay here, but I've been busy, sick, and a little lazy.
Since the day after I arrived, I have been working (Monday through Friday) doing water quality sampling work for the Queensland government in streams all around south-eastern Queensland (within about 200 km of Brisbane). My co-worker, Hsuan, and I generally head out on Mondays hit about 4 streams, then check into a hotel for the night. We repeat through the week, spending the night in a different hotel almost every night. We usually work 11 to 12 hours a day, but we come home earlier on Fridays. Our sites are not prestine specimines of Australia's glorious environment. Some of them are just completely wrongy - with oil slicks on the top or contianing more cow poo than actual water. They varied widely. Our work isn't physically strenuous, but the days are a little long. This work didn't get me into places as amazing and beautiful as some of my other jobs have, but I was in good company, the pay was excellent, and I had a great time. My co-worker and I have a very similary (i.e. sick/crude) sense of humor. He is easy going, efficient, and has a particular love for icecream, so we got along just great. We didn't see heaps of wildlife, but we did see a couple of turtles, kangaroos, walabies, and bogans (australian for white trash).
I finished off field work last week and did a bit of office work and some training for the new job, which will take me out to the Lake Eyre Basin in central Australia for a couple of weeks. I got to do some 4x4 training and wilderness first aid. I have a couple of more days of work, then a break for about a week and a half till I leave for Lake Eyre.

The photos below are ones I took during our field work...

Lotuses

Non-native cactus - it is the size of a tree!

Very large Goana on very large eucalyptus tree

Peacock at our hotel in Mt. Tamborine. They woke me up at 4:30am every morning we stayed there. Useless, but pretty!

One of our nicer field sites with plenty of green filamentous algae.

Hsuan excited to find all the beautiful algae in this creek. We collect the stuff for stable isotope analysis.

Sometimes our work was delayed by cow traffic jams.

We worked a few sites at a military shooting range. I really love the unique warning signs!

This sign is on the front cattle gate of a property we accessed for survey work. It is funny because a bogan is a trashy person in australian lingo.

A typical eucalyptus grassland

I am holding almost all the waders used on the survey run! They were very heavy, but mostly clean thanks to my hosing efforts.

Me engaging in "buggery". We use this net to conduct vigourous sweeps of the stream edge to collect aquatic invertebrates.

Me drinking a ginger beer (perhaps the best part of being in Australia) in a park with our work ute.

Hsuan and I enjoying some cheeky icecream. Some might say we made good lazy government employees.

West Coast Trail Vancouver Island - and some faffing in Washington

2009-08-18T16:28:00.000-07:00

Unbelievably, I convinced my boss to give me a vacation. Despite the fact I have only worked for about 4 months, she let me take a week and a half off to go hike the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island. To maximize my vacation time, I left Thursday after work and drove all night long to Spokane, Washington. There I visited my cousin Jen and caught up on sleep. Then I headed over to see my grandfather near Lake Chelan, then went to Seattle to see my old fabulous friend Kristan, then up to Everet to visit my aunt and uncle, then further up to Sedro-Wooley on Sunday to see my grandmother and another aunt-uncle pair. It was more family in 3 days than I have seen in the last 5 years.

Hike in Spokane
Me and Jen
Grandma and I (I am rolling my eyes at some silly comment Aunt Judy made)

On Monday I took a ferry to Victoria to meet up with my very good German friend Leif and his people Marcus (German), Ryan and Holly (Canadians). Holly was gracious enough to let all of us stay at her house while we prepared for this hike. I kept urging everyone to lighten their load, but the threat of rain made us all skittish about taking less. On Wednesday morning, Holly dropped us all off (or more like just let us open the doors and pour out of her and Ryan’s tiny hatch-back Volkswagen….imagine the disappointment of hitch-hikers we passed along the way!).

After a short orientation and a realization that we were going to be gouged for another 36 Canadian dollars for 2 ver short ferry crossings on the trail, we headed out. Ryan scored us a free ride in a van to the trail head, then we took a 5 minute (16 Canadian dollar) ferry ride and we were off. The first 5 km were definitely the hardest – very steep and rooty. We also reached the highest elevation of the trek (200m above SL) on this stretch. The next 8 km were a bit better but still tough, then we reached camp very satisfied that the worst was over. However, we couldn’t be too proud of ourselves as we still had 62 km left to go. We got a great camp site on the beach at a river mouth so we had the best of both worlds – fresh water and plenty of driftwood for fire. As we continued the next days, the terrain got more variable and beautiful. Just look at the pictures. I think they say it better than my babbling.

All together the hike was 75 km (47 miles), had over a hundred bridges and over 90 ladders we did it in 5 days. I got up and left a little early because the ferry schedule and bus schedule necessitated that. We got rained on a little, but Ryan made a good fire to dry us out. I returned to work on Wednesday, tired, but got to work late doing Turkey Vulture trapping and blood sampling. Mmmm! Fragrant! I will put pictures up from that soon.

2009-06-17T08:04:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Orick, California! You may have heard, I have returned to the redwoods. I came back to the US on April 25^th and started my old job at Redwood National Park on April 27^th. It has been a little insane adjusting to the sessile life of a non-traveler, but there are some perks…. I can take a bath whenever I want, I can buy lots and lots of different kinds of food, I can hang out with my friends in town, I can watch cheesy movies on my computer, I can enjoy a douche-bag-free commute, etc. I managed to convince the park service that they should rent me a house to live in too! It is so very nice. It is 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom and it is furnished. It even has a washer and dryer…and they both work! I have a wood stove and wood. I even have a bay window over my porch that I am trying to populate with potted plants. I also just got a new house mate on Thursday named Gary who is from Britain. He is very nerdy and limey, which is just great!

