Some Quick Stories from the Field

Dead Sheep Pass

Most of the territory that we were studying was farmland. This meant walking through lost of cow and sheep pastures. The first couple of days, we tried to avoid stepping in the huge amounts of cow and sheep dung. But by the end of the week, we were covered in it. At one point, I was lying on my pack on top of a pile of cow dung simultaneously trying to take measurements from a limestone bed and spit out whatever sort of animal excrement had made it into my mouth. 

There were also dozens and dozens of dead sheep. I don't know what was killing them all, but after watching their behavior, I wouldn't be surprised if they were dying from lack of intelligence. Decomposing sheep smell bad, so you can imagine how unlucky we all were to have to walk through one in order to get to a certain rock formation. Those of us with sufficient balance and shoe tread managed to get away with only some rotting sheep carcass and maggots on our hands. Those less fortunate ended up with a mixture maggots, wool and three week old rotting flesh all over their front or back. 

Doctor Warwick Prebble

Doctor Prebble, or Warwick as he prefers to be called, has been studying geology for over fifty years and has been a lecturer on this field trip for 28 years. I can't begin to fathom how deep this man's knowledge is in all things related to field geology. Warwick blends both the new high tech gear with the old low tech gear. He caries with him a GPS unit as well as some sort of clinometer that looks as if it was stolen from Marco Polo. While out in the field with us, Warwick seemingly wore the same combination of cotton cargo shorts and a light blue button down shirt. This left me wondering if his cabin had a closet filled with seven cartoonishly similar sets of shirts and shorts for the week or if some holy/geological force keeps him completely dry and clean, regardless of the conditions. 

This year was bittersweet as it was Warwick's last year of coming on the Port Waikato trip. After 28 years, Warwick is retiring and looking to do, "other things." I know when retirees say that, they usually mean that they just want to sit around and relax, but for some reason I keep picturing Warwick hiking around Greenland or Patagonia in his cotton shorts and blue shirt.