What have you done

full moon

Exceloo

I thought everyone should have an Idea what it is like to use one of New Zealand's many fine auto-toilets...

Mirror Lake Series (1)

I Feel Free

I've finally finished the CELTA course. I am officially certified to teach English as a Second Language anywhere in the world. I feel like I've discovered some secret treasure that enables me limitless freedom.

almost there

For those of you who don't know, I have been on a 4-week intensive C.E.L.T.A. course to be Cambridge certified to teach English as a second language. It has been three long weeks of waking up at 6am and going to bed at midnight with only a couple of hours free during the day to consume massive amounts of food. For the time being my blog has become "one-a-day" format because I spend about 11 hours a day at Canterbury University most days of the week. It's been an incredible growing experience and certainly has cultivated one of my passions. I am 4 days away from certification now eagerly awaiting the right of passage to an amazingly fulfilling career. June 26th, 2009 will mark a great new chapter in my life.

I'm almost there.

they are watching you, wave

a penny further is a cent closer

when we sleep they dance

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves.
~John Muir

who are they

why are you here

Night in New Plymouth

Rotoiti

Embrace the Dark

Biking Matakana

Biking the beach in Matakana. January 2009

The First Home I've Ever Owned

On March 20th, 2009, Sarah and I purchased Gertrude Buttercup. "Gert," as we came to know her.Born in the year 1988 to the royal Toyota Hiace family, Gertrude was destined for a life of hard work and exploration. At the ripe old age of 21 (92 1/2 in car-years), Gert has a delicate, steady momentum, a strong perseverance... and awful smelling gas. Her eyes are the most beautiful shade of yellow and she keeps a constant crooked smile. Her voice cracks, she's deaf, and never showers. She's perfect.

Retired from working 15+ years in the house-painting business, Gert was ready for the adventure of her lifetime. She came to us well-equipped for cooking and shelter, as most good mothers do for their beloved. With a brand new muffler, two new tires and a new carpet, she was about to engage in the greatest adventure she would ever have. She would finally be set free to see the country she was sent to as an infant.


All of it...

Impermanence, Balance.

Today I experienced life.
A re-experience of its gratification, its delight.
Life itself.

Removing myself from my normal presets and daily understanding, taking a step back and fully appreciating what is. Not with images and words in my mind of all the things that are nice and wonderful in the world, but mentally in terms of the possibility of existence itself and all of the forms in which it manifests.

The weather may have had something to do with it. Nature was strongly expressive today. Gray, cloudy overcast, high and random gusts of powerful wind.

I looked up at the silhouette of a dead tree against a bright white background. The back lighting provided a white canvas for the organic form that all of a sudden appeared to be only a black armature or possibly a crack in the space. I stood on top of the stump of a cut-down tree. I felt the energy it once had, looking around to see exactly what it might have seen its entire life if it had the gift of human eyesight. I was taken to a place of remarkable peace. A place where thoughts couldn't confuse me and stress couldn't age me. A place where life ripened naturally and all things appeared fine without analysis.

Later on that day I was taken to a beautiful waterfall and desolate beach. The wind and mist, strong and without yield, made a forceful impression against my body. I walked against its relentless, consistent course. It made me feel like only a tiny component in the midst of a beautiful, massive force. It cooled my bones thoroughly very quick. I was soaked within minutes by a vast amount of minuscule droplets flying through the air. I resisted, tightening my cheeks and tensing my muscles, teeth chattering and limbs shivering to keep warm.

I looked up at the sun through the grayish lens of the thin clouds below it. I saw birds letting the strong streams of air carry them effortlessly to the growing tide. They dove in for a chance at catching a good fish. I decided to relax the tension in my muscles and to accept the moisture just the same as if it were normal air. My cheeks lowered, teeth stilled, and limbs relaxed. I felt cold no longer. I closed my eyes and let the constant force pull all of my clothes and hair back. I surrendered myself to the confidence that I knew I would be alright, even if this turned into a hurricane. I walked back without strain through the pellets of water and constant wind.

It wasn't until later while observing a tree that I came to understand what had happened then.

A simple pleasing experience can open the window to an odd but natural mode of appreciation that the mind occasionally enters. It's sort of a temporary re-learning of the mind's associational definition of what is seen with the eye. A lot is understood by the natural feelings that transpire when the removal of the everyday understanding of reality occurs. Different things at different times serve as a catalyst for it, but this time it was a combination of sensory experiences in synchronization with one another.