The job is pretty sweet. I am a seasonal fish and wildlife tech so I get to run around in the forest, on the beach, and in the rivers looking after the parks varied forms of wildlife. I don’t get health care or retirement, and this is not a permanent job, but it sure is fun! I will be working in this job till about the end of September or early October, then I can have the option to come back in the following March.

The work is almost entirely in the field and is highly varied. I have been doing spotted owl surveys (hiking off trail in the woods at night hooting like an owl), corvid surveys (hiking on and off trails, and hanging out in campgrounds counting crows, ravens, and jays), plover/carcass surveys (walking down very long stretches of sandy beach with binoculars inspecting birds, seeking a little tiny one that looks just like a sandy rock and never finding any, also poking at dead bird, seal, and sea lion bodies), and I will be doing some intertidal surveys here in a few weeks (counting snails and petting algae on rocks while it is pissing down rain and hoping the next big wave won't take me to my watery grave). It is good fun.

I have seen so many beautiful things since I have been back in the redwoods. Sometimes I wonder how I can be so lucky as to get paid to go out to work in such a great place. Enjoy the pictures and consider visiting…

Trillium ovatum

Trees at Ten Taypo trail
Harbor Seals at Redwood Creek Estuary
Sea Palm (Postelsia californica), this is an alga!
Sunshine through the Redwoods on a foggy morning
Mature Bull Elk (this photo is from a few falls ago)
View of the mouth of the Klamath River - I used to live very close to here
Rock and Tidepools at Damnation Creek Beach
Barred Owl (relative of the spotted owl)
Columbine
Lupine in the Bald Hills!!!
Another neat flower in the bald hills
Screwing blues - probably greenish blue butterflies caught in the act in the Little Bald Hills
Mardon Skipper - Little Bald Hills
Dewy lupine leaves
Great Arctic - Little Bald Hills
Female Crab Spider with a skipper (Pyrgus communis) as prey.
Calochortus lilly
Bearded lady
Lupine in bald hills
I love it!
Alligator lizard

There are fungus among us!
Got crabs? Yes!
Intertidal at Enderts Beach Cove
Seastars and anemones at Enderts Beach
Fire Rainbow

Nepal

2009-05-07T17:57:00.000-07:00

My apologies about this post - for some reason the spacing is all off so the text and pictures don't line up as I had prepared them. I tried to fix it, and I failed. Hopefully you can figure it out. Sorry!

My friend Craig invited me, well I think I kind of invited myself, at a dinner party in Australia back before I went to Papua New Guinea. I wasn't sure if I would be able to go because I knew I would be working in Redwood National Park in the spring, but fortunately my boss was kind enough to let me start a the end of April which gave me a month to go to Nepal and get my hind back to California in time to start work on April 27.

I've been a lot of places in a lot of countries (I think my total is at 23 now) and I've met so many people that they are all beginning to look familiar. Thus, I think I have the authority to say that Nepal is awesome! - Aside from its air pollution in the 'low'lands, which is pretty shocking.Nepal is beautiful. The people are generally very very nice, extraordinarily strong/fit, and extremely helpful. The food is good. The wildlife is diverse and unique. The mountains are amazing and...well really sodding tall. There are still lots of places where cars aren't - so food and supplies ride in on donkey trains or on someone's back. Oh, and sodas come in glass bottles (like in the old days) so they can be re-filled and re-sold without the energy waste of recycling. Oh yes, and most importantly, Nepal has yaks.

I arrived in Kathmandu, Nepal on March 27th, met Craig, Rachael, and our guide Yadab at the airport.

We headed to our hotel in Thamel to drop off our stuff, then headed right out for some momo. Momo are Tibetan/Nepali steamed dumplings that can be filled with meat, potato, or mixed vegies. I had had them in the Tibetan/Nepali district (Maj nu ka Tila) Delhi, India when I was there a few years ago. We spent the rest of that day and the next acquainting ourselves with Thamel, running errands, and seeing a few of the interesting cultural sites with Yadab. We also did some shopping for the necessary knock off cold weather gear we would need for the trek. Yadab took us to the monkey temple and showed us around the old parts of Kathmandu where some of the buildings are decorated with ornately carved woodwork. Kathmandu has an incredible history and a vibrant cultural and spiritual life.

After our short stint in Kathmandu we took a bus to Besisahar where we began hiking the Annapurna Circuit. We hiked the circuit counter clockwise toward Jomsom and then toward Pokara. It was about 250 kilometers and quite steep in many places which got us huffing and puffing. We saw so many beautiful vistas and met many kind people and friendly domesticated animals along the way. The birding was pretty good too. It took us about 20 days to hike the whole circuit and our maximum elevation was 5416 meters (about 17,500 ft.). Here is a map: http://muktinath.org/images/travelfolder/annamap.jpg
I will let the picture captions do the rest of the explanation....

The terrain along the trek was varied and beautiful...

Around Tal

Around Chame

Near Manang

Artwork painted on walls inside a temple in a town called Upper Pisang

Still Around Manang

Heading over the pass
Reaching Thorong Pass was quite a challenge as the altitude made it much harder to catch your breath and Rachael and Craig were getting quite severe headaches. I don't know how I managed to dodge that bullet but I did. Nevertheless, we soldiered on and it was very beautiful.

