Great Barrier Island Part 1 (as told by C)

It's been a week now since I came back from Great Barrier Island, and I've had much uni work and computer-y things to be doing. In addition, I didn't want to post about such a beautiful island without accompanying photos. Alas, I have none, but if my "official photographer" comes through, then post I shall.

G was kindly enough to walk me to the ferry terminal at half six in the morning, helping me to carry one of the bags. The class boarded the ferry, and I secured myself a comfortable seat on the deck and fell asleep for a good few hours. Almost suitably refreshed, the heavens decided to open and we were forced to the shelter just behind the engine room. That did not go so well. My soon-to-be-roommate, S, spent the next hour and a half puking. I sat out front groaning and moaning for a bit until I spotted GBI and instantly became excited for the week ahead.

We piled off the ferry and into the vans where we slowly made our way to the accommodation, stopping half a dozen times for George, the lecturer, to point out various things about the landscape through which we were driving. When he talked about plant species, I was at a complete loss as to what on earth he was saying. Back in the van, I reassured myself that I wasn't alone as other people had no idea either! We learned that during the last glacial period, the sea was around 180m lower than current levels, which meant 18,000 years ago, GBI was attached to the Coromandel peninsula.

We were staying at a Christian camp in Orama, where we sorted ourselves into rooms, convened to be inducted, and then waited for the dinner gong to sound. Upon the first peal, we assembled en masse in the dining room (our group and several others also staying there) and waited for grace to be said. The food was delicious - vegetable nut roast and chips. When I asked for the vegan option, I was greeted with "so you're the vegan" to which I smiled broadly and said "yes, thank you for cooking for me". It seems politeness and enthusiasm go a long way in the world of catering: my meals and puddings became progressively better over the course of the week!

That night, we met upstairs in the ad-hoc lecture room to hear George give an overview of the week and a brief history of the island. He introduced a few of the graphs we would be expected to produce and at the dendrogram he asked if anyone had seen one before. My hand slowly goes up. "Only the computer scientist has, then". That was encouraging. I don't know my plants, but I do know my graphs!

The next day we had breakfast, made lunch, and headed to Glenfern Sanctuary just south of Orama. There we had a 15 minute lecture on the sanctuary and what it's for and then hiked up the hill to overlook the landscape. At this point, I declared Y my official photographer! We had previously been separated into groups and given equipment, including a plant identification book, and so as a group (mine with George) we headed towards the big kauri tree learning plants as we went along. Turns out my group - S my roommate and R - were pretty well-versed on their plant ID already. George's other group was B (probably knows every species in NZ ever) and T (also not bad). So, guess who got picked on? After two hours of "alright, sweeeeeet Caroline doo doo doo, what's this one?" I had a pretty good idea of how to identify ten plants. Now, that doesn't sound a lot, but I had to not only learn how to ID then, but I had to remember the names - names which my ears had never once been privy to!

Everyone reconvened at the giant kauri with a treehouse so we went 4 at a time across the rope bridge to look out over the forest canopy. S pointed out a giant Knightia Excelsa from the kauri - the leaves of which, fairly obviously, look like green swords. We ate lunch and then watched George unsuccessfully try to core a tree. He eventually succeeded, a neat demonstration of how unpredictable field work can be!

We were split off into groups again and S, R and I broke through the bush to the first data collection point. This was in practice for the full day tomorrow. We were using a heavily altered PCQ method, a plotless data collection method (the proof for which is heavily mathematical and the paper was written by computer scientists. too many integration signs for my liking). This entails sticking a stick in the ground which has two bits of plastic you set perpendicular to each other. They demarcate your quarters. First thing:

• Record the aspect by orienting yourself in the direction you think water would head and take a bearing.
• Record the slope by sending R down the hill and looking just above her head (she's shorter) through the inclinometer and trying to read the results whilst keeping it steady and both eyes open (quite tricky to get used to!)
• Record all saplings around the stick by yelling "OI! S, what's this?"
• Record the height by looking up and guessing. Democratically decide based on the average of all three guesses.

Then, for each quarter:

• Find the nearest tree with a trunk over 5cm diameter at breast height (DBH).
• Measure and record the distance to the tree and the DBH.
• Record its species and the species of the next nearest >5cm DBH.
• If a tree fern was actually the nearest >5cm at 1m tall, record its species (and measure it if >3m tall).
• Guess which species looks like it will take over when the tallest tree dies.

After we had successfully performed the method for the two test samples, we sat by the river chatting for a bit, and then headed back down along the stream to the Glenfern house. We drove home via the bottle shop and several people bought some alcohol. Considering we would be spending all day in the bush, that seemed like a bad idea to me so I abstained. Back at the camp, we had time to freshen up, and then it was dinner time again. Coconut curry and rice, yes please!

George gave the evening lecture and talked about where the various groups would be the next day - ours was completely different to what everyone else was doing and he warned us that our path would be arduous. We socialised for a bit and then headed off to bed!