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| Around the Lincoln Vineyard |
Wednesday made Tuesday seem like a boring, uneventful day. First off, I have no classes on Wednesday so I had the whole day to myself. I woke up bright and early and took a bus into Christchurch, and after some final paperwork, I picked up my CAR that I had purchased on Saturday. Sorry that I forgot to take a picture, but it's a 1988 Mitsubishi Galant, 5-speed, 4-door. It's white, and it's drives much more smoothly (and with almost no rust) than the dream-machine - more recently renamed the scream-machine due to its lack of a muffler. Anyway, driving on the right side of the car in the left lane is pretty cool, especially when the speed limit is 100 (that's km/hr, but its alarming at first watching the speedometer get so high). I came back to campus in my new hip ride, complete with A/C, power steering, power locks and a nice radio around 10:30am. At about 11:30, I picked up two new friends, Matt and Marina, and we headed out to Akaroa. Akaroa is a small little beach town in the center of Banks Peninsula, which is an ancient volcano that has been heavily eroded. Akaroa lies along the side of a giant crater which blew out on one side, letting the pacific come rushing in and forming Long Bay. I wanted to go to Akaroa, because the pictures I had seen made it look like a little beach town in the Caribbean. You won't believe the pictures. We went swimming at the beach and it was awesome! The water was like the temperature of Westport Beach or Horseneck Beach in the summer time. We had some fish and chips. And, we went on 2 hour boat cruise around the bay for sightseeing. The main attraction was the Hector Dolphin, an indigenous species to New Zealand and the world's smallest dolphin. We saw tons of them! We also saw penguins and seals, but, for me, the best part was seeing the cliff faces along the water's edge, displaying distinct lava flow strata. The lava flows were so easily seen because most were followed by a layer of ash, which had eroded along the edge of the cliff (because ash typically erodes more easily than volcanic rock), creating little ledges between each lava flow. Birds nested all along these. Also, we got a free drink on the boat so we all opted for New Zealand's famous Sauvignon Blanc - it was indescribably good. After, that it took us an hour drive to get back to Lincoln and we arrived around 6:30, just in time to catch dinner. You've got to look at these pictures - I couldn't believe this place when I saw it.
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| Akaroa and Banks Peninsula |
Hope all is well. I've got to go do some homework now. After all, I am in school. This weekend, I may go tramping (the kiwi word for hiking) up in Arthur's Pass with my Williams College geology friend Dan Walsh, who goes to University of Canterbury, which is about 30minutes down the road. Take care, and feel free to comment/email me
Jmaes,
ReplyDeleteWow, the beach looks awesome!!! I am glad you are having a great time and that you got some friends to go with you on a little adventure. It looks like you had a lot of fun. I assume your friends had an awesome time as well. That is so sweet that you get to manage a row of grapes. Im sure your crop will flourish and whoever gets to used your grapes will be pleasantly surprised. Currently it is snowing in PA...AGAIN...another foot on the way. I am really getting tired of it. It stinks you have to do homework like the Ellyn and I, but at least it will give your adventures some nice contrast and make them seem even more special. Good luck with classes and I will email you this weekend after this death week is over. Homework has been nuts!! Later James. As Mr. Dirt would say "Keep on keepin on!!"
-Jon
WOW those pictures are gorgeous... you're making me insanely jealous :) Once you're all knowledgeable about grape growing we should go into business together and start a vineyard, we'll make millions! Haha!
ReplyDeletehaha Sam, that sounds like a plan. How is school btw? Thank your mum for the Valentine's day card and tasty treats she sent me before I left! miss you.
ReplyDeleteJames, Sheafe is testing to see if a Google account he has just created in fact works.
ReplyDeleteNow that my verbiage is acceptable (to blogpsot via Google), which you may regret, I am going to attempt to recreate some observations I made several hours back, which comments were not acceptable or did not get posted. (First, though, yesterday I was unable to get connected to something called "JamesMcCarthyinNZ.blogspot.com" even with several attempts--Salem censorship? ) (Today, Friday morning the 26th, I can connect.)
ReplyDeleteI think you could expect me to be more interested in what you passed through en route to Akaroa than necessarily the destination itself, although I was impressed that you should know the ledges were the eroded remains of ash between sheets (right word?) of lava flow
--things you know through a guide book, through WC classes, or past tourism or exposure to volcanic sites? As to the trip, those hills/mountains comprise the Banks Peninsula? And they comprised of woods and pastures but not cropland unless meadows for hay--which raises the question in your locale of what months of the year feed is needed for sheep beyond what the pastures provide? The pastures looked somewhat dry or sere, which could be overgrazing, could be the end of the growing season (and grasses gone to seed, those at least not yet "cropped"), or could be a less rainy time of year. The woods I wonder are comprised of what dominant species (and how many, if any, exotics), are harvested how much, and how selectively--I know elsewhere in NZ there are expanses of conifer plantations which are clear-cut in blocks; I've seen photographs of this silvicultural regime. Which leads me to wonder if forestry and maybe fisheries are located at another university than Lincoln, and whether in Akaroa, there is a university presence in the way of a lab, field station, research site. (And in this regard, is there any way a one-semester interloper at Lincoln can find out all the doctoral research topics students at Lincoln are undertaking, in one's realms of interest: geo-sciences, soil sciences, viticulture, etc.? And also where their research sites are located? One could imagine a perfect semester somehow involving meeting each of these doctoral students to find out what they are doing, towards which end Moneybags would finance tea, crumpets, wine, beer or whatever other lures might enable such encounters.)
Awesome pictures! Looks like you're having a blast.
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