Near Muktinath

Near Marpha

Near Tukuche
Craig and Rachael opted to take a shortcut back to Pokhara via 4wd jeep. I couldn't change my tickets home, so I preferred to keep going on foot. After they left, I got a little lonely so I hugged a cypress tree :)

Around Tatopani and Gorepani

Super Yadab retrieving a Rhododendron flower for me. Yay!

Archery competition in Ghorepani

Ghorepani to Ghandruk

We ended our trek in Birethanti and took a local bus to Pokhara for a few days of rest, good baked goods, lake side strolls, a bike ride to the local cave, and numerous failed searches for descent lassis (a yogurt drink).

There is a big effort underway to build roads into the Annapurna area. In some areas (from Muktinath to Pokhara) the roads are already passable by 4wd. On the Besisahar - Manang stretch, work crews are blasting and removing rock by hand along steep cliffs. Roads are both a blessing and a curse. They enable more efficient movement of people and goods, and their construction provides much needed jobs; but they also cause serious erosion, expose people to lots of dust and bad air - causing respiratory problems, and trekkers usually don't like walking along roads being dusted by local jeeps, so they may stop coming to the region, or they may move through it more quickly (not visiting as many hotels and tea houses), which might put it in economic collapse. We'll just have to wait and see. I hope for the best.

This hammer and sickle graffiti is a reminder of the Maoist extremists that terrorized Nepal's countryside till about two years ago when they won seats in the election. They used to use force and violence to intimidate country people and make them provide free food and shelter to them. They even threatened people to coerce them into voting for Maoists in the election. All is fairly peaceful now, but I hope extremist groups will not become a problem again in Nepal.

Wildlife was generally allusive, but w did see a few langurs in the lower parts of the trek, and blue sheep (wild native 'sheep' - think bighorn.

In the lower elevations, we saw lots of donkey trains carrying everything imaginable up the trail - blankets, toilet plates, cokes, rice, etc. I don't have pictures, but some of the things porters carried up the trail were pretty interesting to - chickens in 6 or 8 cage units, 6 foot tall book cases, roofing material.

We passed a lot of sheep and goat herds. I even found a few kindred black sheep :)

The dogs were all very friendly.

As we got higher up, the livestock got hairier and yaks replaced cattle and water buffalo.

I saw plenty of birds!

Himalayan griff0ns!

I saw lots of new butterfly species.

Living it up in the land of milk and honey

2009-03-24T21:07:00.000-07:00

G'day from Australia - maybe it is not quite the land of milk and honey but it is certainly the land of boxed iced coffee and ice cream! Yes, Ive been getting my fat on, storing up for my trek in the Himalayas. I leave for Kathmandu tonight and start the trek around Annapuna in a couple of days so I thought I would take this opportunity to fill you in on my little adventures in Aus before my next blog which will hopefully have lots of pretty pictures of tall mountains and Nepalese stuff.
I was pretty tired when I got back to Aus at the start of the month so I decided it would be a really good idea to get a bad cold then share it with my friends so they could give it to their friends etc. Sorry about that Nicole and Erin. Fortunately, Nicole was gracious enough to keep me around a few days despite my obvious status as a vector. I did very little, mostly hung out at University of Queensland and gawked at all the first years, wondering if I ever did/wore such obsurd things. I did - it was just a long time ago. I am getting old :(
I did get to do a hike up Mt Warning. I had hiked this small but stunning mountain about 6 years ago with school friends. It was good to return there with Craig (my soon to be trek mate), Nicole, and both of their respective partners. We cooled off after the hike by hitting the beach! Isn't Australia great!
On the 11th I finally motivated and got myself down to Sydney/Wollongong to visit another friend there. We did a bit of diving at some small islands off the beach in front of
his house and spent the weekend in Sydney with his brother and his Irish wife. This was perfect as it was the weekend before St. Patrick's Day and there was a big festival on in a park downtown full of people wearing all manner of green and a couple of very confused looking Irish wolfhounds. We did a few nice walks along the bay and visited the botanical gardens in the city so I could meet and greet a wollemi pine. This is an extremely rare tree species known mostly from fossils that are very very old. A few hundred of these trees were re-discovered in the mid 1990's in a remote valley west of Sydney. The location is kept secret and I would have to hobnob with some serious tree geeks to get there, so I decided to just go see the one that was planted in the gardens. It is pretty cool. I can't find the picture of it though, so stay tuned and it will turn up eventually.
After a week in Sydney/Wollongong, I headed down south to Melbourne. Just a quick complaint: Jet Star IS A TERRIBLE AIRLINE! Do not fly with them! Long story...just be warned!
Other than Jet Star's abominable treatment, my trip to Melbourne was great. I stayed with James and his girlfriend (a fellow yank) Vicki in Fitzroy, a very funky fun part of Melbourne with lots of good cafes and artsy stuff. We did a few bike rides along Melbourne's awesome riverside bike lanes and we enjoyed plenty of splendid Melbourne food. They both worked as English teachers in Japan a while back, so they are something like Asian food coneseurs.
While in Melbourne, I really wanted to see the Great Ocean Road again. I had driven it 6 years ago but didn't get enough of it then. I rented a car and had a very very long day of driving but as you can see from the photos it was worth it! I visited the Otways National Park where there are huge eucalyptus trees and tree ferns as well as gnarled old beech trees. From there, I continued down the coast to the 12 Apostles, where I saw splendid ocean views, sea stacks, and (surprisingly) an echidna. I continued along and stopped at all the view points till I got to the bay of islands. I finished off the drive in Port Fairy, where there is a small island, Griffin Island, which supports the largest nesting colony of mutton birds (a type of shearwater) in the world. They all fly in together at dusk. It is pretty spectacular. I also saw plenty of other birds, including black swans and herons; a couple of wallabies, beautiful beaches, a lighthouse, and a really great sunset on my walk around.
I headed back to Melbourne that night so I could spend the weekend with James and Vicki in Rosebud. James and I did some diving off Portsea and Rye piers. I was really keen to see a weedy sea dragon, which I succeeded at seeing, plus a puffer fish, a huge ray, and lots over very very big snails. We did a night dive at Rye Pier and saw a couple of tiny rays, a pregnant yellow seahorse, heaps of fish, crabs, and several dumpling squid, which are really really adorable.
I returned to Brisbane on Monday and met up with my PNG co-worker Jeff at the airport for dinner and lots of chatting while he endured a 6 hour layover on his way back to England. I have really missed Jeff and Chris after spending 3 months working with them and enjoying their company in PNG.
My flight departs for Nepal at 1159 pm so I have some preparations to attend to. Looking forward to seeing you soon, hopefully.
-Cara

