Day 1 at the Punakaiki Coastal Restoration Site

After a day of heavy exploration and mounds of wet clothing, we have finally come to day 1 of our volunteer work. Jet lag kicked in as we awoke at 7am to eat breakfast and layer on the clothing and waterproof gear for our first day on the restoration site. We were out the door my 8am and on our way to do some heavy restoring of habitats.

Water bottle? Check. Waterproof pants and jacket? Check. Lunch packed? Clearly that's a check. Working gloves? Oops, forgot, better run back in and get them....ok, now check. Energy? Mmmmm, almost...nope definitely check. We got to the site and after getting the grand tour of the project office and pow-wowing in the discussion room to hear the basics about why we were here and what we were doing, we headed to the garage to size up our wellies [rainboots] and head out to take a tour of the site. Slosh. Slosh. Slosh. Hole in my boot. Slosh. Slosh. Wait?! Hole. In. My. Boot. It figures that would happen to me. Not even an hour here and I already had a wet left foot. Oh well, I stuck it out and continued our little tour.

Five minutes in and the fact that my wellie was severely injured didn't mean a whole lot to me. I was peering through a rainforest, marked as a breeding site for a bird in need of help. No one asked us to be there. No one forced us. We received no letters from the black petrel colony saying, "Hey, if you wouldn't mind could you plant some trees to pad my crash landing?" Nothing. We were there because we looked for a way to help a place in need. This petrel colony was it and ISV helped us to find it. We were finally apart of something bigger than our hometowns. This was something bigger than recycling in Texas, like Erica pointed out, or bigger than shutting the lights off in Michigan. This was bigger than talking in an IC ESP class about WANTING to do something. We were finally doing our part and actually being on that site made it real.

Noon rolled around and our goal of planting 5000-6000 trees over the next 10 days didn't seem as far fetched anymore. We already had 300 trees planted by that point and there were only 11 of us working. You wouldn't believe the energy that was there though. We were laughing with each other as some dug holes and the rest of us sat in muddy, watery grounds, digging our bare hands in the slosh to make a home for each treelet. After a spot of tea, some amazing NZ cookies, and lunch in the site kitchen, we went back to work right away to continue getting our hands dirty for a good cause. An hour and a half later and we reached our day goal: 500 trees. That was one day.

[What is really special about our group being here at this time, is that we are the first ones. There have been some spraying and digging out of invasive gorse plants before us, but we were the first to plant the trees. We are the ones starting up this site with Conservation Volunteers New Zealand. It's exciting to be apart of the first stages of a project like this.]

After finishing our planting and getting literally hosed down behind the site house, we went on a tour of another part of the site, down to the beach. Each new breathtaking view here makes my heart jump, and makes me sit and wonder what treasures I have yet to see with each new adventure I take. Again, it started raining, but it didn't matter at that point.

It is currently 9:50 pm on Monday night here, and after a fantastic run in the rain on the beach and along rainforest-lined trails, I sit reflecting on this project, why I am here helping, and what an impact this will have. The rain outside is a soothing sound now [after a few constant days of on and off down-pours] and helps the ponderer to ponder to their fullest. So, that's just what I'll do.

Nāu te whatu Māori, hei konā rā.

Through the eye of the Maori, farewell.