New railing!!

Three years after moving in we finally removed the hideous plywood from the backyard:
No idea was AC=ND even means










before:

after:




Meagan and Anna helped me garden this spring, here are the results (same bed from different angle one month apart):





just planted second crop of spinach and lettuce...

Atherton Tablelands, Australia

The Curtain Fig tree


Lake Eacham



Gaby, Sue and Toby


Barren Falls


Marty and Timmy - the pademelons - at the Krockenbergers' house



Leaf-tailed lizard - look closely


Brushtail possum

China

I just looked back at the photos. While it was an incredible trip, it was also extremely depressing in that much of the consumption and pollution were far worse than I had anticipated.
For a much more informed assessment of the Chinese pollution (and water shortage and authoritarian rule)problems see the the "Choking on Growth" series:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/08/26/world/asia/choking_on_growth.html

Panda Power

Shanghai












Wuhou Temple in Chengdu celebrating the Three Kingdoms period (disunity in China around 25 BC)










Wenshu Buddhist Monastary (chanting in background and not many photos allowed)







National Holiday street fair




Kung Fu




Hello kitty drinks


Poet Du Fu's thatched cottage










Refreshments






Gingkos!!


Yellow and red makes orange - they melded their genes and their coat colors


Chengdu - population: 10.5 million


China in a nut shell




Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Station
















Wolong - town up in panda habitat


Little environmentalists














More pandas at Wolong Panda Breeding Research Center




















Dujiangyan Acient Irrigation Project








Dumplings in Beijing




Tienenman Square during National Day Holiday - China's 4th of July. It felt like all 1 billion were celebrating in the capital.

Day


Night




Temple of Heaven - Beijing






Great Wall


798 Art Collective - huge old factory site in Beijing. More art in one place than I've ever seen in my life.





Photo exhibit of family planning propoganda


Translation reads: Harvest must select improved varieties, a child must eugenic.


2008 Olympic "Birds nest"


Official communist countdown


Back in Shanghai
Museum:


300 Buddhas


Sunrise from the apartment


Saying goodbye


Mr Cao

PNG photos

Port Moresby - Ella Beach


Church in Port Moresby


Sign in Port Moresby airport



Toby's apartment in Lae



View from apartment in Lae

View of airstrip in Yawan village

Arriving in Yawan village on 6 seater plane - 5500 ft

Baby tree kangaroo


Kids in Yawan


Primary school in Yawan - each building is a different grade

The students maintain the garden and cut the grass before class

Blackboard in school - learning about logging

Classroom

Research house


Our bathroom

Dono and Annie's house

View of Yawan

Seroen and Stacie on our tour of Yawan

Woman carrying firewood and garden food

Man separating coffee beans by hand

Bamboo is planted everywhere for use as a building material

Flowers in the village

Carriers getting ready to take our stuff up the mountain

Our stuff (wow! too much - and half of it didn't show up. I ate ferns and rice for dinner for a few nights)



Bridge of Uruwa River - between Yawan and Towet. Kids cross it everyday to get to school

Me and the gang in Towet

Spider in my sleeping quarters in Towet

The slots in the houses make a convenient place to keep your knife


Flower lined path in Towet


Cloud forest during hike up


View of Yawan on hike up cliff - you can see the landing strip


View of Towet and Uruwa river on hike up


Camping on the way to field site


Tree fern fiddlehead


Trail to field site(flat part)


Kotem River


Building structures for tents to go under


Ropes made of vines




Stanley and Victor


Kunai - open area with bunchgrasses and fern


Victor, Gabriel, Andrew and Carol look up what animal they spotted

My friends Emily (16) and Helen (15)

One of the hundreds of species of bryophytes

View of fern hut

Me and Kuna

Kuna and Mellie tracking a tree kangaroo


All of the hunters


Me and Toby


Collaring a tree roo

Cute face!!

Releasing a collared tree kangaroo

Yangu


Sunset

Epiphytes in tall trees look like tree kangaroos in the sun

Sunny cloud forest

Birdwing butterfly at Rainforest Habitat (zoo in Lae)

Bananas

Orchids at Rainforest Habitat

Boelen's python at RFH

Cassowary

Tree roo

June 11 2007

Wrote this on (my) June 11 - last night. Off to the field tomorrow. Last of the information superhighway for me for a while....

More of the same in Lae. Today we did a variety of tasks from working on a publication that Toby and I will be editing together from half way across the globe to sorting out the first aid kits. We tried to buy remaining items but it being the Queen’s birthday, a lot is shut down.

One of the guys who works for us is missing in action. Toby isn’t worried as this guy is a bit flakey when he isn’t in the field. He was supposed to be here Saturday and still no word. He better show tomorrow because we are leaving on Wednesday! A new guy, Mellie, is coming from Goroka and had to delay his arrival until tomorrow to finish up a few things. So that means we have been left to finish up a bunch of the duties that we were thinking they could help with. Tomorrow will probably be crazy last minute stuff and trying to get to stores once they open – so I probably won’t write again until we return.