Alive and Well

2009-03-03T18:38:00.000-08:00

Hi All

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I have returned from Papua New Guinea and i am currently enjoying the luxury of being in Australia. I am visiting a couple of friends who are back at University of Queensland where I went to school in 2002 (yes that was a very long time and all the young students sitting next to me as I type are making me feel very very old!).

Should you wish to give me a call (It might be expensive I have no idea) my phone number here is +61 0419189266. 61 is the country code.

Oh where to begin about Papua New Guinea? It was great fun and full of excitement and wonder. I saw so much wildlife! The surveys consisted of bouts of hard work followed by lots of rest, card games, and tea. My co-workers (Jeff/Jefe, Chris, Oscar, and Martin) were fantastic. All were from the UK except Oscar who is from Kimbe Province in PNG. Martin joined us for my last few weeks in Waria Valley.

There are so many stories I could tell you that I don't know where to start. I also don't think I could sit still long enough. I hope you like the latest PNG Slideshow. I really enjoyed running about through the rainforest searching for these critters but subsequently having many of the village children show up at our house with them. The kids were really great. They would always great me with "Sista Cara ('Kawa'), you go now?" when I walked by.

Since my last blog we basically did a few more surveys. One was in Wiwo, a site about 2 hours up river by banana boat and up a rather steep rainforest covered mountain. It was picturesque and a bit cooler (it got down to around 23 degrees celsius one night). We got to ride back from the site on Buai Palm rafts. The little girl in the slideshow with the very long machete was our helper for the week at Wiwo. We also returned to Bowe for surveys. In my last weekend in the Waria, we all travelled down the coast to near Bau to a small school to teach about basic ecology for the day. I taught three classes (grades 6, 7, and 8). The kids were so well behaved, but not very interactive, so I found it quite different from here. A few of them asked me really interesting questions about what it is like in California....like what our houses looked like and what sports we play. Their world is so far removed from there and many of them would have rarely encountered television.

Chris and I ran out of time on our visas, our three months was up on Sunday March 1, the day we arrived in Brisbane. Due to transportation logistical difficulties, we left Waria on Monday, spent a night in Lae, then took a crazy PMV (dodgey van) ride over the mountains to Madang where we snorkled, relaxed, and ate and drank the kinds of things we didn't have in the valley. It was great! We also did an immense amount of shopping too. Chris joined me for a day in Brisbane before heading back to blighty. He should be back by now, freezing his tits off.

Brisbane is warm and glorious. Cheese abounds and I am having a great time catching up with friends.

Hope to catch up with you soon.... not sure how my next steps will align but I hope our paths will cross. Drop me an email or a comment here and say Hi.
-c

