This morning I woke up at 7:40am. I tried to swollow, feeling the rocks that had formed where I once had lymph glands. I checked my phone and saw a message from Jency, “Rise and shine. Are you sure we’re still going on this trip in this weather?”
I got up, still asleep, and peeked out the window. It was raining sheets. I wrote back, “I’m not going with my throat like this,” and lay back down. But I only felt worse for missing out. After all those fun things in middle school and high school that’d I’d missed out on because of a stomach ache, a head ache, an ear ache, or a combination thereof, I made the decision I wasn’t going to miss this!
I was ready in 10 minutes, out the door and headed into the rain. I stopped at a cafe to buy breakfast, lunch and a waterbottle, but when I got to campus I realised I had left the bottle on the counter in the cafe. However, the bottle I thought I’d forgotten at home was in my bag.
I was 20 minutes early and because of the rain, our professor was running late, which meant ultimately I was 50 minutes early. But the trip turned out to be quite the adventure. Our first stop was an archaeological site. It was a pa with kumara pits and post-holes for pallisades, and ditches and mounds for defense. It was very windy up on that pa!
Next we went down to Ferry Lake I think it was called, and stopped off at a pub for some lunch. After that we were off to another site, the oldest house in New Zealand. It dates back to the 12thC. We hiked through sheep paddocks, dodging mud and dung to reach it. The sheep ran up a hill, and once a safe distance from us stood bleeting at us loudly. We were fully focused on not stepping on anything that had recently come out of the hind end of an animal and managed to walk right past the house. Peter had to call us back with the Kiwi attention grabber, “OY!” Basically all that is left of the house is the slightly raised wall that outlines it, and the stones arranged in a square for the fire place. It was still pretty sweet.
After we hiked back to the cars, we headed down the road toward the seal colony, and Peter pulled over abruptly to show us stone walls, basically heaps of stones that ran from half-way up the hills down to the sand dunes. I would never have imagined they were archaeological sites. They blended in so well with the rugged terrain. Once I knew what to look for, I saw them all along the coast. I wonder how many sites I have simply walked over, ignorantly.
Our final destination before returning to Wellington was the seal colony. But, in order to get to it, we first had to ford a river that had risen above the danger mark. We had three cars, Peter’s mini-van, a guys car, and a 4WD pick-up. We parked the car off to the side and all climbed into the van and pick-up and made our way safely, though nervously across. Once across we bounced along the dirt road past fat, lazy seals to the end, and parked. The seals put on a show for us, swimming in the water, and bouncing over the rocks. One of them bounced his blubbery self onto a rock and a seal behind him bumped him halfway off, which the first obviously did not appreciate. They stood there each hanging on, barking at each other angrily, until finally the second seal gave the first a good blow to the head, effectively knocking him off and onto the rocks immediately below. Their audience gasped, and commented on how it’s a good thing he had all that fat or he would have really hurt himself. He took a few moments to collect himself and then bounced off towards the water.
We got back in the vehicles, and headed back to the river ford. The van went first and as we reached the halfway point, we hit something. We were able to keep moving, but there was a horrible noise. We felt a second bump, and when we looked back we saw a big rock lying in the middle of the road. We’d dragged it out with us. I have to say I was quite impressed with how the mini-van handled.
It was all quite the adventure! And now I need to go pack for another adventure that begins tomorrow early in the morning when I go catch the ferry on down to the South Island, and take my Abel Tasman walk. More adventures to come!
Wellington Hospital:
Junior Rugby in the background
Junior Rugby in the background
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Drea