2016 At a Glance

Hello again! So… my yearlong hiatus didn’t go unnoticed. Woops! But who really liked 2016 anyways? I’ll give you the short version of what happened:

I worked in Canberra, Australia for 3 months helping a graduate student with her studies. She was trying to compare the coevolution of the Eastern Koel (a nest parasite) and its hosts (Red Wattlebirds, Noisy Friarbirds, and Magpielarks) between Sydney, where koels have historically been located, and Canberra, where koels only started moving into in the last couple decades. Koels lay their eggs in the host’s nests, and then those birds end up raising koel chicks. Most of my time was spent looking for host nests. It paid off because I found the project’s first ever koel egg in a wattlebird nest in Canberra!! We also found a second koel egg, and two koel chicks in wattlebird nests (also a project first for Canberra). When we were nest searching, Remi and I explored the surrounding area and got to see all of the other interesting birds and creatures that Canberra has to offer. I even got to make a couple trips up to Sydney!

At the end of that project, I flew to Cairns and spent three weeks working my way down to Brisbane. I went snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef (saw a white-tipped reef shark, giant clams, and amazing coral beds!), took a tour of the Atherton Tablelands (lots of cool birds and wildlife), searched for cassowaries in Mission Beach, hiked and swam on Magnetic Island (one of my favorite places of the entire trip; wild koalas, very laid back, and stunning views), swam in the “lagoon” (giant shallow public pool) at Airlie Beach, took a tour of the ginger beer factory in Bundaberg, had a 3D/2N adventure on Fraser Island (swam in Lake McKenzie which has water so clean and fresh you can drink while you swim, checked out the shipwrecked S.S. Maheno, floated down Eli Creek, and partied it up Aussie style), then ended in Brisbane where I went to the Australia Zoo (home of the Crocodile Hunter!) and watched my first ever Cockroach Races for Australia Day. It was a whirlwind of a trip, but it was fantastic, fun, and highly memorable. I met a lot of interesting people and discovered numerous places that I’ll have to come back to explore someday!

S.S. Maheno

My crew on Fraser Island

The Croc Hunter family at the Australia Zoo

From Brisbane I flew home to San Jose, where I finally had to face my mother after scaring her with that whole pulmonary embolism thing. Oh yeah, that was my first long flight since the PE. My dad mailed me a variety of compression socks for Christmas (I actually asked for them… ugh), which I’d been wearing on the longer bus trips through Queensland. But the flights were annoying – I’m used to having the window seat and sleeping for 90% of the flight. Now I request the aisle seat and get up to walk around every couple of hours. I was pacing the plane with 80-year-olds and people with infants. I felt like I’d aged 40 years. :-| Anyways, that week at home was far too short – enough time to unpack and wash everything (I didn’t do laundry my entire three weeks in Queensland), and then repack for another season in Hawaii. Also lots of niece and pup time!

For the first time I returned to do a second season at one of my previous field jobs (the Hawaii Forest Bird Demography Project with USGS). Not bad that I chose Hawaii! There were actually several people returning from the previous season, so it was nice to have some familiar faces there, plus the other friends who I knew on island. That season went about the same as the first one – lots of bird banding, re-sighting color bands, putting transmitters on birds and hand-tracking them later, and working on our aging and sexing guide. That guide FINALLY got published as a technical report later in summer! There’s still a lot we can do to improve it, but for now it’s a good resource for anyone banding birds in Hawaii.

During that season I took a trip to Kauai with some friends, and another to Maui with some other friends. Both trips were great in their own way, but I think I preferred Kauai since it was so different from Big Island. We took another project trip to the summit of Mauna Kea, played lots of board games (but far fewer than the previous year because George and I were put on opposite crews… who would do that?!), my dad came to visit in the spring, I officially moved into the guys’ house in Hilo, a large group of us went on a 3D/2N camping trip in Waimanu Valley, I FINALLY got to see lava up close, and the landlords wanted to sell so we had a helluva time packing and moving to a new place.

When the funding unexpectedly ran out on that project, I quickly jumped onto a two-month internship with the Alala Project. The Alala is the Hawaiian Crow which went extinct in the wild in 2002. The goal of the project is to release birds from the captive breeding program into the wild so the Alala can establish a self-sustaining population. I joined the project before the birds were released into the wild, so my job was mainly predator control. I went around our predator control grids checking and resetting a variety of traps for rats, mongoose, and cats. It wasn’t the most glorious work that I’ve done, but it was important nonetheless. The release at the end of 2016 didn’t go as smoothly as hoped – 5 birds were released, but 3 of them died within the first week. The remaining 2 were brought back into captivity while the working group comes up with solutions and ways to avoid the problems encountered in the first release. Hopefully the next cohort that is released sometime this year will be more successful than the first!

