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I was both excited and dreading the trip. Excited because it is an interesting geographical site composed of a series of terraces of different ages and related different ecological and soil developments (a chronosequence). Excited because it was only four days. Excited because we were flying in by helicopter and getting out by jetboat. Dreading it on the other hand because it was only me and Chris, the field work technician who is great, but also - like me - not very talkative so I feared we had some intense silences between the two of us ahead. And dreading it because I have heard 1 or 2, or perhaps also 5 to 10 stories too much about helicopters in NZ crashing for no obvious reason. Finally dreading it because even a few days of soil coring can be awful.
The trip turned out mostly as I had anticipated.
Flying a helicopter is both astonishing and frightening. The first few moments I felt as if I could fly myself, like in those dreams where you can actually fly. You have a fantastic bird’s eyes view of the world.
Which then becomes scary because you can exactly see how far down an on which tree/rock/field you will fall if something goes wrong. 
And for some reason I hadn’t expected a helicopter to experience the same “bumps” in the air as airplanes do, and I think we now all know I am no fan of flying bumpy airplanes. So, on average I was quite neutral about flying the chopper, the view was marvelous but the feeling horrible.We stayed in the “lodge” which was very basic but had beds, showers and cooking facilities.
It was near the beach which was a beautiful wild place. There are lots of birds there thanks to a lot of pest eradication actions.
On Tuesday we went to the furthest fieldsite. These sites have been put in on another project between 10 and 5 years ago, and the GPS coordinates weren’t particularly good so we spent quite some time looking for the plots. All in all we first had to walk 1.5 hours anyway, most of which was of course through the bush itself, with the usual tripping over tree roots and getting stuck in mud and tree roots and not seeing a whole lot through the thick bush. Oh, and the 20 kg backpack. I’d hoped walking multiple day tramps with supplies for several days in my backpack had prepared me for fieldwork again, but there is just no way you can prepare yourself for leaving the trail, bushwacking for hours and carrying an ill-fitting backpack not with soft things like a sleeping bag and dried apricots, but the 70 cm stainless steel soil core and a 2 kg hammer and various oddly shaped wooden blocks and to top it all off a crowbar that never really fits any backpack.
Also as anticipated Chris and me were mostly silent together, except for when we had to decide how wrong the GPS coordinates were or why the tree tags didn’t match up with the ones we had on our list. We were also both slightly bad-tempered because, as usual, I was having troubles with the soil corer, and he was having troubles with the shotgun (shooting foliage again). When you’re either silent, or cursing your equipment, or discussing problems, things never really get very cosy. It wasn’t really a social highlight so to speak.
The next day was less of a walk and we also found the (wrongly GPS’ed) plots quicker. However, with hands and arms already tired from the previous day I really really really decided never never never again to use the soil corer. Why I like soil science so much but also hate the sampling will be probably a struggle for the rest of my career.
Finally the last day we sampled some plants for other people back at work and then had to fly back again. The river had been too low for jetboats since Christmas, so unfortunately we had to board the helicopter again. The weather was pretty stormy so I wasn’t happy about this, but there was no alternative. We then had a lot of time to spare in Invercargill, which is by no means a town where you want to have any time to spare. We managed to find the one and only café and secure a coffee just before they closed at 4 pm (NZ’s standard time for closing café’s, because who would want a coffee at or after four anyway?!). Finally back to Chch by airplane, and after a bumpy landing I was glad to be home again.
Unfortunately I still have at least 2 to 3 weeks of fieldwork ahead of me. I’m thinking hard of a more lab-based next phase in my life.