I was listening to an intensely climaxing Sigur Ros song as huge gusts of thick wind blew through a massive Totara tree. The thick swells of wind pushed accordingly with the vibrating strings in the music. The gusts changed the orientation of the leaves and branches of the trees to make completely different forms out of them. The manifested image of the song in my head evolved and changed as the wind and strings progressed in tension and relief. Eventually the wind would subtly reduce and release its force, easing the trees back to their comfortable state. At the same time the dissonance in the music would escalate to an extremely high point of tension and then subtly reduce, revealing the single solitary note and voice that formed the songs base. This is balance in the chaos of nature.

The tree serves as symbolic for a human being. The wind, external forces or the events affecting her. The tension from these events and forces outside of its control would eventually release their influence, so long as the tree accepted its reality whilst being stretched into a temporary form. The wind exfoliates the ripened leaves and seeds, spreading it's essence and existence while refining the tree itself. External experiences shape our lives and well-being, molding our character the same way. Naturally. The tree simply only has to accept the stress as a reality, ceasing to resist the inevitable, unknown future. A tree may not have the conscious choice to do so, but say that it did. If it chose to resist with counter force, the added tension might crack it's limbs.

This balance is key in many aspects of life. What seems chaotic usually ends up alright, so long as we don't exercise the hubris in artificial opposition. There is an inherent goodness in the impermanence and natural balance found in nearly everything. All matter is in constant flux and exists unerringly so, as long as unnatural resistance doesn't adjourn it. Chaos is a natural state that can balance itself out. Some economic theorists might conceptualize the function of an unregulated free market the same way. I prefer to use nature as an example.

In a given amount of time, Harmony is the net result of the natural state of Chaos, as observed by countless examples: The food chain, seasons, climate, tide, evolution, precipitation cycle, digestive and immune systems. Nature cannot be controlled by one of its progeny. The attempt at doing so can only result in ruination.



[March 14th, 2009]

Buddhist Philosophy + March for Tibet [Early March]

To DCI

After our travels with Andy Waterman we said our goodbyes and hitchhiked back to Auckland. I found my feet toeing off dirty hiking shoes at the doors of the Dorje Chang Institute, a community residence center and Tibetan Buddhist Monastery of two monks and two nuns. They hold daily classes, Pujas and discussions that are open to everyone (DCI).

There was definitely a peace to the place. I noticed immediately that everyone spoke with a calmness that would seem foreign to any American. Delicate attention was given to everything said and the self-conscious seemed simply absent from their actions. I envisioned a cartoon with a bubble coming out of my head containing the word "Stress?" The next frame, a close up of one of the monks or nuns faces, completely bewildered and confused.

Most of the work I did to earn my accommodation was domestic and at my own scheduling. You might think it cliche for a monks prescription, recalling the infamous Karate Kid's "Wax on...Wax off" scene... I scrubbed floors repeatedly, tidied already clean surfaces, painted in bright colors and tended to the garden, all of which encouraged me to think and reflect for long periods of time in silence. It was "menial" work, as my mother calls it, but I really enjoyed the personal time. It was nearly meditation. The greatest challenge came in trying to clean cobwebs in outside areas without harming life. In practicing the Bodhidharma, even the smallest ant or spider must be peacefully relocated, spared with compassion. Buddhists believe that sentient beings are reincarnated to build more positive karma towards their own enlightenment. Life, in any form, is sacred and should be respected. Keeping in mind that a worm could have been a relative in a past life, Buddhists practice "everything is our mother" in an effort towards Bodhichitta, on the path to enlightenment.

New Years/50th Anniversary of Chinese Occupation

Our arrival at DCI was a week or two prior to the Tibetan New Years celebration. This particular year, New Years was not celebrated.

In observation of the fallen Tibetans that have resisted Chinese force, Tibetans around the world were asked by His Holiness the 14 Dalai Lama to observe the otherwise passionately celebrated holiday in silence and peaceful protest. Chinese authorities forced Tibetans still in Tibet to celebrate so as not to cause a disruption.

