Monday: December 4

We drove to another community preserve. I mainly removed tradescantia (wandering willie) today, but also worked with others bringing mulch up a side of a mountain.

I learned about another New Zealand native tree while releasing, the Totara. I liked this tree so much that I thought about incorporating it with the tattoo I plan on getting (sorry pops 🙄). Totora’s uniqueness lies beneath it, within its roots! The roots will travel distances (unknown to me) to find family roots (other Totaras). Once linked, their strength increases. The bond is so great that if one totara is “sick”, the other linked totaras will provide nutrients to heal it. The bond is also so strong that it will kill anything within its circle of Totara Life. I asked if that was okay- sounds like Totaras are kind of clicky if they are killing non-totaras. The answer I got was “yes, because that’s how it was before.” Before humans chopped them all down. Kind of interesting, right?

This is the Totara. We cut off some branches from a nearby tree to allow sunshine on our growing baby. Leaves are thin and spaced out.

Since it was my last week in Wellington, I thought I’d take one more walk to Mount Victoria. Slightly different view.

Tuesday: December 5

We drove to Nga Manu Econsanctuary today. It was an hour drive from the house. I love the days we take long drives… I get the feeling the others don’t. I could be in the car for hours thanks to the road trips driven in my younger years.

We did something a little different today. The paths within the sanctuary needed some tlc so we re-graveled them. It was easy at first, but got challenging as stamina decreased. We finished around two… just in time for the eel feeding.

After we got home, a few of us went went into town for some shopping. That pretty much sums up the day.

Wednesday: December 6

David warned us that we would be driving even further than the day previous. Yay for me, nay for the rest. We went to Billie’s neighborhood which is somewhere along the coast. Billie used to work for Conservation Volunteers, but quit right before I started. Her mother had just passed away so she decided to move back to where she was from.

We met the lovely Billie and she showed us what we would be doing for the day. Releasing! I actually really enjoyed it today as there was more room to release the plants and tidy up the area. We were there until about 1:30p and made our way back.

The highlight of the day was actually sitting next to Charlie though. The dog David just adopted.

A few hours later, I went back to the city since I needed to mail a package of gifts. Did you know that you can’t mail magnets??? I had to rip open some packages since I had wrote down that the box included magnets. Nikolas and I made a guess how much it was going to cost. I said $45 and Nikolas said $50. We were too optimistic. $73! And that’s without tracking. Hope the package makes it home.

I’m on a walking kick so Nikolas said he would keep me company instead of taking the bus back home. Nikolas and Marie joined Conservation Volunteers the same day as me so he was one of my first friends here. One night we were chatting and he even said I was like his older sister which I thought was really neat and sweet. I rather be called an older sister than a mom or grandma anyways. I just like to exaggerate our age differences since I feel much older. Although these young adults are more mature than me sometimes.

Anyways, on our walk home I got to ask Nikolas questions about politics in Austria (where he is from) and Europe as a whole. Thankfully he didn’t make me feel too bad for not knowing some things that I should probably know. We talked about the European Union, current events, and things we care/worry about in own country. For example, I worry about lack of conservation efforts/care in the United States.

Needless to say, our walk home was genuinely rewarding for me. I got to exercise, talk, and learn!

Thursday: December 7

My last day of volunteering :(. It’s bittersweet. I am excited to move on and see more, but I’ve made connections that I don’t want to lose. Sure, we’ve exchanged numbers, but we all know how that goes sometimes. All I gotta say is that when I visit Europe, I’m contacting everyone. I’ll for sure stop in Germany since everyone that I’ve met in New Zealand is from there- with a few exceptions of course (Austria and France)! I’ve made some wonderful memories with these folks and I’m going to miss them. I’m really hoping to see them all again.

