A "Terrible" Lull - Thursday 13th September

It has been slow going. I've got horribly bogged down in nit-picky stratigraphic nomenclature and I still haven't gotten the electronic access (they say it should arrive today). We had a big front / airmass come in from the southern ocean and it hailed and snowed down to sea-level on Tuesday, so it was pretty cold and miserable. BUT I was cheered up immensely when I arrived in the Department this morning and saw this on the Student Bulletin Board:

Student Bulletin Board

The new notice

Tearable details

Excellent Weekend - Monday 10th September

View from Mark and Dhana's House. Snow-capped Dunstan
Range (I believe - I'm rusty) in distance

What an Excellent Weekend with my friends Dhana and Mark. First, the cuisine:
Roast Lamb on Friday night, follwed by Tahr Curry (see later for details) on Saturday night. On Saturday we took Lamb Sandwiches on our walk, and on Sunday we had Lamb Chipatis for lunch. All washed down with some very nice Leaning Rock Wine (http://www.leaningrock.co.nz/), of course.
For those of you that have not heard me talk about them, Dhana and Mark are contemporaries of mine from the Geology Department at Otago - they (particularly Mark) are into gold prospecting, and they set up a small winery on land in Alexandra, Central Otago about 20 years ago.

Conroy's Gully. Old Man Range up ahead.

The bottom has fallen out of the wine industry (well, for small wineries like theirs, at least), but they still live in Central Otago, where they built a straw bale (insulation) house, and essentially live off their land. Their son Jake is a hunter, and provides them with venison and tahr (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahr) as well as the odd goat. So, they eat well. The Tahr was recent - Jake delivered its head (as a trophy) to Dhana the night I arrived in New Zealand. The meat was very lean, but definitely needed to be in a stew or curry.

Dhana and Tahr Head

On Saturday we were going to go snowshoeing on the top of the Old man Range (I brought Dhana some new snowshoes), but the weather made that inaccessible. Instead we went up a small valley (Conroy's Gully), and Dhana and I headed up towards the top, and Mark fossicked around for gold. We had to head down when the promised rain arrived, and we had a rather interesting time getting out - the tertiary and deeply weathered schist made for a very slick / muddy surface on the 4WD track - but we made it.

For Juan: A very small stream viewed from viaduct.
After it rained

On Sunday Dhana and I went for a bike ride - from their place past the Alex airport (good blackberry bushes), onto the rail trail and 'down' to Clyde, and then along the SW side of the Clutha back to Alexandra - a total of 25 km. I was absolutely wiped - I haven't ridden that far in a long time, but it was absolutely gorgeous. After the heavy rain of the night before (snow on the ranges now), the river was way up, and all four floodgates on the Clyde dam were open. It is now Tuesday 11th, and there was snow in the hills around Dunedin last night, and it is squalling hail as I write. I'm wearing gloves as I type in my office.

Need a place to live? In Historic Clyde

Central Otago this weekend - Friday 7th Sept

Mural next to one of the set of steps I use

View looking opposite direction across the harbour to the
Otago Peninsula

I'm desperately typing away - want to get a nasty draft complete before I head up to Central Otago this weekend - with my friends Mark and Dhana. It will be good to get out of town. For the Minnesotans reading this, it is kind of equivalent to 'heading up north' - only Mark and Dhana live in Central Otago (Alexandra), so it would be equivalent to living permanently in Northern Minnesota.

It took me about two hours this morning to sort out power for my 'flat' (I move in Sunday evening / Monday) - instead of one power company there are at least 6 of them, and they all have a variety of rates. Took me a while to figure out which would be the best deal, but that is now done.

As always, I am enjoying the local newspaper.



From the 'round-up' in the weekend paper ...

Data Tables - Thursday 6th Sept

Spent all day entering data into data tables (clinopyroxene geochemistry). Hardly exciting, but has to be done sooner or later, and it is slow going.

Pleasantly Surprised - Wednesday 5th Sept

View to the SE across the southern part of the Otago Harbour
towards the South Pacific

After a slow start (and a not-so-early swim), and a Department Seminar / Talk, I tackled a task I had been avoiding. I had failed to give grid references for samples in my Eyre Creek Research, and I thought they must be lost to history (or, my field notebooks at St. Cloud) - but when I excavated the Otago sample catalog I discovered that (a) I used to have neat writing and (b) the grid references were all there. Now I am grappling with free software that allows me to plot the data - should be easy but it won't let me access the online manual and I can't get the symbols I want ... Illustrator won't behave either, which is frustrating.

Page from the OU Geology sample catalog

Last night it was really windy - a real sou'wester - accompanied by rain. I must remember to take my raingear with me each day - I got quite wet and cold walking home. The good news is that walking up the hill is a little less painful.

Time Travel : Tuesday 4th Sept

I've realized that the date / day that is associated with each post is the US day and time, rather than the day and time that I actually post. For example, The post supposedly written on Friday, was actually written on Saturday etc. I have changed all the clocks on my computer, and even talked with the tech. people here, and no-one knows why. Bottom Line is I'll just put the *real* date in the title.

From the Job Ads in the Otago Daily Times

I still don't have access to online journals, but I have started working on the Eyre Creek mss.  Today I had lunch with my PhD advisor (Dr. Chuck Landis, now retired), and I talked through my plans with him. He advised me to focus on the tasks at hand, and not to let myself get distracted by anything - that I have more than enough data, and I will find that the time will go very quickly. I am going top pin a note to that effect above my desk.

As far as Dunedin goes, I am stunned by how it seems to be thriving - lots of places to eat - and a wide variety of choices. In the weekend paper I noted that there were almost two pages of job ads - mostly 'ordinary', non-professional jobs - but certainly more ads than I see in the Pioneer Press. This is an example.

For Juan: New Zealand plays Argentina in rugby this weekend !

Baby Steps

View from Maori Hill / City Rise to the northeast showing
University in mid-distance and hills (volcanic rock) beyond.
The Dunedin Harbour is to the right; hills in distance to right are
part of the Otago Peninsula.

I spent Sunday refamiliarizing myself with Dunedin. It was a relatively nice day (still damp and somewhat chilly), so I just walked up and down hills all day, which included a visit to the Dunedin Botanic Gardens. I am really sore from all the steep hills. I also checked out the bicycle Dhana lent me (I brought my own helmet and lock etc.) - and discovered how incredibly scary it is bicycling on steep downhills - I'd forgotten that too. I got a three-month membership to the Swimming Pool / Gym. This morning I had my first early morning swim for a very very long time.

View in the Dunedin Botanic Gardens

I  stopped in at GNS (Geological and Nuclear Sciences) en route to work this morning and met up with Dr. Nick Mortimer, with whom I hope to do some provenance studies work. We talked about my plans, and he gave me pointers on navigating my way through the mountain of literature that has evolved since I last worked here, and gave me copies of the two key new maps that I will need to refer to. I also learned about how new stratigraphic names are handled in New Zealand (I'll probably be naming some).

New Zealand Bush - on the banks
of the Leith near the Botanic Gardens

Since this morning I have learned how to scan paper images to my thumb drive on their copier, so I am now only keystrokes away from actually making headway.

I smelt all the herbs