Hi from PNG

2009-01-13T16:06:00.000-08:00

Hi All,
I just got back from the village on Monday afternoon, so there is much to fill you in on. I missed everyone over the holidays…almost as much as I missed eating cheese. I have rectified this inconsistency now, and now friends and family are the thing I miss most. The thing I miss second-most is yogurt, which they do not seem to sell at the Foodmart in Lae.
Sadly I have no photos to contribute today. The internet connection is so slow, my head would probably explode if I tried to load any…so all you get are words. They are pretty interesting words so I hope you will read on. I promise to post photos when I get to Aus in early March. They will be great because I have taken great pictures of great things. You will just have to wait!
Where to start? I guess at the beginning. I managed to find my new co-worker Chris at the airport. I determined his identity by looking around the passenger waiting area at the Air Nuigini gate in Brisbane for some guy wearing shoes a biologist would wear and something that would indicate they might be British. The hi-tech boots and map of the Tube (London’s subway type thing) gave him away. He is great, animated even without having slept more than a wink over the 40 hours or whatever it took him to get to Brisbane. He also slept overnight in the airport! Our flights went quick because we had much to talk about and we both like to talk.
We arrived in Port Moresby about 30 minutes before our flight to Lae was scheduled to leave. We were delayed everywhere. The customs guy wanted to see my beads, he thought they were pills in the x-ray. He didn’t seem to mind that Chris was carrying a big f-off knife and a saw in his baggage. Ah PNG! We wondered why no one was in a hurry, then we discovered our flight was not yet delayed but everyone expected it would be, because it usually was, and ours was no different.
When we got to Lae, we met up with Jeff (the jefe man). He seemed very happy to see us. Turns out it had been 2 months since he had seen any of his country folk and he really didn’t expect us to make it. So many people try to come work in PNG, but because the government is extraordinarily crap about giving any one a visa who wants to do something good for the country or its people, most people never come. Chris had waited 7 months for his visa and I had waited 4 months. We gave up and came on tourist visas instead.
Lae is Papua New Guinea’s second most crap city. There is a lot of criminal activity – we saw a fight in the street on our first morning which looked to involve about 20 people. Only 5 of them really seemed to want to beat the crap out of each other. Guards broke it up. It is mostly safe during the day, however. We hit the usual stops: internet, grocery store, post office (where Jeff successfully retrieved a package from his mum! A Christmas miracle!). I discovered on my visit to the internet that a job that I very much wanted to apply for was being offered at the FW office in Arcata, but damn these PNG computers, the internet died before I could complete the application. I had to write it off. I hope whoever gets that job, really enjoys it. They have my envy. Also in Lae we met up with a herd of x-pats for dinner. Great people! Several of them work for doctors without borders, one is a business man, one a facilitator, and one an engineering lecturer at the university. Most of them were Canadians and Australians. I was the only yank present. In fact I am the only yank around. We had a great night of chatting and sharing various stories. I can’t wait to meet up with them again as I am suffering from some cultural confusion which you will understand as you read on.
We headed down to the Waria Valley on the 5th with one additional person, Michael, a PNG guy who had recently graduated in biology from some university in Port Moresby. It takes about 6 hours in a dinghy with an outboard motor (5.5 hours down the coast, 0.5 hours up the filthy murky Waria River, with one stop to pee and four stops to re-fuel the engine in open water. The village consists of about 60 two-storey houses made of beetle nut wood with palm frond roofs. Ours is in a little hamlet with 8 such houses just outside the main village. Oddly enough, our house is actually nicer than many of the places I rented during college and has the added bonus that I happen to not be allergic to the dust mites etc. living therein. These houses are really pretty amazing because they are made with all local material, cost about 200 bucks if you want someone to build you one, and the roof is surprisingly water proof even in the strong deluges we have been having. The only downside to it is that there are numerous cockroaches that live in the room and rain tiny turd pellets on everything. I especially hate when they fall in my tea!
We did week-long surveys of two sites before the holidays. Both were in primary forest, but one was on a garden edge, and the other was on a splendidly clean river. We usually camp out at a survey site in enclosed hammocks. Our cook, March, and her daughters come with us and keep us well fed. In general our surveys work like this: Day 1: set up and bait mammal trap lines (2 x 20 sherman traps), pitfall traps with drift fence, and mist nets. Days 2, 3, &4: get up early and search for birds – compile lists of 10, check pitfall and mammal traps, measure and weigh the skinks, rats, and whatever was in the traps, do timed visual searches for butterflies and herps, bait mammal traps, deploy mist nets in the afternoon for birds and leave them up till 9 or 10pm to catch bats. Day 5: pack up and hike home. The butterfly work is great fun and my skills of sneaking up on butterflies to photograph them have really paid off. The bat work is by far the most entertaining though. Bats get very pissed off when they get caught in a mist net, they make great noises and look endearingly like demented monsters. We have gotten quite a variety of both insectivorous and fruit bats. We even got a mum with a baby hanging on. I’ve got pictures to show for later.
Unfortunately our two week holiday break involved some drama. Michael (who was largely useless because he didn’t take initiative for things that obviously needed to be done, and he was deathly afraid of the bats) left after only two weeks – apparently to go get married. This was frustrating because Coral Cay (the NGO) had paid for his flights from Port Moresby to Lae so that he could come volunteer. He failed to mention, till about 2 days before he left, that he would need to go to the highlands to get married over the holidays. He promised to come back, but I doubt he will. It is about $70 bucks each way to take the boat down to the valley not to mention the additional $30 to take a public van from Goroka to Lae. This unfortunate waste of money was little drama though compared to what else we discovered when we returned to our hamlet for the holidays.
We got robbed!While we were out at the second field site. Someone went in the house (it is pretty easy to climb into despite having a lockable door) who knew their way around, and stole the lock box that the project money is kept in. This is money to pay the wages of people in the village that work on the project (the cook, the night watchman, and our guides). Fortunately the crook did not go into Chris’ or my room and take anything. This sort of thing had happened before – every time a certain Rueben Kaui (one of the sons from the neighboring house across the dirt patch) was in the village. He used to be a security guy for Coral Cay when he was suspected of having stolen about $70. A few months later $150 was stolen out of Jeff’s room and Rueben left town in a hurry to party it up in town with all the money he had gotten. At that same time he stole about $300 from his own father who was holding it as collections for the church. He hadn’t been back to town till just before the holidays, while we were out at the field site. When we came back, about $800 was gone and we tried to get him and his family to give us back the money, but Rueben claimed he hadn’t stolen it. Apparently in PNG, when someone is suspected of having done something wrong, people will ask them if they did what they have been accused of. If they say ‘no’, people look for someone else to blame. The frustrating part is that the hamlet community made very little effort to try to get the money back, even though this is their wages, not any of our personal money. They didn’t seem to understand that letting a thief get away with something like this would probably be the sort of situation that would make people less than keen to come work in their village in the future. We had lots of meetings with big men about this problem but nothing happened. They all looked for people to blame, decided to blame the guy with the key to the house, even though I can climb into the house in less than 5 seconds. It is sad, but I don’t think the villagers really care that much. They just figure we can hit up a machine somewhere and more magic money will appear. Jeff decided that if the family would do nothing to stop their thieving son, then they would all have to work for free till the end of the project to cover the loss. We are also going to the police while we are here in Lae.
The most unfortunate thing about the robbery is that this is now a community based conservation project that appears to be lacking in sufficient community support. If it was not so close to the end of two years of surveys, I think the NGO would pull out. If I were here in PNG longer, I would seek work elsewhere. Unfortunately, my visa only gives me 3 months and I am half the way there, so I am just going to hang in and finish my time and help get the survey work done. At least we will get some biological data out of it. However, I don’t really think I will be inclined to bring people I know to the village in the future.
Despite the dramas, we had pretty good holidays. I have read several books, kept a journal, played heaps of cards (I remain unbeaten at gin rummy), eaten a good although monotonous diet of rice and sweet potato, and Jeff’s mum sent out Christmas cake and Cadburys hot chocolate mix. The company is good too.
My health has been a little crap. I have had a lot of diarrhoea and Jeff reckons I got malaria around new years. I took some Antemether and am doing fine now. The malaria strains here are basically like a bad flu.
We did one more survey after the holidays before coming back to Lae. It is good to have internet and dairy products again, but Lae is really crap. I am looking forward to a few more weeks in the rainforest. We’ve been seeing heaps of good stuff: Lots of excellent butterflies and some good birds. Chris saw the world’s smallest parrots the other day. We’ve got a pet golden orb spider by our toilet that we catch insects for. She is huge!!! I have been helping Chris with a bit of insect collecting for the London Natural History Museum which has been great fun. We are going to try to get some moths when we go back. I think we will try to rig some fish nets as well so we can identify some of the local fish. A co-worker of one of my friends in Humboldt sent me a book on the freshwater fish of PNG so we have been identifying a few things with it. We tried catching fish with a contraption I made out of mosquito netting, but I need bigger mesh.
I better wrap this up now. I will be in the Valley till Feb 24th, then heading to Madang for a few days of relaxing and snorkelling with Chris before I return to Australia on March 1. I am working out plans to go to Nepal to hike the Anapurna circuit with friends from Brisbane, so I will head to Nepal around March 25th. If anyone would like to join, please do. It is a three week walk.
Take care and I will talk to you soon!
-Cara