After my stint with the Alala Project, I went back to California for a 3-week vacation before starting a 10-month internship with the Natural Area Reserves System (NARS). Lots of time with family and friends, helped Chris get into birding (so lots of birding trips), learned a thing or two from Bob Ross, and generally enjoyed living in a place where things aren’t constantly moldy.

Putting a transmitter on a Hawaii Creeper

In October I started my internship with NARS. I was hired as the “bird intern”, but NARS is mainly focused on management of the natural area reserves. They build and maintain fences, control for non-native animals and plants, out-plant native species, and monitor the areas to help guide future management decisions. So far I’ve done a little bit of everything, but most of my work is with the birds. Once a week we try to go banding in Pu’u Maka’ala NAR. The goal is to catch the endangered birds (Akiapola’au, Hawaii Creeper, and Hawaii Akepa; we caught these guys in Hakalau, too!) and put transmitters on them so we can map their territories and hopefully find their nests. If we find nests we can put out predator traps in the area to directly help their chances of nest survival. If we can only map their territories it will at least give us estimates of home range and how many individuals might be living in the NAR, and from there help us track habitat health.

Most of the work that NARS does is highly manual labor (i.e. fencing), and the guys have had years of practice so they’re really good at it. I have years of practice working with forest birds, so I’d say that I’m pretty comfortable and confident with that. But those two areas have very little overlap, so it’s always funny to see one of the guys be able to pound fence posts for hours but lose it when faced with a tangled mist net. I’m just the opposite – I can untangle for days and do all of the fine details of bird handling, but after a half dozen posts I’m spent. I’m working on it though!

Besides my field work, I took three trips in 2016 – Montreal/Ithaca, Florida, and Mexico. In June I went to Montreal with Chris, the kids, Erin, and her family to watch the Formula 1 race. I’d never been to one before, so that was super cool to watch in person. After that we went down to Ithaca, NY for a week with Erin’s brother’s family. We ate lots of good food, swam in the lake, checked out the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and went to the science center where we learned that Chris has lower brain activity than his infant son. In November I went to Florida for my Grandma’s 90^th birthday! But first Chris, Erin, Caroline, Nick, and my mom all went to Disney World for several days! We went to the Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom again, and Epcot. I haven’t been to Disney World since I was a kid, so it was cool seeing how Caroline liked everything. Granted, it was still pretty overwhelming for a 3-year-old, so there were times we just went back to the hotel to chill at the pool… until she got diarrhea in the pool, then we just chilled in the hotel room and tried not to show our faces. The birthday celebration in Tarpon Springs was pretty great, too. Got to see a lot of relatives I haven’t seen in years, joke around with Grandma who – at 90 – was inappropriate as ever, go birding with Chris, and eat delicious Greek food! The last trip was to Mexico for New Year’s where I joined Erin and her family for a few days. I had just spent a week and a half taking care of my roommates’ overly energetic puppy and our two cats, so that trip was a much needed break. I met lots of cool relatives, ate more food than I’m proud of, partied it up for New Year’s, and drained the bars. One of my favorite activities was probably having a bartender deliver me a Bloody Mary every time I made a lap around the endless river. Or releasing baby sea turtles into the ocean. Or a day of birding with Chris and a local bird guide. I guess I’d say the entire trip was pretty amazing!

First bartender in Mexico

Caroline as the Beast!

Now I’m spending a relaxing weekend on Kona side with my mom who is visiting for a week! We are *actually* relaxing, as in not even really doing anything today other than going to the pool and walking along the lava coastline. Often when I come to this side of the island we are trying to squeeze in a bunch of different activities, so this is a nice change. It also means that I had legitimate down time to write this blog post! I live with so many roommates and people are always coming over and hanging out that it’s hard to get a solid chunk of time to write. “Oh no, I’m too busy socializing and having fun to sit by myself and write a blog post!” Right? Ah well. Now that I’ve gotten 2016 out of the way hopefully it’ll be easier to keep up with 2017. And who knows, I might go back to funny or interesting things from last year in more detail. Or not. You’ll never know I skipped it! Now back to doing nothing…

Chilling in Christchurch

Health update: I feel fine! Lung doesn’t feel collapsed and blood doesn’t feel clotty. But I’m thinking I should play it safe and continue to not exercise, like the doctor ordered.

