Last week Ian asked me if I had time to go on a day of fieldwork with him and one of our Canadian colleagues, Mark. We all know I can’t resist anything Canadian, so I said yes. And Ian is my “boss”, when he implies I should help him with fieldwork, I need a very good excuse to say no.
So Tuesday morning I stepped into one of our 4 wheel drives with Ian, we picked up Mark, and with the sun shining we set off over all earthquake damaged roads that were being repaired, and so for the first 100 km (or so it felt) we trottled on with an average speed of 30 kmh, which even in New Zealand is very sloooooowww. We were making jokes of this going to be a slow day. As usual Ian had planned to do a substantial amount of work and already the first “30” sign made him irritated and stressed.
When we finally got to the gravel road to the field site it was already rather late and also all rivers and lakes we had encountered during the drive were much higher than anticipated, and as we had to cross a river (hence the 4wd) Ian wasn’t even sure if we would be able to do that at all.
But first we drove some kms through sheep land and as we opened and closed around 30 gates in and out of 30 different sheep paddocks, Ian and Mark remarked several times on how cute the lambs were.
Finally we arrived at the river through a rough stretch of huge rocks and I understood the meaning of 4wd, or so I thought.
Where we came fromWe parked the car and the guys went to check out the river. They had boasted several times on how they had recently done this 4wd training and they were telling me all they had learned. Always first cross a river on foot, if you can’t do it on foot, than you can’t do it in a car. They sort of could cross it, but it didn’t look pretty. Or actually it looked hilarious, but I was already getting ever so slightly nervous about going through the deep, cold, gushing water.
Although, the other alternative wasn't looking very promising eitherIan changed his shoes, and broke his shoelace. He swore a lot and frantically tried to light a match to glue the lace so he could put it back through the eyes and he stressed. He later admitted “I thought my broken shoelace was going to be the low of the day”.
Two grown up men fussing around a shoelaceVroooooom, splash splash splash vraaaoooorrrr kkkrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggggg F*CK!
We got stuck in the little side creek that was actually really deep yet quite narrow and so as we drove up on the far bank the hind tires lost touch with the ground and couldn’t provide grip or power to get out.
Ian tried going back and forth a while, Mark and me pushing and/or pulling and digging away gravel but all to no avail. Our 4wd has an emergency kit which includes a shovel and also we were sampling soil which normally involves a shovel even if it’s just for show, but no shovel was to be found. So in the end we got to try using the winch. This had also been part of the training apparently, but some crucial elements we had not performed. First it took us a good while, in all our frustration and anger and stress, to work out how to unlock the winch. Second you’re supposed to have looked under your car before you head into the water to see where you would attach the rope in case you get stuck. As we didn’t have goggles either, this proved to be a bit tricky too. But somehow someone got it attached while I was holding the winch, because as it turned out the tree-rope-winch-rope-car assembly positioned the winch exactly over another little side stream so someone had to hold it. It wasn’t all that heavy, and the water wasn’t all that cold, but the sandflies were landing all over me and I couldn’t free a hand to shoo them away. With combined efforts we finally succeeded in pulling the car out of the ditch, which it was, really. Victory!
exactely this winch, but then attached under muddy waterSo, around the ditch this time, and hoopla into the river. I was holding my breath, but we made it. Some more rocks and challenges but within no time we were on the other side.
We continued our journey up a hill. The track was definitely in bad shape and Ian swore a lot as we got nearly stuck several times in deep rills, slid over muddy patches and nearly got stuck again in a deep puddle. We were bouncing all through the car and I wished we had never crossed that river. Suddenly after a series of scary gullies, we encountered an alluvial fan that largely obscured the track. Ian jumped on the brakes and started mumbling to himself. Mark suggested “perhaps low to the right, although that is quite close to the edge, but the high end is pretty steep and we don’t want to topple over and roll down the mountain, hmmm”. Then Ian fiercely stepped on the gas pedal. I saw the car slipping away on the loose gravel, sliding over the edge, tumbling down hundreds of meters and in the end a bloody mess. I closed my eyes and came as close to praying as ever. I most definitely for the second time this year thought “I DO NOT WANT TO DIE, NOT HERE AND NOT NOW”.
Considering I write this here and now, you have probably guessed that we didn’t die. But immediately after that part, as Ian triumphantly squealed his success, I yelled “IAN! I am NOT going on another trip with you!!!”, which as you can imagine is now the running joke all around work. Random people tell me “be glad you’re not in a 4wd with Ian today”.
We finally arrived at the field site. In all the drama at the river we had forgotten to fill buckets with water which we needed to clean in between soil samples. Ian first suggested I walk up the mountain to that waterfall on the horizon to fill the buckets – it really was his day for pissing me off – until Mark said “you can’t ask a Dutch girl to walk up a mountain!”. That’s Canadian humour for you, can’t say I appreciated it much at that moment. So instead I offered half my drinking water. And we started sampling. After many samples and too little drinking water Ian started to calculate how many replicates he needed to make this a statistically sound experiment and at some point we apparently had a bare minimum. In any case I wasn’t going back up that mountain anytime soon.
Driving back was slightly less scary although I didn’t particularly agree with the idea that “we’ll have gravity in our favour”. Sometimes, gravity can be a curse.
Back through the river, back through all 30 gates, bye bye baah baah to the sheep and back home. Happy to be alive.
But yes, it was beautiful