Greetings for the Southern Hemisphere

2008-11-28T21:10:00.000-08:00

Hi there!
Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it.
I have arrived safely in Australia. I've mostly just been hanging out in Brisbane with friends, catching up. I took a quick trip up to the Sunshine Coast Hinterland to visit my friend Shane's family property. It has a beautiful patch of rain forest and a bit of pasture land on it. We saw heaps of nice plants, beautiful orchids, black moths with orange polka dots doing complex mating dances, and a very very big spider on our rain forest walk. This was all punctuated by us getting caught out in a pretty epic storm which dumped hail the size of golf balls on our heads. Ouch!

I spent last weekend on Stradebroke Island with Nicole and Tim who I've been staying with in Brisbane. It was restful and fun. I got to catch up with Ian - our professor from when I went to Uni there 6 years ago. He is great smiling fun. Also to reacquainted with the soldier crabs and oysters that live on the beach across from the island's marine lab. The surf on Stradie was pretty big out at vista point - we definitely didn't get in.

Ive spent all this week traveling down the coast from Sydney to the southern border of New South Wales seeing national parks with exceptional beaches and mountain forests in the great dividing range. We had stellar wildlife viewing with good sightings of gray kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, parrots, and two echidnas!!!

Limpets

Echidna

Goana (this guy was about 1.5 meters long)

Galahs (a type of cockatoo)

Wombat

Lyre Bird (sorry the photo is not that good it was about 20 meters down in a deep dark hole)

Grey Kangaroo

I am headed back to Brisbane on Monday and then to Papua New Guinea on Tuesday. I plan to be gone through March 2 so I wish you all a Merry Christmas and I will blog to you soon thereafter. Enjoy the holidays and please be very safe in all that you do.

Missing you!

To Big Island and Beyond

2008-11-18T17:57:00.000-08:00

I took a 5 day journey to the big island of Hawaii. I really enjoyed Oahu, but big island seems like prime habitat for a creature like me. It is uncongested (except a tiny part of Kona where the tourists flock), spacious, wild, beautiful, has a pretty good array of endemic flora and fauna that are still hanging in there, and it is growing! Mel was kind enough to work it out with her very gracious friend Steve so that I could stay at his place in Volcano for 5 days while he was out of town. His house was only about 3 mile from the entrance of Volcanoes National Park where I spent two days hiking and checking out the volcanic formations - lava tube caves, craters rims, crater floors, steam vents, successional forests, and distant vents spewing ash and dust (called vog) for miles in whatever direction the wind blew it. Although I tried 3 times, I never did get to see any molten lava, the wind was always wrong for it. I guess I need to leave something to come back for. I did, however, manage to see Hawaii's state bird the nene - it is a really cool goose that doesn't understand that being run over by cars can be detrimental to efforts of genetic persistence both for individuals and the entire species. I saw them in the road and it took me 10 minutes of very gentle coaxing to get them off to the side so I could pass.
I also headed down to South Point (the southern-most point of the US) which looks like the edge of the world. It has ~30ft. high cliffs that plunge into deep blue water teeming with fish and coral. Up the road a bit I stopped at a black sand beach. They form when lava flowing into the ocean shatters from the fast temperature change. There were hawk's bill sea turtles hanging out in the shallow water half submerged among the rocks. Northwest of these, I visited Honaunau or Place of Refuge. It is a culturally important site because it is an area where several generations of royalty hung out and it there was a large area that was designated as blood-shed free. Old Hawaiian law (Kapu) was really strict and a commoner could be killed for doing things like eating a meal with the opposite gender etc. This place of refuge was the only chance a commoner got to redeem him/herself. If they could make it to Honaunau before they were captured and killed, they could get their infraction excused by a priest there and they would subsequently be able to go home. Pretty crazy huh!? This place has soom very nicely reconstructed traditional buildings and carved statues...it also has a tiny beach with green turtles and an exceptionally good area for snorkeling.
From there I headed up to Kona to do an afternoon and night dive in hopes of seeing manta rays. No luck on the mantas but the dives were still well worth it. I saw some really great snails including a Hawaiian Nassarias (predatory snail) and a little cowrie. I also saw heaps and heaps of different fish species on a fairly healthy bit of reef and quite a variety of eels including garden eels (they live in holes on soft sandy bottom areas and they look like a whole bunch of plants growing out of the sea floor), very large yellowish guys whose names I cant remember, and two smaller species that were speckled. The eels were out of their burrows at night swinging around like very fat snakes in search of a fishy meal. I honestly don't know how they survive because we watched them hunt for quite a while and they always missed.
After the night dive, I spent the night in Kona and headed up toward Waimea for a hike that turned out to be closed. I bought some chai at Starbucks and headed over the saddle road between very large volcanoes Mona Kea and Mona Loa instead. I drove half way up Mona Kea to see the silverswards (an endemic plant that looks like a tiny silver yucca). I tried to get someone in 4wd to take me up to the top as dodgy rental cars were not advised to make the ascent. Everyone I asked declined to give me a lift. I guess I looked too dodgy too.
The rest of my stay in big island was very rainy so I hit up the Hilo farmers market, some waterfalls, and did some snorkeling in puna between intense showers. I slep and read a lot too.