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Back to New Zealand (my gosh that was a long time ago). So I left Kaikoura on the Coastal Pacific and had a nice, peaceful trip to Christchurch, with excellent views of the ocean and mountains. Once in Christchurch I caught a SuperShuttle to The Dorset House hostel, which was excellent. I was in a 5-person dorm but it was HUGE. None of the beds were lofted, so everyone had their own nightstand, lamp, outlets, and general floor space. It was very nice, and in general the hostel was very spacious and new.

The Cathedral with scaffolding and piles of rubble.

The next morning (9/27) I did my own walking tour of Christchurch. I passed by a Farmer’s market and grabbed some kind of egg and bacon buttie (sandwich), and then headed to the Cathedral. In 2011 much of Christchurch was destroyed by a huge earthquake, and the Cathedral was one of the buildings that was hit hard. However, controversy over whether to demolish and rebuild it or attempt to restore it means that nothing has actually happened and the building is surrounded by fences and still in shambles. It’s a grim reminder of the tragedy. However, the earthquake also inspired some interesting innovations, including the Cardboard Cathedral and the container mall. The Cardboard Cathedral is exactly what it sounds like – a temporary Cathedral made primarily of cardboard. Okay it’s a bit sturdier than it sounds – I was imagining an old cardboard box that could fit three children if they were lucky. The building’s support beams are all massive cardboard tubing, and other features are also made of cardboard/paper products. It’s pretty cool to see in person.

The inside of the Cardboard Cathedral!

The container mall is also exactly what it sounds like – an outdoor mall where the shops are all contained within shipping containers. After the earthquake, people didn’t want to wait for demolition and construction of entirely new buildings, so they chose the much faster option of turning shipping containers into storefronts. Clothing stores, cafes, restaurants, bookstores… each of them the size of only one or two shipping containers with windows and doors added on. It started as only a few shops, but I think now it’s up to something like 50 shops. Very creative way to get back on your feet while waiting for the major construction to happen (four years later and half of the city is still a giant construction project).

After a ton of walking I was fortunate enough to find another scrumptious iced mocha, with chocolate drizzled on the inside of a bottle. So good! (I crave a good iced mocha at least once a week. New Zealand may have ruined me.) That restaurant was right across from the Canterbury Museum, so I went inside and got to check out some cool exhibits, including a huge natural history section with lots of bird mounts, an Antarctic section with the history of Antarctic expeditions, and a temporary one on light and eyesight tricks. It was pretty cool AND free!

I went back to my hostel early to plan for the next day and make some reservations, and while I was in the lounge Harry and Etienne walked in! They had both stayed elsewhere the night before because my hostel was full, but that night Etienne was staying there. We had a fun evening sharing beers, catching up, and playing pool. It was a relaxing evening in, but we had a blast.

The next day (9/28) I made a trip out to the International Antarctic Centre. Apparently many of the flights to Antarctica leave from Christchurch, so they have a whole place dedicated to the history of expeditions, technology, and wildlife. If you’re ever in Christchurch I highly recommend stopping here. It’s even right next to the airport, so you can do it on a couple hour layover! Anyways, there were so many cool things. There was a cold room where you could experience an Antarctic blizzard where the temperature dropped to -18C and the wind made your face burn (they provide you with parkas). They also had a penguin exhibit for injured penguins. I showed up at feeding time so I got to see the little cuties waddling around for fish. There was a 4D movie (they sprayed water and blew bubbles at you), another 2D movie, and a super awesome Hagglund ride! Hagglunds are the vehicles that they use in Antarctica. They have the same type of track/conveyer belt movement system as tanks (what is that called??). This allows them to go across crevasses that are up to like 1-2m wide (I think? I don’t really remember details at this point). They are also waterproof and can tackle some pretty deep water (they float eventually but also have small motors on them to help with this). I thought the ride was going to be some silly kid thing, like a little train ride at the zoo. Boy was I wrong! This was more like a tame roller coaster. They were showing off the speed and maneuverability of the thing by flying around corners and shooting over hills (with crevasses at the top) and down into water-filled ditches. Even with our seatbelts and hand holds we were sliding all over. It was fantastic!

