Field work on the on the beach, trail runs in the rainforest

We have been on the South Island for a week now and have been traveling constantly. After arriving in Picton we took the cheapest bus possible (more like an oversized van) to Christchurch where we picked up the van.
We are now the proud drivers of Luby the camper van. It came with the name. In case you were wondering the van has over 400,000 kilometers on the odometer. Living in the van really isn’t too bad; however I would not recommend it as a permanent residence.
Our first adventure with Luby was driving over Lewis pass from Christchurch to Reefton. This road is considered a major highway. Here we have realized that a major highway means switchbacks, pot holes, and a road that is generally too small for the huge logging trucks.
The bonus to living in a van is you get to park for the night in some spectacular places. The photo above is the view from our favorite highway pull off near Greymouth (very close to Eric’s study area). As we spend more and more time in the van it is becoming increasingly MANtastic. In this photo you can see a delicious meal of baked beans and crackers. Hopefully there will be a virtual tour of the van coming soon on the blog. I should mention that pictures alone can’t do the van justice, there is a very distinct smell of curry, dirty clothes and general funk that is necessary to enjoy the van experience.
This week on the south island has been a preliminary recon mission to find outcrops for my (Eric’s) project. Look at that quartz vein sticking out of the rock!
So we hiked up a creek looking for good rock exposures for my study….. no luck. But we did find lots of small water falls, birds and VERY dense rainforest.My (Eric’s) field site and myself modeling the orange overalls. Life is good.
We left the west coast just as a LARGE storm moved in. The west coast is known for rain and stormy weather. The amount of rain fall is measured in meters here. I have heard the average annual amount of rain might be as much as 8 meters.
We stopped for a trail run at Paparoa National Park. Here we ran through the densest rainforest either of us had ever seen, complete with palm trees and huge ferns.