There's an article about it here:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/25/tibetan-new-year-pro.html

I was first introduced to the issue when I saw the film Seven Years in Tibet a few years ago. Brad Pitt acts out the real life story of Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian mountain climber that stumbles upon Lhasa and befriends the child Dalai Lama during the beginning of the Chinese takeover. When I found out that the story was true, I did a little research into the issue and began to feel sorry for Tibetans, questioning the legitimacy of Chinese imperial intentions. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before the issue had slipped from my mind. Matters of import such as this are often forgotten about when headlines in the American Media focus on real issues like: "Russel Crowe throws telephone," "Robert Redford buys Red Ford..." "Brittany Spears Arrested," "Hugo Chavez Loves Crackers."



In 2007, I traveled to China with a political science group from my University conscious of the conflict, but hopeless as an actor as we toured three and a half million square miles in four weeks. The issue was then permanently placed in my conscious, but put on a backburner until just recently. When March 10th came around pretty quickly, I found myself finally more involved.



It was a beautiful, clear and sunny day with the wind picking up off the piers of Auckland. There was just enough gust for a good game of Ultimate Frisbee but not quite enough to fly in a glider. I let it push me towards the square downtown where a sea of Tibetan flags flapped through its breeze. Fifty headbands were being handed out, one for each year since the oppression began. I found myself ironically wrapping my birth-year around my head, ruminating on the fact that every year since has been no different for Tibetan freedom.

Monks prayed peacefully, dedicating their actions for the benefit of all sentient beings. Among them were my new found friends and teachers: Venerable Gyalten Wangmo, Rinchin Dhondup, Geshe Wangchen and Venerable Lobsang Konchog (Pictured above with me). We marched the streets together, bound by a white cloth banner in simple black paint that read, "Tibet: 50 years under Chinese Oppression." Nobody shouted or yelled negatively. This was a different kind of protest. People walked by seemingly baffled by the lack of aggression, likely expecting thrusting fists and angry shouting. It's possible that we made a more profound statement in our approach.


After the march, we gathered at a memorial erected for those who have fallen. A rainbow rose behind an array of Tibetan national flags as the monks and participants observed silence for those killed as a result of this event, Tibetan and Chinese alike. News and an update from the Dalai Lama himself was read aloud.

An Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy

Buddhist ideas I strongly agree with or respond to:

The Buddha is not some type of super-man or extraterrestrial alien that just appeared on this earth endowed with super-human qualities. -Chokyi Dragpa

In Buddhist thought, we all possess the same potential the Buddha did before he reached enlightenment. Faith only need be applied in the self and the mind, not in the supernatural. In developing ourselves and practicing compassion and wisdom, we can create a better life and world. Buddhism conflicts with Christianity here. The Christian tradition advocates service to others, especially for the oppressed, as Jesus Christ did in his time. This is usually manifested in group actions or other collective Christian missions/endeavors. Without regard to preliminary work on the self you are expected as a Christian to be of service to the less fortunate without question. In Buddhism, the work must first come from within. You aren't fully capable of really helping others until you've at least begun to understand yourself. In fact by doing so, and if everyone did so, the collective is enriched and healed from the bottom up. Your acts of compassion then have more meaningful potential and application. You answer the "why" before you ask it. In Buddhist thought, we can alleviate suffering by individually becoming free of the things that create it: Attachment, anger, jealousy, etc.



What I enjoyed most about the Buddhist teachers I encountered was their sense of ease and peace. In a recording of a discussion, Venerable Rene Feusi lectured to a gathering of pupils and said, "Life is FUNNY! We act too serious!" He points out that we are goofy "animals playing awkward roles," especially in the west (he is western). He taught, "Awkward situations are funny, not awkward! Laugh at them, stop being so conscious of your social self." He's hinting at the understanding of emptiness, the potential we all possess to acquire a mind clear of dissatisfaction.

We all have the ability to live more purely and promote satisfaction universally. Unfortunately, we succumb to habits and desires that blur our sense of natural, potential purity. But it's never too late to realize that the mind is fundamentally pure with some deep work and self-realization, the purpose of meditation. One of the best analogies I heard regarding the potential to acquire a clear mind was later stated by Feusi when he said, "Clouds in the sky don't affect the naturally pure state of the sky." The sky is always purely there. The nature of space itself is awareness. The enlightenment qualities are always there within us and we always have the potential to develop and exercise them.

This one's for Brad [Mid March- Auckland Zoo]

Dorje Chang Institute [From early March]

Meet Rinchen Dhondup

Rinchin was born during the 50's at the beginning of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Since the age of twelve he hasn’t seen a single member of his family. In the early 60's, Rinchin's parents used their savings to risk smuggling him out of the country. They were offering him an escape from oppression. Refuge from the extermination of their culture and religious tradition.