I had perfectly timed out my day to line up with the city bus schedule, so I left the museum and walked a few blocks to the bus station. There was some minor construction in the area, so some of the curb was blocked off, but while I was standing there a different bus line approached and the driver slowed down while signaling to me to ask if I needed his bus. I shook my head no and he continued on, so I was satisfied and figured it wouldn’t be a problem for my bus to stop. However, when I saw him approaching I flagged him down and he just pointed down the road and kept going. He didn’t stop at my stop, and he didn’t even stop 30 meters down the road where the construction ended – he went to the NEXT stop which was over half a mile away, easy. I was standing there in my ankle brace thinking “you have got to be kidding me” and started speed walking to the next stop where I saw the driver was clearly waiting for me. He was probably expecting me to run to meet him, but I wasn’t about to do something stupid and injure my ankle worse, so I stuck with speed walking. That was still pretty tiring, and it was taking a long time considering the distance. After several minutes, right around when I reached the halfway point, I saw the driver take off. Of course.

Well I figured I could stand around and wait 40 minutes for the next bus, or I could walk into the city and check out one of the many public gardens along the way. That was also exhausting as it was several miles that I ended up walking. But the gardens were nice and they had some adorable ducklings hanging out. From there I caught a different bus to the Botanic Gardens by the Canterbury Museum. I ate a nice dinner outside before heading back to the hostel. I was fruitlessly trying to dial Harry’s number on the hostel phone (I am incapable of figuring out how to dial foreign numbers) when I got chatting with a new girl – Caroline. She had just arrived from the UK and was trying to get the internet to work, so we sat there trying to help each other. Eventually we were both successful and I contacted Harry and Etienne about hanging out again, so I introduced them to Caroline and we all had another fun evening in.

Etienne, Harry, Caroline, and me right after seeing Akaroa

The next morning (9/29) I had booked a trip to Akaroa, which is the little nub of land sticking off the east side of the south island. It’s absolutely gorgeous with the hills and the harbors. Coincidentally Caroline had booked her own activities in Akaroa for the same day, so I canceled my bus trip and got a ride with her instead (she rented a car). Harry and Etienne had nothing planned, so they also tagged along! It took a couple hours to get there on a beautiful road, and Caroline’s crazy driving made it that much more interesting. She was zooming around corners and driving much more confidently on the left side than any of the rest of us would have, so the three of us alternated between clenching the door handles and giggling. When we went over the last big hill before descending into the main town we got our first view of the harbor and it was stunning! There were exclamations from four different countries. “Hot dog!” “Oh la vache!” “F*ck me” “Bloody hell!” Can you match the phrase with the right countryman? Immediately after seeing the view Caroline pulled over so we could take pictures. It was stunning!

From there we continued into town and saw Caroline off on her cruise to swim with dolphins. The rest of us walked along the shore and had a picnic at a nice overlook by a lighthouse. It was here that I tried my very first golden kiwi – delicious!! Thanks for the tip, Harry! The boys were great – I did some casual birding while we were wandering around and I pointed out the birds that I saw. They borrowed my binoculars and Harry got really into it. He was checking out oystercatchers and trying to spot the different species. Quite fun! We stopped in a fudge shop along the waterfront (Etienne had never had fudge) and continued our way around. There wasn’t much to do in such a small place if you weren’t paying for some kind of expensive boat tour, but we were just having a relaxing and cheap outing. Once Caroline got back she drove us up into the hills so we could get some views looking down to the harbor. It was incredible. After that we waited around in town for our bus back to Christchurch. Caroline was spending the night in Akaroa so we couldn’t get a ride back with her, but the bus was fine. The driver was spouting off facts for a solid hour, so that was a little annoying, but otherwise it was a nice break after a day of wandering around. We had a couple short stops – one at a wine and cheese shop that the driver obviously had some kind of partnership with, and one for a quick photo op at … some kind of scenery that we were all kind of dozing during the explanation of.