Zealandia was more enjoyable for me today. Must have been because I knew it was my last day interacting with gorse. Blah. Instead of taking the van up to our working site, we walked through Zealandia instead. We worked for a couple of hours then headed back down. On our way down, I was chatting with David (team lead) about my tattoo that I want. This last week I’ve been bouncing ideas off of him.   Being an artist, David is very creative and thoughtful.  Its been fun sharing what I want to include and WHY I want to include on my tattoo.   I’m thankful for David’s ability to jump start my left side of the brain.

Originally I told him that I knew I wanted a dragonfly and some sort of plant. I first wanted a NZ toetoe, but other than the fact that it makes me feel relaxed while looking at it, I had no other connection to it. There’s also a plant that’s practically identical and invasive to the toetoe, that I don’t want to represent.  That’s when I decided on Monday that I would use a totara tree within my tattoo. I told this to David and he asked “how do you think the tree will look?” And he was wondering how would someone (or myself) know that it’s a totara since there isn’t anything distinct about the leaves. Ha! I already thought of that David. I would have three trees linked with their roots (I didn’t want two trees because then it might symbolize a single relationship- not what I’m wanting to depict). He thought that was a good thought… but that’s when he broke the news to me…Other trees do the same. So blah blah blah, we talked and came up with a unique NZ plant that I could “connect” with. The tattoo idea has officially been created and I’m not sharing the idea until it’s on my body. The end.

Last day of volunteering, I went out with a few others for some more shopping.  Didn’t buy anything, but I enjoyed the walk.  For dinner we grilled.  It was going to be a last night for six others so we had to make it special.  Raoul had a lovely idea to bring the dining room table outside since it was such a beautiful evening.  While pointing at the sunset, he said “I want to look at that!”.   The view from the inside is beautiful  as well, but I loved his enthusiasm so I encouraged the idea.  Not sure how CVNZ would feel, but you can’t crush an 18 year old boy’s dream of watching the sunset with his friends.  It was the last night.

The crew.  I’m going to miss them dearly.

 

Friday: December 8

One last view from my bedroom window.

Welp.  Today was the day that I left the Truby King House.  I had a knot in my throat as I prepared my bags to leave.   It didn’t make it any better when I found a note from Franzi who wrote the sweetest goodbye.  I’ll keep that note for years to come.  Thank you for that Franzi.  Around 7:30a, I went into the boys room and said “Picture time!”.  I love how Nikolas reacted when I said that.  His eyes were still a bit hazy from just waking up but he still shot up and said something like “oh! it’s that time?”  It made me feel like he actually wanted to take photos at 7:30a 🙂 … Good sport, all the boys were.  I took photos with everyone except Jian 😦 hopefully I’ll see him in Te Anau when he makes his way down.

Arrived at 7:50a, and as I was meeting him, I had THE CUTEST SEND OFF EVER!!!!!  I get excited just talking about it.  I heard cute, little, blond Julia’s voice say “Byeee!” I turned around and every window was occupied with waving hands.

I could go on and on and on about the individuals in this house.  But just so I can get this blog post done, I’m going to cut it short.  I am so unbelievably thankful that I got a chance to meet everyone (including Conservation Volunteers staff) here in Wellington.  This experience will be impossible to replicate for too many reasons to list. There is no doubt in my mind that I will meet some, if not everyone, again.  Goals: travel more, learn more, and be friends with people from different countries.  My door will always be open to these fine folks.

After one final photo, I was on my way to the Interislander Ferry.  I consider this my first cruise.  I loved the ferry- a smile never left my face.  I mean I had a cookie and beautiful scenery! Happy girl here. The ferry got into Picton around 1:00p.  I thought I booked a bus from Picton to Nelson at 1:30p, but I accidentally booked the 6:15p bus.  That meant hanging out in Picton for a few hours- no problem.  I grabbed some lunch and a Corona.  After lunch, I took a snooze on the lawn near the water.  The breeze was great that day but I didn’t feel my skin burning.  Luckily I was wearing jeans and had a long sleeve to cover up, but my hands got a bit too sun-kissed.