Rinchin escaped successfully, leading him to an education in India and eventually his current occupation in New Zealand as the resident translator at the Dorje Chang Buddhist Institute.

Rinchin can't go home.

The Chinese occupation of Tibet is one of the greatest civil rights violations since the Holocost. Tibetans are being denied of their rights to freedom of speech, assembly, movement, expression, and travel that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states are entitled inherently to all human beings. And for what? So China can increase its economy and global autonomy?

If you care about matters of human rights, specifically about the independence and preservation of Tibetan culture please visit: http://www.friendsoftibet.org/ or read a bit about it elsewhere.

Chicago specifically:
http://www.tibetan-alliance.org/index.html

More soon...

Flightless of the Blue Bumblebee Rondo a La Turk

On the Road with Andy [From late February]

Road tripping with Andy Waterman and co.





Andy’s niece flew in from England and before we knew it, Sarah and I were invited along for their road tour of the Northland region. Melanie, 30-years old, was very serious in declaring her preference of Marmite over Vegemite. I suppose this stuff is popular in Europe and elsewhere, but I had never heard of it before Fiji:

Starving after a long flight on the way out here I turned to airport cafeteria food with high hopes. It was some form of morning, I think. Or at least it felt like it. I was just getting over a bad head cold and really wanted some eggs and toast, maybe some tea. I ordered the special "brekky" option from a bar roofed with a fluorescent awning serving everything from Chinese take-away and pudding to kebabs and fruit smoothies. That was my first mistake. The second? ...ordering a side of "bacon" with my dish. Slimy, discolored, marbled slices of elderly-body-odor flesh came out resting next to my eggs and wonderfluff "toast." The ham made me sick, so I thought I would reward myself with a sure failsafe: Peanut-butter on toast.

I looked around the basket of jellies and tomato sauce for a small packet of peanut butter to spread on my toasty wondersponge. None. But I came across something unique: "Vegimite." Naturally I wondered, "What is this?" and proceeded to open and smell it. It's always on the agenda to try new things whilst traveling, so I thought it'd be a good start. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of loading it onto the piece of wondertoast the way I normally like my peanut butter.

It was like a mouth-full of grandmas old socks soaked in soy sauce...

Thankfully the food has been better and better since then...
Along Andy's road tour I was well equipped with a jar of PB for rampant consumption. Thank God. Breakfast, lunch and dinner often involved peanut butter spread on something- bananas, apples, bread, sausages, my face. Eating with our little surrogate family was a just like home.

Father Andy hated noodles, doesn’t eat fish and dislikes sausages or wurst of any form, but he usually gobbled up any of it if you presented it to him. Eating was not the highlight, though, I think i'm just hungry right now...

What we got to see (for free and without hitch-hiking I might add) was amazing. He took us to beach after beach, each one more infinite, colorful and impeccably desolate than the last. Major landmarks, loads of environmental biology and odd encounters with strange people and places were a daily experience. A handful of waterfalls, small towns with “Wild West” carnivals, and tons of sarcastic moments and witty banter also flavored the trip nicely...

[I'm up there]

Sarah and I slept in the tent we acquired for free from an English couple we met near the beginning of our trip.
Thanks, English couple from the Bunkdown Lodge.
A rainy night or two left us sleeping among puddles, but we were usually tired enough at the end of the day to care less.

[Beached Jelly Fish]

A few brief off-shoots from the mini-vacation (They call vacation time "Holiday" outside of the States):

Puzzle World
While visiting Andy’s old friend/ex-wife, Barbara, we went to a little place called puzzle world in the middle of nowhere. The owner, who's name escapes me, greeted us with gigantic hands full of traditional puzzles and mind-toys. ...You know, those little metal puzzles where you have to pull apart the shapes... It looked like he had just placed a handful of little steel bars in his hand and mashed it up into individual forms. He might have been a wizard, but was an oaf for sure. The good kind, of course.

While looking around the shop, he invited a few volunteers to do a trick on. I sat in a chair, while four people attempted to lift me using only their index fingers…two people poking me in the armpits, two others in my leg-pits. ...No luck. They proceded to put their hands on top of my head and counted down from 20. I felt the weight on my spine and my lungs filled more fully with air. They tried again and lifted me a few feet off the chair, effortlessly.

Magic.

