We woke up today to an unusually warm and sunny morning. The beautiful weather was a welcomed break from the cold days we have been having.
We started our day at Styx Living Laboratory Trust to do a planting. We first had Antoni and Jackie from the trust give us a presentation about who is involved with the trust, the trust's goals, and the history of the river of the challenges facing the river today.
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| The goals of the Styx Living Laboratory Trust for 2040 |
After the presentation, we got to wear cool neon vests for our walk over to the planting site. We decided to walk there so we could see part of the river and Antoni even took us to a pretty spring along the trail and explained how they have worked to create a boundary of wetland around the spring to protect it.
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| Debriana and Haiden stoked about their sweet new vests |
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| Us all admiring the spring! (It reminded me of our springs back in Florida) |
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| We met some horse friends along the way |
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| We walked along the road in a line like duckings (quack) |
Once we arrived at the planting site we saw that we had a muddy task ahead of us. The planting site was along the banks of a pond off the side of a motorway. We were shown how to plant the grasses and trees that were scattered along the land by Gareth and Hugh from the trust. Gareth let us know that we had a large task ahead of us with over 600 plants to get into the ground. We all got a bit muddy and the thistles poked us a bit, but we accomplished the planting with daylight to spare.
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| Nico and Ryan working hard getting the grasses in the ground |
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| Maya shows off her muscles she grew during our restoration days |
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| All of us showing off our muddy hands at the end of the planting |
After we finished planting we headed over to a nearby park for Dr. Hostetler to teach us how to play cricket! We modified the game to play with only 11 people and it took a few minutes of Dr. Hostetler explaining and re-explaining the game for us to understand, but we ended up getting the hang of it. We divided up into two teams, the Kiwis and the Wekas. We played two rounds and the Weka won the first round and the Kiwis won the second, so it ended in a draw, so there were no real losers today, only winners!
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| The Kiwis up to bat |
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| The Kiwis doing a celebratory stomp |
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| The Wekas doing a celebratory squawk |
We all enjoyed learning how to play cricket!
Kia ora
