03/11/2017 - 09/11/2017

My conservation project in New Zealand starts. After meeting the team and our team leader Bruce in the office in Auckland and after a two hours drive, we arrived in Atiu Creek, a national park north of Auckland, which perfectly depicts the stereotypical nature: big, lush green hills, forests, mangroves along the coastline, a mixture of normal trees and tropical palm trees and vines in the bush, colourful birds and thousaaaaands of sheep! 
There, we lived in Bruce's house with a nice common room and kitchen and of course bunk beds. We have the weekend to ourselves, so we decided on doing some walks through the park and I was also forced to watch The Lord Of The Rings for the first time as I was accused "to lack some education". 
Our team consists of very different personalities, but we come along well. 

My first week with the Conservation Volunteers:
We cleaned hundreds of pots for plants, constructed a bridge for the paddocks, prepared 1,092 pots with seeds, built a fence and chased invasive (and therefore threatening) species.
Normal working hours are from 8 am to 4 pm, but our team leader is very uncomlicated and we normally call it a day earlier. 





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