We also attempted the backyard hedge labirynth. It was a maze/puzzle combination where the objective was to find all 15 letters that would make a three 5-letter word solution. The answer ended up being “Dying Brain Cells” which was one letter off from what I thought would have been a better riddle: “Leave Candy Lines.”

Ancient Kauri Forest
In our travels with Andy, we visited an ancient Kauri forest where Tane Mahuta, "God of the Forest" lived. This Tane (man) is also the worlds largest known Kauri Tree, at least 2000 years old. That puts him reaching up for sun on the same earth, at the same time, that Jesus walked it. The life-force and presence of Tane Mahuta was so massive and vibrant you could feel it in your bones, similar to the bass spectrum in your chest at a good concert. The eerie, rainy day only added to the ambiance of the super-massive tree, girth measuring in at at least 45 feet. Can you imagine that?

[That's us down there]

More on: Tane Mahuta.

We paid for a one-day bus tour up to the most northern point of New Zealand, Cape Reinga. Here, the lighthouse marks a point where the Tasman sea meets the Pacific Ocean. It was a pretty misty day, so we couldn’t see much, but the weather offered us a more peaceful, tourist-less experience of a highly popular area. The lack of sunshine and consistent gray misting sky made for a peaceful, contemplative experience looking out at the point. One solitary Manuka tea-tree stood erect in an epic thrust sky-bound, determined to fight the crashing tides and rocks below for just a bit of sweet sunshine and eroding soil.

On the way we up “dune boarded.” It was reassuring seeing a few 60/70-year-olds flying down the side of a sand dune headfirst, yelping and sometimes wiping out, but always finishing with a big smile on their face.

This was all only a taste of the freedom we were about to earn...

Chasing Chooks

This one's for you Brandon and JJ (+Johnny and Aimee), and everyone else...

Turn your speakers up!

A Starry Night [From 2-18-09]

The next morning we woke up early to go fishing with Andy.

He took us to the nearby harbor, and we caught some little red snapper for supper. I let two of them go (That must be where the saying “off the hook” came from), but Andy caught one substantial enough for Sarah and I to eat that night... Andy doesn’t like fish.

In between fishing and eating fish, I test drove a manual compact car for the first time on the left side of the road, steering wheel on the right side of the vehicle, gear-shift on my left. Weird. Really weird. It was an old Mitsubishi Galant with nearly 400 thousand Kilometers on it. That’s about 250,000 miles. We got back up the hill to Andy’s after I learned how to do an uphill start, but decided against buying the car even though it was the equivalent of about $400 USD. We had our eye on another prize…

But more on that later…

What was really special about this day was the evening.

Remember that little Dr. Suess house at the top of the world?

Sarah and I went up there for the night to play some cards and have some freshly picked chamomile tea with cinnamon. Sitting comfortably with knit blankets on an old couch I put my headlamp on (thanks Amy Paris) and read my book. We drank the tea with high expectations, but it turned out not being so great... it was surprisingly weak for fresh flowers. After reading for a while and writing for longer I felt slightly restless inside the humid room, so I stepped outside with my headphones to just cool off. I laid down on my back flat on the small section of bare deck just outside the only door, put on some tunes and looked straight up at the glorious infinite sky. It seemed to be much closer to my face than ever before. “With Rainy Eyes” came on my headphones, a tune by The Emancipator--an artist just recently put into my constant rotation (Thanks Vince Haddad). Chills ran up and down my spine, goose bumps spotted my arms and legs. These aren’t the kind you get from a sudden gust of wind, though I felt the cool breeze against my entire body coming from all directions, shifting from one side to another in constant chaos. Nature was strong that night and she was demonstrating for me.

The coast was just behind me, rolling hills in front of me, and what seemed like a perfect 180 degrees of Milky Way hovered directly above me. I could see it all as the cones and rods in my eyes adjusted, tuning to the key of brilliance. I breathed a chest full of fresh air, feeling every inch of my lungs absorbing the crisp oxygen coming off the ocean and filtering through the bush. A natural high made my senses extra keen. The only lights present were the few tea-light candles flickering from within the tiny cabin. I could see the stars and sky more perfectly than ever before, save one previous occasion in the middle of Dunhuang, China. Orion’s belt was straight above and the Southern Cross just down the way, though you could hardly focus on any constellation for long as so many of the stars all around were so bright the entire sky seemed like a surreal scene from The Fountain or maybe Astronomy picture of the day. I saw four shooting stars within the small period of time I was out there alone… the perfect number for the perfect night. I made the same wish on all of them.

