Spiders, Robins and Rats! Oh My!

Ok so my "at least every month plan" didnt really work either. Nevermind though.. I just wish i could update you guys on goings on, on my phone more easily, as i carry that everywhere i go and it can pick up wireless. But to be honest it's just a bit over my head!!

Anyway the past few days i've been helping one of my lecturers out by volunteering in doing some research work up at bennydale. (which is pretty much near the centre of the north island!) No mobile reception AT ALL. Which is a bit crap and i just managed to get on the internet once while being up there. It's so sad how bad I cope without my mobile or internet for a few days. I get a bit twitchy and eager to know whats happening. Very sad indeed...

The volunteer work was awesome, very tiring mind you! Basically there are these patches of natural new zealand forest around the house that we were staying at during the week. Each patch had a funny name like Dizzy, Fatty or Flag to name a few. Within these patches were grids of tracking tunnels to see if there were rats present. The first day we went around all these patches putting in pieces of paper and sponges of ink to detect if rats were there and some peanut butter to attract them to the tunnel. This took forever and involved me getting lost in the forests on multiple occasions. (I had to use a compass to navigate, never a good idea) When navigating the forests, to the best of my abbility I managed to get cuts and scratches nearly all over my body along with running into nearly every cobweb out there!

The next day we had the challenge of remembering where all the tracking tunnels were and collect the papers. This was the main objective when i was up there as what Doug my lecturer called me a "voluntary slave." Although we also did some radio tracking of the new zealand robins in these forests. Basically you walk around with a tv aerial that bleeps louder as you get closer to the robin that you're tracking.(See image below of random guy)


While doing this, I had to carry around a tub of mealworms to attract the robins over. NZ robins aren't like the robins back home with their gorgeous red breast, nor are they like robyn he swedish popstar that i often talk about..they are grey and fairly bland in colour, however still happen to be quite cute.

So i'm back in palmy ready for round two. The people are back, it's busy again, sun's holding up today and here's new internainal students to keep me company which is good. Lookin into getting a new digital camera soon as my other ones decided to pack in on me. Oh and here's a song that's doin' really well over here at the moment featuring one of my fave new zealand artists Gin Wigmore.





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Blair Xx