Protecting New Zealand's Nature

Here is my mother's blog aboout her latest adventure. This Sunday she is going to Vietnam, so hopefully we will hear about that in a few weeks. Enjoy.

I have just returned from 5 fabulous days, working for the Department of Conservation, on Motuora Island. This is an 80 hectare island 5 kms off shore, on the east coast, just north of Auckland. The highest point on the island is 69 metres above sea level. The only permanent residents on the island are the manager and his wife.
The Motuora Restoration Society work with the Department of Conservation in restoring native values to the island. Each year about 25,000 plants are grown and planted by volunteers. The long term vision is for the island to be an open sanctuary and home to endangered species. Also, to date, there about 60 NZ brown Kiwi on the island, together with tuis, quail and pukeko.
Our job was to plant out native trees, help with weeding, and general maintenance. During our free time we walked round the coast and admired the many rock pools, and the volcanic structure of the cliffs.
The weather was perfect, but the forecast for the last day wasn't so good, so a water taxi was sent out in the morning, to get us back to the mainland before the predicted high winds and stormy weather arrived.
The 4 of us who went on this trip had a great time, and will look forward to returning to the island, at a later date, to see the progress made with all the plantings.

Dragon Boat Racing

As I talked about this week, the Kelowna Dragon Boat Festival will be held this month. It's looks like it will be really exciting, so if you are keen to take part you've still got a couple of weeks to start training,... and find a boat.

If you want to know more about the festival in Kelowna, check out the official site:

http://www.kelownadragonboatfestival.com/

Or if you would rather visit New Zealand, have a look here:

http://www.dragonboat.org.nz/page/home.aspx

Dragon boat racing is held to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival (also known as Tuen Ng Festival). It is immensely popular in Hong Kong and attracts teams from all walks of life, including traditional fishermen. The races are held every year at locations throughout Hong Kong. The main races will be held on the Tuen Ng Festival Day, which falls on 16 Jun next year. Join the locals for a day at the races and you'll see why this is a must-attend event!

Maybe we could start a new tradition for the Kasugai Festival and have dragon boat racing on the lake in Ochiai Park. I'm sure it will make Kasugai famous just like cactus.

Report from New Zealand

This is from my mother in NZ. She really loves hiking so she wrote about her recent hike for you all to read about.

During your Obon holiday, I went tramping with the Te Kuiti Tramping Club. We went to Pureora Forest Park. The weather was drizzly, but better than the heavy rain we had had for the last few days. After entering the bush, we encountered our first stream crossing. This was usually a trickle of water, which we could step across, but the rain had turned it into a tricky rock hop, to try and keep water out of our boots. Fortunately, we all managed ok.
The birds in the trees were also enjoying the better weather, as they sang away to us as we ventured through the bush. We saw robins, fantails, and heard the distinctive squawk of the kaka high up in the tops of the trees.
There were a number of hugh trees that had fallen across our path, so we had to climb over them. This made our progress rather slow. And a couple more stream crossing challenged us again. One was a bit too deep to walk through, but an old tree lay across it, so we, very carefully, slowly edged out way over. Once again we all made it safely, and ventured on through the bush.
But we finally reached a bigger river, which had turned into a raging torrent, and was not possible for us to cross. So there was only one thing for it. We had to turn round and walk back the same way we had come.
We all had a great day out, and are now looking forward to our next tramp.

Words of the Week - August 23

After snapping that great photo of Mr. Lizard the other day, it reminded me of the idiom 'lounge lizard,' so I thought I'd offer some other animal-related idioms.

Lounge lizard - a man who frequents hotel lounges and bars looking for women who will provide for him.

Knee high to a grasshopper - an infant or small child; often used when recalling how small someone was in the past. Ex. someone talking to a 12-year old he or she hasn't seen for 10 years: "I haven't seen you since you were knee high to a grasshopper."

Look a gift horse in the mouth - having bad manners (e.g. complaining) when accepting something given to you. Ex. "You shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Most people had to pay $400 for their meals."

Monkey business - doing something against the rules, but not too serious. Ex. "You kids aren't up to any monkey business in there, are you?"

Early bird catches the worm - do something earlier than than expected will bring a reward, rather than putting off the task until later. Ex. "Going bike training at 5am means the roads are quite and the wind is not strong. As they say, the early bird catches the worm!"

Click on this link to see my early-worm catching ride this morning:

http://route.alpslab.jp/watch.rb?id=b18b4cef2f207d2993f579619be8b71c

Let's be nice to Lizards

Thanks for the comment. When we were at Fushimi Inari, my son found a huge lizard. Maybe about 20cm long and really fat. An Italian lady walking past was surprised to see it and told us that there aren't any where she comes from.

Also, a few weeks ago when I took my son to the Toyota museum in Nagakute, we saw a small lizard with a green and blue tail - a very unusual color. When I was young living in NZ, we often found them in the garden after we had accidentally chopped off their tails. It's amazing how they can keep on running around. If I had my such a big body part chopped off me, I'm sure I would be dead.

Obon Over

Obon week is over, so I had to go back to work today. Did you have a nice vacation?

Unfortunately the day we wanted to go to the beach, the weather report said it was going to rain, so we didn't go. Instead we went straight to Kyoto.

In Kyoto, we visited Fushimi Inari and Toei Movie Village. We had fun there, but I ate too much good food.

Now I'm looking forward to the next long holiday in next month.

Post a blog here about what you did during Obon.

Back on-line

Hey there,

Due to the busy-ness of the world I haven't had enough time to blog. Please forgive me.

Seven years in Japan, I have found that after a typhoon passes, the weather is always beautiful. (I guess you have to take the bad with the good.) This week was no exception going by today's awesome weather. As you can see from the photo, this morning was blue sky perfect.

If you get out your microscope, you might see your house beyond the hills. The photo was taken from the observatory at the top of Mt. Mikuni on the border of Seto City and Gifu Prefecture. From here you can get a 360 degree view - Mt.Ibuki, Kasugai, Nagoya, Tajimi, etc.

If you want to escape the city (but still see it) take a trip out on the road from Seto - it's only an hour and a half by bike from Kasugai station.

Hope you each find your own way to enjoy the summer. For me, today was mountains; tomorrow the beach. Enjoy the outdoors.