When we got back to our hostel the boys said they were going to go pick up some dinner things and we would have a little group dinner on our last night! They didn’t want to make me walk anymore, so they went to get the food while I packed up most of my things in preparation for leaving the next morning. I poked my head into the kitchen after my shower and saw Etienne preparing food, but he refused my offer to help and sent me downstairs to hang out with Harry. We met a brother and sister who just showed up and were really chatty (the brother more so than the sister), so we hung out in the lounge with them for a while. Turns out the guy knew some people in Canberra, so he gave me his contact info so I could potentially meet some new people upon arriving in Australia! Etienne came and got us for dinner so we had an adorable group dinner. He made a big salady thing with rice, corn, tomatoes, and tuna fish, and we had a sorry-excuse-for-French-bread since nothing that’s not in France is ever going to meet French standards, haha! (I’m not a big fan of tuna, but when someone makes it for me for a group dinner you can bet I’ll eat it. I put generic “salad cream” on it and it was good.) We spent our last evening together chatting with the brother and sister in the lounge, and then said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Of course Harry and Etienne were both super sweet and sent me goodbye messages before I left for my bus to Queenstown the next morning. Fortunately we still keep in touch, but I definitely miss hanging out with them. We had some fun times in Kaikoura and Christchurch!

Me and the boys :)

A Day in Kaikoura

Health update before the good stuff.

I’m still alive! I guess things were a lot more dire than I initially thought. (Mom and Dad, just skip to the next paragraph.) I mean I knew a blood clot in my chest was not a good thing, but when you hear “pulmonary embolism” and start googling, it gets kind of terrifying. For instance, the CDC estimates that “sudden death is the first symptom in about 25% of people who have a pulmonary embolism”. Ho. Ly. Shit. And if you don’t drop dead immediately, it’s pretty much all downhill from there. I could even tell that from my day of getting scanned and tested. At first my chest only hurt when I was lying down so I felt totally normal sitting down for breakfast, but as the morning went on my chest started hurting just sitting in the waiting rooms. It got to the point where lying down for the CT was excruciating and I was almost unable to take the necessary deep breaths. Fortunately I was in a medical facility at that point, so I figured if something bad DID happen, help would be like two feet away. Except that it was just a doctor’s office and not actually a hospital, so I guess I still would’ve been f’ed.

Anyways, I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor last Thursday, and after getting me from the waiting room she put her hand on my shoulder and said, “I’m really happy to see you back here. You had us pretty worried last week. I prayed for you.” As my friend Katie said, when the doctor turns to God you know you’re not doing well! The doctor told me that I still probably have a partially collapsed lung and a blood clot, but it’s too soon to do another CT scan since they aren’t the greatest thing in the world for you. I’ll have to get one in January before I come home, though, to make sure that I’m fit to fly. The anticoagulants that I’m taking (and will be taking for the next 6 months) are slowly breaking down the clot, which is good, but as far as I know it’s still there! None of the doctors had a clear cut answer about how long it would take for the clot to go away and the lung to return to normal, so I guess it varies drastically between patients. (I can tell the lung isn’t back to normal when I try walking up even the slightest incline – immediate minor pain in half of my chest.) The doctor also said that I’m not supposed to run or do contact sports or anything because the clot might break free and start roaming around my chest, and that doesn’t seem like a good thing. So basically, for the first time ever, my doctor has told me to NOT exercise.

Oh yeah, and after 11 days I finally started pooping normally again. You try not having a good poop for a week and a half and tell me how YOU feel.

Upside from all of this? Buying travel insurance has finally paid off, AND I got some cool scans of my insides! Here, check out my heart.

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Back to my adventures in New Zealand!

Looking into Queen Charlotte Sound from Picton

After my day trip to Abel Tasman I took a bus back to Picton on 9/25. I had a couple hours to grab a coffee and sightsee on the waterfront before catching a train – the Coastal Pacific – to Kaikoura. I carefully planned my time in New Zealand so that I could take this trip, because the 25^th was the first day of the season that it was running! I had a window seat on the ocean side – beautiful! I was sitting right behind a very friendly guy named Bruce. He was too friendly. He talked to me and the older couple behind me the entire 2.5 hours. I know I sound rude right now, but he LITERALLY (and yes, I actually mean it in this context) did not stop talking for longer than 30 seconds the entire time, except for when he went to the café car for a beverage. He was clearly smart and educated and chatty, but my god I wish there was an off button. I went to the open air car for a while to take pictures and escape, but after 30 minutes I was frozen so I went back to my seat. Bruce was standing in my row of seats and talking over the chairs to the couple seated behind me. Come on, man, just sit down and enjoy the scenery! There is no good way to tell someone to just stop talking, especially when they are just being nice. I tried to ignore him by birdwatching out the window, but he was persistent. Oh well, at least the scenery was nice.

We passed a massive seal colony just before Kaikoura – there were HUNDREDS of them hidden on the rocks! I also got a quick glimpse of what I think were spotted shags – they have crests, which is why I think that’s what they were. The views were amazing, and it was hard NOT to take pictures, which is why I now have hundreds of pictures to sort through. Fantastic.