On the 13th of Nov. I headed back to Mel and Jesse's late in the evening, realized that I actually left at midnight on the 15th (meaning I had to be at the airport the night of the 14th not the night of the 15th like I thought for some reason) and scurried around to get things in order (washing, packing, ordering travel insurance, posting letters and packages to California, convincing t-mobile that they really didn't need to charge me for terminating my account, and shopping for tickets to PNG!!!) that friday. I did take a break to bask in my productivity and people watch on the beach with my former co-worker and her family at Waikiki in the avo and enjoyed a beautiful dinner of thai food with Mel and Jesse before I hauled myself and my packs onto another plane further south. It was a great stay for sure!

I am in Brisbane now. After delayed flights in Fiji, inactive credit cards, a very very large storm, a long night in a hostel, and interesting interactions with the random people you meet when you are traveling with out a very solid agenda, I have made it to Nicole's house. I haven't done much exciting here, just trying to get things in order for my Dec. 2 departure to Lae.

All the best to yous! I'll post pictures soon. I promise!
-c

Oahu the Beautiful

2008-11-07T12:14:00.000-08:00

I've gotten to do quite a bit of exploring in Oahu so far and I am really enjoying this place.

On Sunday we spent the morning at the market where I had my first vegetarian manapua (think soggy ball of wonder bread with vegies and gravy in the middle). It was interesting but I don't think I will make a habit of eating them. They would make me pretty fat! We spent the rest of the morning tidepooling at the end of Sandy Beach near Hawaii kai. This place is super fantastic. I saw lots of nice fish, coral, snails, hermit crabs, shore crabs, and huge sea cucumbers (see album "Sandy Beach Tidepools").

In the afternoon, I went on a short loop hike in the forest just up from the house. The forest is mostly comprised of exotics owing to complete deforestation and cattle grazing of much of the island in the early 1800's followed by an aggessive re-foresting effort between 1830 and 1860 when conservation corps planted heaps and heaps of trees in an effort to stop errosion and regulate stream flow. The re-forestation effort planted a huge variety of both native and non native species, basically whatever they could get their hands on. The unfortunate result is the prevalence of non-native species. However, the upshot is that if the non-native plants had not been planted, the top soil and seed bank may have been lost and greater system collapse could have occured. I guess you get the good with the bad. Here are a few pictures from that hike:

On Monday (November 3) I had a hair appointment (yes my friend Mel is so awesome that she hooked me up with a much needed free hair cut from a stylist in training), so I spent the day in town. I visited the Foster Botanical Gardens in the am while the air was still cool. It is a great treat! Situated in urban Honolulu within walking distance from downtown, there are lots huge old trees (some native, some not) and lots of wildlife (almost exclusively non-native, but new to me so I still appreciated them). There was a great variety of palms and cycads from all over the world, a good collection or orchids and native plants, and a really fun edible plants garden including a basil bush four ft. high!!!
See: http://picasaweb.google.com/snailhugger/FosterBotanicalGarden#

Tuesday was spent at the Bishop Museum followed by election day festivities. The museum was pretty cool. They have an excellent display of artifacts from Hawaii both pre- and post european contact, a good historical display and collections from the former royal family from Kamehameha (who first "united" the hawiian islands under unified power) through Queen Lilio'kalani who was dethrowned by those with bussiness interests shortly before Hawaii became a part of the US. My favorite displays showed artefacts and implements from the various islands or island groups throughout polynesia, melanesia, and micronesia. They had some good stuff from Papua New Guinea. Unfortunately this display looks like it was set up in about 1968 and is in great need of repair. The carpet is green shag, some of the signage has warn away, and many of the lights in the display cases don't even work. What I really wanted to see was the insect collections, but with the exception of a few drawers that were in the children's science museum, there weren't any to be seen. Real shame!

