My First Tramp

                Translation: tramp = hike in New Zealand.  Imma tramp the shit outta this place!

Yesterday I was lucky enough to tag along on a field trip with the food web folks, so basically I got a free ride to a bunch of cool places.  The first stop was Castle Rock which is an area with a bunch of crazy rock formations (picture below).  Apparently part of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was filmed there.  It’s also a popular climbing area (Jimmy, you’d have loved it…we’ll go there when you visit).

We stopped at the University’s Cass Field Station for lunch.  It’s basically this beautiful cabin in the mountains where a bunch of freshwater ecology research goes down.  After lunch they did an electrofishing demo in one of the nearby streams.  I’ve done some electrofishing from a boat, but this was basically a Ghostbuster’s backpack with a metal rod.  It was good to see in action since I’ll probably be doing some of that myself at some point.

                Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ just came on.  Had to take a dance intermission.  Thought you should know.  Maybe do the same.

                After we shocked the hell out of a bunch of unsuspecting fish, we drove up to Aurthur’s Pass which is a National Park in the middle of the Southern Alps.  This is where we really went tramping.  Absolutely gorgeous.  That’s when I realized I’m really in New Zealand and it’s just as pretty as the internet says.  I’m a lucky girl.