An afternoon at the beach

Another Sunday excursion took us to a sand sculpture contest at St. Heliers Beach. When we first arrived we thought we saw a group attempting to save a stranded whale, however there did not appear to be the necessary haste or attention that a dying whale deserves. Turned out to be something far more interesting, a whale rescue group doing practice rescuing.

Project Jonah had groups of volunteers going over drills with inflatable whales and dolphins. It was really nice to see this group actively training. After working through the group of orange clad groups, we made our way to the sand castles. There were definitely some interesting entries, but not quite up to the standards of New River. There were some culturally significant ones and some of the artists got a bit more into their castles than others!

After wandering through the very few entries of castles and other miscellaneous sculptures to enjoy the entirety of beach. Beautiful large trees overhung the road and a well maintained boardwalk running the whole length of the beach.

I beautiful beach that definitely will get more attention from us when the weather gets a bit nicer.

The End of the Beginning: Term One

I can hardly believe as I write this I have two more teaching days until Easter holidays. In New Zealand, our school year starts in January and it is split up into 4 terms each separated by a 2 week holiday. The classroom is starting to come together now that my Whanau kids (homeroom kids) have some personality in it Whanau is a Maori word for extended family as these 29 lovelies will be together from year 9 to 13 as a Whanau class, which means they meet with their Whanau teacher twice a week/as a class, to follow up on any issues of attendance, academic concerns, school wide announcements and general "how are things going".  The idea is to have these kids build a bond with a teacher that is basically "always there for them".

One of our Whanau class activities early in the term was to watch some "motivational" videos (Kid President ones) and build a wall of inspiration. All the kids wrote their favorite quote on different papers and we stuck them all up so as soon as you come in the room you HAVE to see them as they are in the way and you have to walk around this wall to get into the class proper.

The hall of fame is also coming along week. Along the back, I have 5 notice boards and conveniently I teach 5 different classes of math. Each class has their own board along the back where I post the Merit and Excellence names of each test (basically the equivalent of our honour and high honour roll). The kids have really bought into this and the homework completion rate and test scores have shot up...it helps that my darlings are extremely competitive (in a good way). I love posting the new scores and seeing the kids literally "walk with purpose" to the back of the room and scroll the names. The best part is when a new student gets their name on the list.

The front of the room is also coming together. We now have a fan as it is SOOO hot in the classrooms here. I also have a place for our agendas every day (each class gets their own colour paper for their agenda) and they have their homework notice boards, also on the coloured papers. On the little white board goes things like the date, a quote of the day (thanks Kathy for the inspiration there), any special announcements and lately a countdown to holidays (thanks Marc for the inspiration on that one).

By far, my favorite addition has been the sound system. The kids here are so very musical that it plays into their talents so well. We listen to a wide variety of classical music during independent work time. This does several things 1) sets the tone of the room to one of peace and quiet (read the boys now leave rugby on the rugby field) and 2) it sets boundaries of "teacher talk time" and "student work time". All of my cues in class are now done musically and the transitions are so much smoother and the kids are so much happier. Happy kids = happy teacher.

This is by far one of my favorite little doodles. A student drew this on the back of one of her tests a few weeks ago. I am always telling the kids to not give up on themselves and to give themselves some credit as they know more than they think they know. This is extra important advice this week as the Year 10's write their first set of internal credits. The kids need a certain number of internal and external credits to graduate...each test is worth a number of credits based on it's difficulty. All the tests are purchased and standardized. I am nervous for my 10's as this is a pilot project....if they do well they will bank 4 credits that can be applied towards their graduation. Usually students start writing for credits in year 11. Most of my 10's are finished writing, and the papers look good. They will be handed over to the moderator to mark and by the end of Easter, I will know how the classes did. I am just as excited, nervous and thrilled as my year 10's are about their credit potential.  My 9's are also writing their finals this week, I am nervous for them but I know they are going to do well. 

If I was to sum up this term, I would say it was a bit of a roller coaster, lucky for me the high points were so much higher than the low points and looking back, I don't think I'd trade my lovable (if sometimes naughty) kids for all the honours students you could fit in my classroom. These are good kids, who sometimes make poor choices (like all 13-15 year olds), but when they figure out you want the best for them, the effort and the dedication they can give you just blows my mind. Their loyalty is fierce once you earn it, and their heart is always in the right place. 

Another Sunny Sunday Drive (North Shore)

Being Sunday, Mark and I took off on another (short) adventure. We are trying to get out of the house, away from the school work and housework each week for a little while. This week we had an errand to run on the North Shore area of Auckland. We pulled into the cute little beach community where the streets were cobblestone and lined with little shops. We parked, walked about, stopped for a coffee and took our coffee down onto the beach. This was a different beach from others we have been to as there was so much exposed limestone. Hanging onto the limestone were lots of little groups of muscles, and a few limpets. Mark had left his camera in the car, so you will have to take a peak of the area through the lens of my cell phone camera.