Tuesday night we went to an election party at Jesse's friend's house. On the way there, we drove past the private school Barak Obama used to attend. I guess a lot of kids go to private or charter schools here in Hawaii because the school system is not so good and getting beaten up for not being Hawiian is pretty common. We got to the party just after the election result had been announced. Great news! I am very excited about what the future might hold, although it is going to take quite a bit of work to get our country back in working order. I am impressed by how many people were engaged in this election. I heard prissy girls making fun of other prissy girls on the bus for not getting out to vote. This is the first time voting has ever been en vougue. Que bueno! Hopefully people will stay engaged. Oh, and the view from the porch of Jesse's friend's house was as good as the election results!

Wednesday I went touring around the island. I started with a morning hike to the overlook on Makapu'u (see "Makapu'u overlook" slide show) followed by a strenuous climb down to the tidepools and blow holes at dragon's nostrils. It really did sound like a dragon breathing in and out. Eerie! The holes weren't blowing much but a fine mist would fly out every once in a while. I saw tons of fish down there chasing each outher around (see "Dragon's Nostrils tidepools" slide show) but the hike back up to the top sure wore me out.
From Makapu'u I took the H-3 over the mountains toward Pearl City. Wow!

Then I headed up the H-2 to the north shore for a rather rather bad fish burrito (apparently my stomach is particularly uninterested in cod) and a stellar visit to turtle beach (see "Turtle Beach" slide show) where I saw six turtles while I picked my way along the rocks.

From there I headed toward sharks cove and tidepool. The snorkeling was divine!!!! I saw tons of fish all tropical and very beautiful and in great abundance. There were several different species of sea urchin including the pencil urchins. I saw two eels and a shape shifting octopus too. Yeee! This is what the site looked like:

On the far end there was a breach in the sandstone wall and water would poor in like a waterfall.
On my way back to Mel's house, I drove along the windward coast and stoped in the mormon town of La'ie where there is this great sea arch:

Thursday I spent the day walking on different trails in the mountains above Mel's house toward Mt. Tantalus. Beautiful vegetation and amazing views!! See "Tantalus Trails" slideshow.

Today I am taking it easy and looking for travel insurance but it is time for me to go check out the Leeward Coast. More soon. I promise!

Aloha

2008-11-01T20:05:00.000-07:00

Hi there,

After several lovely going away parties (thank you!!), getting rid of a whole bunch of my stuff, quitting the job, and saying good bye to so many of my friends, family, and my cat; I have begun my trip. Thanks to everybody for coming out to my going away gatherings and for your kind wishes for my journey.

After spending a few days with my parents in Fresno and an evening in Santa Cruz with my very good friend Heidi, I have arrived in Honolulu. The weather here is interchangeably rainy and gorgeous. I am staying with my friends Mel and Jesse (see photo) in the Nuuanu-Pali area; basically up the hill from Honolulu in the rainy mountains.
The first thing I did when I got here was take a very long nap while it poured down rain all afternoon. Friday I headed into Honolulu proper with Mel. She works at the Nature Conservancy office downtown. I explored China Town early in the morning while the weather was still cool and the vendors weren't being pushy. Propelled by my market purchases, I explored the downtown government buildings and the Iolani Palace, home of the former Hawaiian manarchy (see below).

From there I took another bus through Waikiki. There was not much I wanted to see there. I am not into shopping and I like beaches that have very few or no people on them and I am saving my trip to the aquarium for a rainy day, so I kept going toward Waimanalo and stopped at an amazing beach at Makapu'u. I spent some time there tidepooling and enjoying the views before I took the bus into Kailua and over the Pali back to the house.

Today we went snorkling in Lanikai where we saw tons of fish, descent coral bommies, and a pretty large sea turtle. The wind was churing things up so the visability was not fantatstic but we still had a nice time and the sun came out after lunch so we all got warmed up and sunburned. On the way home we stopped off at the Pali overlook for a beautiful view.

We had an unexpected visitor in the house tonight: a pregnant house gecko. It jumped on Jesse's jeans and posed on his bum while I took this pic.
While Mel was cleaning the house she found this little beastie: a centipede introduced from Thailand. I guess they can get twice this big and really hurt if they bite you. I hope not to see one of these alive while I'm here. This one was preserved in the freezer. Jesse is an entomologist (studier of insects).

Overall I am having a good time. The people are really nice and I am enjoying all the fresh fruit. Honolulu is a little congested and seems very poorly planned. The drivers are bad but at least they usually stop when pedestrians want to cross the street and they seem to try not to put each other in danger. I think most people are just too distracted by the shiny windows on all the buildings or maybe its the wonder of what this island looked like before all the buildings and invasive species got here. In any case, I am looking forward to seeing more of the island in the coming days. Hope you are well!

First Post

2008-10-15T18:08:00.000-07:00

This is my first ever blog post....

The big news is that October 24 is my last day of work at the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Carlsbad. I am curently trying to purge all unnecessary/easily replaceable stuff in preparation for a big journey which will take me to Hawaii and Australia on my way to Papua New Guinea to work on biodiversity mapping as part of a sustainable forestry initiative in the Waria Valley. I'm not sure exactly when I will be back but I will be working in PNG till the end of April 2009 baring any unforseen circumstances. I hope to post often but I won't have very good access from Papua New Guinea. In the mean time I will be posting about recent and upcoming travel with pictures, so please subscribe to this blog if you want to read all that stuff. For those of you who are not blog savy (I am among you), I guess that a subscription causes an email to be sent to you letting you know there is a new posting everytime I make one. Don't worry, I will not be pestulantly frequent with my postings.

Have a great day!!!