Last night I saw my first flying foxes (fruit bats). They are huge! It rained so hard last night that it woke me up over the generator and the air conditioner. Right now is the rainy season in Lae and the dry season in Port Moresby. It seems that it is always the rainy season in the highlands unfortunately. I have a wet two weeks ahead of me.

I’m really looking forward to the field. The plane ride I’m not so sure about. I know it will be gorgeous. Being in the middle of no where for two weeks does not bother me, but the small plane and grass landing strip to get there is my main concern at this point. But they don’t fly in bad weather – so it will be fine.

We will be in Yawan village for about 2 days once we arrive. We have a research “house” there (bamboo and thatch hut). We will sort out all of the stuff into smaller sacks and hire all of the carriers from various villages. The same hunters and trackers are usually hired each season, but since we won’t start collaring the tree kangaroos right away they probably won’t come up to the field site until the rest of the folks from the US and Australia arrive on the 18th. It is a 2 day hike up to the field site, called Wasaunon, so we’ll probably be there on Saturday. Then we have until the following Wednesday to set up camp, hang out, read books, look for echidnas and tree kangaroos and use my new 5 pound flora of alpine plants in PNG from 1980 to figure out the plants up there before every. Oh and improve (read: start to learn) my Tok Pisin skills. So far I can understand words but not sentences. Many of the words are quite obvious (when you say them out loud), such as:
Lukim – see/saw
Nogat – no/I don’t have
Manmeri – people (they call all women “meri” – I’m sure I’ll get funny looks when I tell them my sister’s name is “woman” J)
Kwiktaim – soon
Husat – who
Nem bilong mi – my name

June 11th is also another anniversary besides the Queen’s birthday. Wonder if Dad would have expected his youngest to be working in Papua New Guinea. He certainly wouldn’t like the planes!!

First day in Lae

This computer isn't letting me post photos. I'll try again tonight....

Yesterday we met with the Department of Environment and Conservation. We’ll see what will happen with the Conservation Area. Seems very unlikely that this will go down before elections, but it is on the right track. All necessary parties are on board. We are still optimistic but now focusing on the upcoming field work.

After the meeting we got to the airport really early because we had to change our tickets and possibly pay for extra baggage. We had over 100 kgs total and each person is allowed 16! Yikes. I’m so happy to not be traveling with these gigantor bags anymore. We looked pretty absurd saying “oh we are just going trekking”. In the end they didn’t charge us for the extra bag which was nice. Sad to say, but being white gets you a lot around here.

We took a flight that went through the Highlands – Mt Hagan – to get to Lae. Toby got me excited for 4-foot tall people as the highlanders look very different from the coastal folks, but aside from a couple of hats on some “old geezers” nothing too different. It was great to see the area as we flew in. The people have gardens everywhere. Imagine driving along Hwy 80 in the CA hills and seeing little patches of garden way up on the brown hills way above a housing development. That is what Port Moresby is like. The highlands also have gardens everywhere but they are much bigger than those in the city. The rivers and mountains were gorgeous from the air and the sun was setting as we flew down from the highlands to Lae. At the airport, I saw the plane we will be taking to the bush. Wow – super small!!!!

The drive from the airport to Lae was pretty nuts. It was dark by then because our flight was late and it involved 45 minutes on a two lane road (no bigger and no shoulder for sure!) with massive pot holes and oncoming traffic to negotiate not to mention all the people walking along the same road. In the dark it was a bit crazy. As we got closer to the city there were slowly more and more electric lights in the settlements and more and more people walking along the road. Everyone walks everywhere here. Very few bikes. There were also more and more fires as we went along. The predominant smell here is smoke.

Lae is the manufacturing capital of the country. That coupled with the fact that there is a road from the highlands to Lae (not the case for Port Moresby) means more people come down looking for work – and often don’t find it and still hang around. The beach kind of shows the manufacturing history – not a place to swim and only pretty from far away.

Toby’s apartment/office is really nice. It is one of about 8 two-story apartments that is managed by and enclosed in a hotel complex. We had breakfast in the hotel today and we can use the business center and other accommodations as needed. Pretty nice to have my own room and a working kitchen for a bit – oh yeah, AND a washing machine. Today we did some shopping for the field (and for cooking for the next few days), and now we are working at the kitchen table. It is super hot and humid here – I’m not sure if I’m making it up or if I can actually tell that we are closer to the equator here than we were in Port Moresby.

Critters of the day: huge spider hiding in the apartment, giant millipede outside that Toby brought in, birdwing butterfly dead and mounted in the hotel restaurant (biggest butterfly in the world – put your two hands together each one as a wing. For real. Hence the name).

Oh. We also stopped in a DVD/CD store and Eminem was playing. EVERYONE has a special place in their heart for Detroit. I wanted to tell everyone that I was from the same town as the guy on the radio, but I’m not sure what sort of reaction I would have received.