Being a Scarfie?

(The students at Uni. of Otago are called "scarfies" for the scarfs that they wear, I have yet to see anyone wearing a special scarf but maybe when the weather gets worse?)

Every Thursday the Centre for the Study of Agriculture, Farming, and Environment puts on a seminar that is open to students and the community. I went to the one last week at which Rob Rosenfeld was talking about ways of effecting change with indigineous groups and local problems. He mainly spoke about his work with the Yukon area tribes in cleaning up the toxic waste from the military base up in Alaska (documented in the film Yukon Circles). He was the founder of the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council that was formed of 70 different indigenous tribes who had signed a treaty to do everything possible to protect the Yukon River Watershed. I went in expecting a room with chairs lined up in rows at which the speaker would speak from the front of the room and it may cause a small amount of sleepiness. I ended up enjoying a very informal conversation where we all sat in a circle and were encouraged to interject any questions that we had. About halfway through the seminar glasses of wine and plates of cookies, sandwiches, crackers and cheese started being passed around. Sitting around sipping on drinks and nibbling on the food while listening to the presenter's stories was not at all what I was expecting, but it was thoroughly enjoyable. I think that I'll go back every week, if only for the high quality cheeses they had!

Aramoana Beach

The next morning I jumped into the car with my flatmates who were going surfing and we went northwest to Aramoana Beach. The drive along the Otago Harbour was a great way to start off the day: the sun was just coming up over the green hills, the bays were peaceful with the small boats floating at rest, the narrow road we were on hugged the water's edge. At the beach the sand felt like silk between my toes as I watched the waves rolling in towards the beach from the Atlantic Ocean. The sun slowly rose higher into the sky as the moon stolidly held its ground over the top of the seaside cilffs. Sea lions were sleeping near the sand dunes, their fins twitching as they dreamt of whatever sea lions dream of. From the beach you could see up the eastern coastline of the mainland for what must be miles, I couldn't see any signs of human habitation, just mountains, beaches, and the ocean.

Yesterday Stas, a Willamette professor who's conducting research here this semester and acting as our interim-parent, took Leslie, Schaffer and I out to the Otago Peninsula for a day trip. We drove along the Otago Harbour on the opposite side from which I had gone out the day before. Where the sun had been shining down from a clear blue sky the previous day, this morning the sky was hidden behind a shield of clouds and the mountains were covered with a trailing mist. We pulled over to the roadside to take some scenic photos and saw some kind of concrete formation in the hillside beneath the road so we climbed down to check it out. There was a semicircle of stone set in front of two doors that led back into the hillside.

The mysterious tunnel

Through the doors were a maze of passageways and rooms, obviously unused and covered in graffiti. We explored a little bit, but not knowing what it was, continued on our way. It turns out that we had stumbled across the fort that was built in the 1880s to guard the harbour against a potential attack from the Russians. The semicircle was part of a hidden gun system from which a cannon could be raised from the ground and its recoil energy would return it to its subsurface position. The hillside doorways were entrances to the fort system. It was strange to be poking around a place that had obviously seen a lot of human use and was now left entirely to the ravages of time and spray can-toting teenagers.

Schaffer and Leslie exploring the dark rooms

We spent the rest of the day hiking and exploring beaches. On both Victory and Allans Beach we saw sea lions, intriguing rock formations, and of course enjoyed the ocean's pounding waves.

Leslie in a sea arch at Allans Beach

The sea lions were really cute, most were just lying in the sand sleeping or relaxing, but a few were entertaining- scratching themselves, waddling around, rolling in the sand and shaking themselves like dogs, or just rearing up to enjoy the feel of the wind in their fur (or for some other reason). They seemed harmless as they lay in the sand, staring back at us with their large doleful eyes, but one of my friends told me that they can run about 40 km per hour on the beach! On our drive back into the city we stopped at a monument for the fallen Kiwi soldiers of WWI. It had been a pretty windy day on all of the beaches, but this monument was on top of the ridgeline of the peninsula, so the wind was blowing really strongly there. It felt like it was about 60 mph...you could lean into the wind and it would keep you from falling over. When I lifted one foot to take a step it would blow me into my next step. We had to hold on to the railings if we wanted to be sure about standing in one place. We had our own little sky-diving practice up there, playing in the wind.

"The Pyramids"- natural rock formations at Victory Beach, composed mainly of basalt