The song became forever burned into my memory along with the image and the associating feelings that had me repeating in my head, "I am actually out here, experiencing this right now. Because I chose to do so. This is what I want right now and I have it.”

I own my life.

At the same time, I recognize and appreciate what a privilege this has been for me. In light of this, I won’t take one moment for granted and I will put as much effort back into my experiences and wisdom as this trip has afforded me.

“Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.”

-Eskimo Proverb


As you must understand, the naked eye sees far more than my camera could record. But I've attempted to recreate the experience anyways. Turn your speakers up:

Forestry with Paul [From 2-16-09]

We spent a day with Paul (Andy’s neighbor) and his dog, Jay, doing some forestry in one of Northland’s many indigenous bushes.


It was quite an adventure and definitely a learning experience. Sacada's whizzed by like bullets fired from behind as we hopped streams, traversed swampy cow pasture (often running face to face with the bush dwellers!), climbed steep inclines and scaled the declines of the bush. For a moment I let the juvenile in me imagine it as an escape from a prison camp in the Vietnam jungle. Sometimes only complete invested faith in my grasping of a tiny, flimsy, dying branch was the only hope of not tumbling down some of the steep ridges, but some might say my imagination is just being dramatic. In any case, thank you hiking shoes for helping me fight the battle against the forces of gravity. In reality, we must have looked like neurotic apes that just learned how to use a tape measure, leaping through the forest frequently stopping in our tracks to take measurements Totara and Puriri trees (native species).







Sacada's come every year here, and in some parts of the bush their party is so dense and roughty that after passing them it feels similar to having been to a metal concert. Ears ringing, lungs panting, and pupils widening, we moved on to take a sample plot of the forest's species composition. We hammered a post deep into the ground, set a circumference parameter of 8 meters and measured trees within the circle for their distance from plot center, height, circumference, apropriate angles and compass notch, numbering them with a can of orange spray-paint. Trigonometry, geometry and algebra + trees= neat. Years from now, another forester could come and re-measure the same plot, comparing our archived measurements for growth-rates and diversity changes.

[Now you know what those neon numbers are]

In between working and working out, Paul and I got to chatting quite a bit. Paul offered insight to his perspective on the current political-ecological climate in NZ. He comes from a very conservative but radical opinion that holds position against Greenpeace and other large "green" organizations, believe it or not. He maintains that large all-encompassing organizations like Greenpeace are relatively il-informed in their approach and goal towards sustainability. Organizations like Greenpeace have good intentions but are ultimately failing in catering to the specific needs in unique environments. They preach against logging of indigenous forests in efforts to preserve native species and re-growth of unique forest life for the land, but this fails to attend to vital details. Paul's general position maintains that it would be more beneficial and fruitful to have the forest regenerate and for it to be logged in proper intervals, allowing it to regrow more densely and consistently. This provides a more sustainable model, enabling the bush to thrive with many layers of age, naturally self-sustaining on its own fallen vegetation. A "no-logging-at-all" policy ultimately fails as a model because it allows non-native species that are already prevalent in otherwise indigenous forests to dominate in cases where the native species are a step behind due to consumer demand. ...You'll just have to pick apart that sentence.

...If consumers are purchasing more timber from pine trees that aren’t native to New Zealand (because they grow extremely fast and straight in large quantities), of course those trying to survive and thrive financially follow suit, plowing down huge sections of native bush and planting huge plots of non-native pine trees. It’s simple, quick and profitable. What they don’t know is that with a bit of education and effort, they could be making easily as much or more money off indigenous timbers if their environment is properly cared for, and can likewise take part in preserving forests and lanscapes that are unique to the country.

Needless to say, it was quite a learning experience and definitely good insight into another skill-set, career and lifestyle.

After an entire days-worth of making the forest our personal jungle-gym, Paul and Katarina treated us to an excellent dinner back at their place. Kebabs, sausages, colourful salad, rice, beans, olives and feta, wine, beer and a variety show medley of local potatoes. Among the spuds was the the widely popular Kumera. In New Zealand they use it just about anything and like to pretend its something really special, but in reality it's just a funny looking sweet potato. Desert was more wine and beer, dark chocolate, "Hokey Pokey" ice-cream (butterscotch) and hot drinks. We went to bed back with the spiders in one of Andy's 60's caravans, stomachs full. A good day and night for sure. But I have never had an evening experience like did the next night...