 It was a pretty warm day, even down on the beach. So much so that despite all of the people drinking coffee, reading books, eating ice cream and chips on the sandy beach before the exposed limestone, these gulls decided their time was better spent wading in the water.

Some of the limestone exposed rocks. Mark and I were commenting on how it almost looks like a very dry river bed or desert area. 

View from the beach. There are some houses along the cliff just outside of the frame and they were beautiful, large houses that had towers, stain glass windows and widows peaks. I can only imagine what their view of the beach must be like from their perch. 

One last look from further back on the beach, to see the exposed limestone rocks and the waves further out. After our stroll along the beach we headed back to the car, which was conveniently parked next to a grocery store as we had to pick up a few items. Along the walk we ran into this store, and had to go in to investigate. 

They had a massive selection of tea, so many jams and shortbread cookies you could hardly count them all (there is a fig and date spread that I think would be delicious with chicken and feta...it's now on the to do list). They also had a lot of chips, cheeses and other general UK groceries. We did, however, take a photo of the Scott's Porage Oats for Mark's grandmother. 

Another Sunday venture: Piha Beach and the West coast

Another work filled weekend and both Mary-Ellen and I needed a break from the computer screens and endless papers. This time we decided to head to the West coast, where we could peer across the ocean, not seeing, but knowing that there was no appreciable land between us and Australia. After a long windy tour through the Waitakere Ranges, west of Auckland, we arrived at a gorgeous ocean view.

It was an overcast, windy day, but we needed out, and the view was definitely worth it. Lion Rock separated the beachhead between the two headlands, standing monolithic in the surf, much of the beach hazed from the pounding waves.

We drove down through a windy road, completely doted with houses. It was understandable why they would want houses on the hill, I mean what a view! But of course there were two things running through my head; that it would be some difficult to safely go in and out of one's driveway and that no one in their right mind would want a driveway like this in Canada!

The beach itself was fantastic, nice dark sand, easy to walk on, although there was numerous kelp washed ashore from the cyclone that had gone through recently. These were huge, and I don't mean big piles of numerous seaweed, I mean enormous blades of kelp, some greater than 3 metres. Really puts the strength of the storm into perspective, something lost from being in ones flat in Auckland.

Avoiding these huge kelp, we wandered over to Lion Rock, where I could not help myself but take a look at all the marine invertebrates clinging to the rock faces. Despite the heavy pounding of waves, life manages to flourish in even the harshest of environments, although I suspect these rocks were slightly sheltered from those waves. Barnacles, tube worms, and mussels such as the Green Lipped ones below (the species I am working with) all have strong attachments to the rocks, allowing them to stay firmly in place when the surge of water from those crashing waves attempts to dislodge them. 

Another small excursion with great rewards. There was a campground near and we will likely find ourselves coming back for an overnight to fully enjoy this little place on the West coast.

Hunua Falls

Again I find myself with a backlog of blogs to write, so here is a little venture Mary-Ellen and I took one Sunday afternoon. After a missed exit, a few wrong turns, and an unfortunately placed detour, we arrived at a forest reserve that is home to a beautiful waterfall. This is the first waterfall I have really seen in New Zealand, and there are many more to explore. Our first sighting of the waterfall was from a bridge that extended from the parking lot, across river that flows from the waterfall, and into a nice, but short jungle walk.

As we emerged from the forest walk, having listened to the increasingly louder crashing of the water, we were greeted by this wonderful sign. We particularly enjoyed the picture of the caution of submerged objects, for although there clearly was some deep water, the edges were very much shallow, not exactly a great spot for diving. 

This beautiful waterfall plummets 30 meters from the high bedrock cliffs, creating a mist that blankets the pool near it's base. We even saw a few people go in under the waterfall, however, I am a bit weary of eels to get into that murky water. The backdrop of the lush green foliage, almost made you forget you weren't in some tropical jungle, and that fall was upon us. 

It turned out to be worth the wrong turns and detours to find this place. There is a large park and this was just the entrance, a few kilometers from town. Who knows what other treasures lay waiting in its cool jungle canopy? Another venture is definitely in order!

Foodie February

Well....February has pretty much come and gone and Mark and I have been doing a bit of local exploring as I have been very busy at school planning and researching a brand new curriculum.

This month Marks been out on the boat researching a lot, checking on his project and enjoying the sun and waves. I've been spending time in the sun too, but usually while on yard duty.

