Kia Ora everyone!
Sorry it’s taken me a few days to get this to you all but I’ve been pretty busy, and the internet seems hard to come by in NZ.
After my craziness after arriving back in Hobart, I caught a plane to Sydney, and 24 hours later I was in NZ – the life of a grad student eh? After getting to our hotel at probably 1am, I was up at 6am to do last minute preparations for my presentation. I was actually pretty glad that my presentation was in the morning as I thought it would mean I could relax...no such luck but more about that later. I’m sure you will all be pleased to know that my presentation went fairly well – both my supervisor and co-supervisor seemed very happy, and a few people even told Matt that I did very well. Go me! According to Laura (my co-supervisor), I looked a little too relaxed up on the stage, and apparently bored! I can assure you all that I felt very nervous so God knows why I looked bored. The conference was OK, but most things weren’t relevant to me so I didn’t gain much from it scientifically.
So as I said, I was hoping that I would have some free time to explore Wellington and catch up with my friend Sean. However, I had my confirmation report to finish which was already a day late (slap on the wrist). Knowing my priorities, I still managed to hang out with Sean. We went off to enjoy a walk around the Botanical Gardens, which meant a very short trip up the “cable car”. I put cable car in speech marks as, in my opinion, it wasn’t a cable car, but rather a funicular railway – Sean and I proceeded to have a rather heated discussion about this.
That evening was the conference dinner, which I would have happily missed so I could finish the damn report; however, as Matt had spent $150 on it, I thought I really should attend, plus it was a good excuse not to do the report....I hope it’s coming across how much I did not want to do it! After a bus ride that seemed to last forever, we reached our conference dinner destination – it was a beautiful secluded spot overlooking the Cook Strait (the water between North and South Islands). The weather was absolutely amazing with clear skies, which made for a gorgeous sunset over the South Island. The food wasn’t too shabby either.
The report was finished the next morning (YAY!) which meant I could finally start relaxing, and get prepared for my NZ adventures. This began with the most fantastic ferry ride aboard the InterIslander which took us from Wellington in the North Island, to Picton in the South Island. The weather from the previous day remained, which made for a gob-smacking sunset over Queen Charlotte Sound. Within 5 minutes of being in South Island, I knew I loved it already. Our accommodation for the night at Picton was interesting, but I will give details about that in the next blog!
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