When we got to Kaikoura I got picked up by Helen, the owner of The Dolphin Lodge hostel I was staying at. I think I liked that one as much as The Funky Green Voyager in Rotorua. This hostel was perfect for solo travelers because it was really easy to hang out and meet people. The larger hostels I’ve been in have had a lot more groups of people, so it’s more difficult to mingle, but Helen even said she tries to avoid booking groups because they detract from that dynamic, so that’s cool. I was in a 5-bed dorm which had a decent amount of space, there was a nice cozy area by a fireplace and a larger sitting area with windows on 3 sides with great views of the ocean and mountains. There was also a hot tub on the deck, which Helen was very diligent about opening up. I had such a nice time in the spas back in Rotorua that I was really looking forward to this hot tub.

There were already three guys in the hot tub when I went out, but they were all super nice and none of them actually knew each other beforehand! Harry was Irish and had worked in Australia for a couple years before ending up in New Zealand to travel for 9 months. Etienne was a French carpenter and had arrived in New Zealand only a week before, but he was staying for something like 9 months to a year and was going to look for construction work. Andre was German and was finishing up his 5-week visit before heading to Sydney for a week. I chatted with them for a while, and they invited me out for drinks later. The difference between biologists and non-biologists: I heard “drinks later” and thought that meant 6 or 7pm. They weren’t actually planning on leaving the hostel until 8 or 9pm. I’d been going to bed around 10pm most nights, and they didn’t want to LEAVE until 9pm?? Oh boy. But I put my big girl pants on and had a fun night out. A few other people from the hostel joined us, so we had a decent-sized group down at the only open pub in Kaikoura. It was a really fun night!

I had planned to get up early and walk to the seal colony on the peninsula, but I got a bit of a later start than anticipated. Of course it was supposed to drizzle/rain for most of that day, so when I did finally get up I had to get all decked out in my rain gear. The guys were awake when I left, but they wanted to stay in and take it easy. The walk to the peninsula was a lot longer than I expected. It was supposed to take almost an hour without stops, but I was poking along and taking pictures, so it took well over an hour. It was worth it, though – I saw some cool birds along the way (Australasian gannet, white-faced heron, spur-winged plovers, and several variable oystercatchers), some cute little seals by the road, and I stopped for what turned out to be the best ham and cheese croissant sandwich I’ve ever had in my life. Maybe it was the hangover talking, but it was the perfect combination of gooey cheesy goodness and fresh flakey croissant. That thing gave me the strength to walk for 8 miles that day. In the rain.

The seal colony was awesome – there weren’t as many seals as in the one we passed on the train, but there were plenty and they were right next to the trail and parking lot, or in the case of one tiny pup, walking through it. There was a volunteer there to keep people a safe distance away from the seals, which was a good thing, too, because people can be STUPID around wildlife, despite the half a dozen signs warning people to stay at least three meters away. It always seems that parents are the ones to ignore these by making their kids go and stand by the dangerous wildlife. How about you first!

Anyways, from the seal colony I walked up the trail along the cliffs and got some BEAUTIFUL views of the coast and the ocean. There were a dozen different shades of blue (or was it 50 shades?), with the sun lighting up the beaches below. There were a bunch more seals that covered the beach and the rocks, with lots of seagulls flying around. I walked down to the breeding grounds on the beach and saw a bunch of white-fronted terns, more gulls, and some absolutely stunning views, even with the clouds and drizzle. It was hard to convince myself to start heading back to town because it was such a beautiful place with some amazing wildlife. I definitely wish I had stayed in Kaikoura longer.

White-fronted terns

White-faced heron with several Variable oystercatchers

The walk back to the hostel was way more difficult than walk there; up to that point I was feeling alright, but as soon as I started walking back I noticed my legs were KILLING me. It took at least an hour to walk back, if not more. When I got there the guys were all still on the couch right where I left them hours earlier, haha! I had a little bit of time before my train to Christchurch, so I changed, packed up my stuff, said my goodbyes, and made plans to meet up with Harry and Etienne in Christchurch (they were both heading there that afternoon as well, but Etienne was taking the bus and Harry was hitching a ride with a couple in the hostel). Helen gave me a ride back to the train station, and then I enjoyed a short but beautiful (and much more peaceful) journey to Christchurch.