This month, we finally made it up Mount Eden, the dormant volcano that our neighbourhood is named after - another post about that later as we forgot the camera when we went. It was a steep hike but the view was magical. From to he too of Mount Eden you can see the whole city, the harbour, the skyscrapers and the traffic.

Mark and I have been taking in lots of the local food this month. We figure, while we are living in one of the "must eat here" neighbourhoods we should explore the tastes Mount Eden has to offer. Just up the street, on Mount Eden Road there are Indian Restaurants, Chinese Restaurants, cafés, pubs, bars, fish houses, gourmet burger joins, Korean Restaurants and bakeries. This month we visited one place "Circus Circus" for an after dinner coffee and desert and I had the best carrot cake I have had in years! It looks a little over the top from the outside but the food and service was wonderful.

The Circus Circus Cafe 

The lion

The Clown

We also took in the night market, Mark's second visit, and my first. We sampled lots of different foods from vendors all over the world, took in all the market stalls selling fruit, veggies and pet outfits. It was overwhelming with all the colours, people lights and the smells of all of the different types of foods.

Night Market! 

Some of the best food we had all night there - the em-pinatas 

I didn't stop to check this one out...but it could be an interesting combination 

In addition to the coffee date, and night market Mark and I have been scoping out some of the local butchers as there are two on Mount Eden Road that offer fantastic meat at reasonable rates. We have been venturing so far with familiar meats but the butchers offer kangaroo, ostrich, and goat. Who knows what we might try while we are here.

A quick venture to the middle of no where

It has been far too long since our last post. February has been a very busy month, full of field work, marking and planning for Mary-Ellen, and plenty of writing for me. However, there were a few notable activities which I will try to portray at this belated date.

At the beginning of the month, my good friend Jan was looking for a volunteer to go with him to a place called Castle Point to attempt to capture settling lobsters and to conduct a small choice experiment with them while they were still in this non-feeding stage of their life. We only had a few days, less than a week, so we took off at the wonderful hour of four in the morning, with a truck full of crevice collectors and large rebar weights. Well, this drive took forever, going from small town to town, southward until the towns disappeared completely. We continued driving into beautiful yet remote countryside, great gorges with large flowing rivers and limestone weathered down through time. With little time to enjoy the surroundings, we arrived and set up the collectors immediately before the tide came in too far which would leave them high and dry during the low tide overnight. Some food and some sleep ensued, and it would not really be until the next day that we got to enjoy the splendor of Castle Point.

The next day was not a promising day however. The traps had been set a bit too late, leaving many dry on the sand. To make matters worse, the weather was not looking good and could potentially delay or detour the returning lobsters to the settlement area. We only found a single lobster that day, and the nonsensical name of Pete was provided to the half-dead beach-cast larval lobster. Pete did survive to our amazement, and the little mascot brought some hope to our cause.

Without going into too much detail, we spent the next couple days with some decent success, having collected close to 10 larval lobsters, with only a few casualties, however, as our spirits lifted we were given time to pause and look around. Castle Point is a long sandy beach, terminating in a limestone precipice, a mound of limestone rock sheltering bay, and a large lagoon. The limestone was rich with history, having originally been the resting place for countless marine organisms when it was originally below the waves. It was completely riddled with the fossilized shells of molluscs and brachipods, including one particular area filled with the fossilized shells of scallops.

The guardian rock which protects the bay from the crashing waves generated by the enormous expanse of open ocean also houses another guardian, a stoic sentinel casting light to weary sailors, signalling danger and guiding them to safe harbours. A magnificent old lighthouse that although automated today, still casts it's shadow upon the remnants of another time, the old foundations of what made up the home of it's original caretakers.

From atop the hills of ancient seafloor, the best view of all is had. Looking past the lighthouse you can see the lagoon, a reasonably save harbour for small ships, protected by a wall of limestone which is constantly pounded by the waves, washing over into the lagoon, sending enormous spouts of water into the air. With all the water and the sun beating down harshly upon this spray, a cloud of mist blankets the area.

And shadowing over this is the mighty precipice of limestone, adding to the majesty of the area. Castlerock is an appropriate name for such a place, for the regal and wonder of it does indeed remind you of the ancient structures of it's namesake.

After this beautiful hike up to the lighthouse, we also returned to the most brazen gull I have ever encountered. No, it was not take french fries out of someones hand, but instead had parked itself on the roof of the lab truck. The brazen part was that we basically had to open the doors to get the creature to move, standing up after we were about 3 meters away, and flying when we reached the vehicle.

After an exhausting haul of the traps out of the water and packing them away, we were prepared to head home, but with the 10 hour drive ahead of us, we decided to stay one more evening so we would be rested. This gave us one last look of the majestic scenery that morning when we were able to watch the sunrise. This is definitely a place I will be bringing Mary-Ellen too.