Bracing the mainsail - Logging in West Papua

The sun sets over the tropical seas, voices in many languages drift about the ship, an the alarm is going off the engine room and someone is sat on the stern playing Bowies's space oddity.. or is this a scene from "The Life Aquatic"'? We watched the movie one night it in the mess and laughter got more and more intense and pointed. Finally someone says it: "This really, really is like being on a greenpeace ship.." "Except we don't have shiny skin-tight wet-suits". "Or guns". We do however have pirates out here... more on them later.

During the tour I met a man from a village who told me the harrowing story of their area, as he spoke I saw he had no front teeth, from where the police had kicked them, out he told me. I then met a whole group of people from his area and interviewed them. I heard of children poisoned and killed by chemicals used to treat the newly logged wood, and when this was protested the retaliation was; beatings, rapes, humiliation, burning of villages, destruction of crops and food in the wild.

The interviews might be used soon.. so I can't post them right now. There were reasons we couldn't at the time, so I'll link to them - as I want to get the stories of therese warm, friendly welcoming, hopeful people out. And pass on information on the scale of the oppression and human rights abused these people face, as total as the devastated forests around them.

All our lives from TV, newspapers, the internet.. we hear harrowing tales, so much you become numb to it. But here for the first time I heard stories first hand, from more people with missing teeth, and deeper less visible scars. And what overwhelmed me was their drive, hope and joy in life - after receiving, and still suffering from, so much violent oppression.

One nice observation: watching group dynamics I noticed the group always sit in circles, and if someone else joins there is a big awareness of that the shuffling so they are made part of the circle.. I had a chat about it and we ended up having a long, (if slow, to deal with language differences) discussion about inclusiveness. These guys dig circles as much as I do - respect!

Spending thst much time in the the wilderness of the sea and seeing seemingly endless forest onshore has changed me and my perspective/scale of wild. I might have a litte trouble when I get back the the UK, as more often I look at hills and see the missing forest. morning the loss of the forest there that were gone long ago.

BLOGS
To read more on the forests, the campagin and some adventures.. check out the out the blogs on: weblog.greenpeace.org/paradiseforests

I reckon my best/most interesting blogs, in order of goodlyness are:
Bearing witness
Stay away from the drop off
Shore leave
Jayapura Nights
Arrival in Jayapura
Oh Bouy



I totally loved it on the ship, and I love being a sea. Previously I've always been slightly unearved by the sea. Its so big, and salty, and full of large things.. and it goes down and down and down.. I have now fallen inlove with the vast expanses of water. I I've now swum in the ocean where you can't see land in any direction, and below keeps going further than I can imagine.. and did Jaws come and get me? did I inexplicably sink forever.. no.. is was pretty darn nice actually.


The light on thre sea never looks the same twice (although we never got fog!), Its like looking at stars, you can gaze out forever and never get bored.. Many nights I'd sleep out on 'Monkey Island" (the area above the bridge) under the stars and watch thunderstoms flah in the distance. I'm really starting to have trouble sleeping indoors.

There were so many best (and worst) moments.. I couldn't pick one. Realising I was one of the drunken sailors in the corner of a dingy bar in downtown Jakarta was pretty cool though! Or riding at night on the back of moped for the first time ever scarily winding its way thought the traffic Manokwari, or hiking through the rain-forest, or maybe just every single sunset and starry night at sea.



PIRATES
We passed through some dodgy waters, some of the most notorious in the world for pirate attacks.. and these are no cutlass toting 'oooh-arr'ing guys in Jolly Roger hats.. they are pretty scary men with weapons.. and as I said before, this is a greenpeace ship - we don't carry guns. We battened down the hatches, literally! Never thought I get to say that without it being a figure of speech,and doubled the watch at night. There were a few ships out there running black, which we could see on the radar, but nothing came to close. Then just after I left the ship I received this from a friend still on board "Last night two ships in our vicinity were approached by pirates, they attempted to board them but they used fire hoses and averted or detered the pirates. Needless to say we're now doubling our watches incase the worst happens." Come to think of it that was the last mail I received form the ship..

And tales from the high seas? We did have a few 'interesting' moments.. one with much worse than pirates.. we were in very remote seas sailing around a particually troubled area - but I'm not going to ruin my best stories by putting them here.. you'll just have to coax them out of this old sea-wench with a whisky or two!

PICS
I've put four photo sets on flicker from the warrior, as I'm trying to keep my sets small:

- port - images from welcomes and excursions around port
- ship - life at sea..
- land - forest pics
- sunsets - does what it says on the tin.. pretty dammed amazing!




I only put pics on flicker that I took.. so you get lots of me here on the blog this time! I realise that most of the pics are of mucking about in the water.. it totaly looks like a big holiday. Really there was a lot of work involved. Whenever I was not blogging I'd join the deck-hands in keeping teh ship ship-shape.. which meant heaps of primer and painting.. but then you look up from your work and ohh what a view!




Hey can anyone name that fruit? I found it floating miles out to sea..

Only take rides in Jags.. hitching for posh girls

I don't know if you've heard of my legendary hitch last summer when hitching all the from the ef! gathering in the midlands to the Rossport protest camp in Mayo, on the west coast of Ireland? Stood at a lay-by near Stoke with a sign saying purely 'M6' and this car pulls up with Dublin plates.. he takes us all the way to Dublin, including getting us on the ferry for a fiver, then drops right at my mate's house just in time for a few beers.. we even stopped on the way for chips at Conway castle in Wales.... and... all in a Jag!

So.. its six months on and I've been in the Valley for two weeks. Julia & I are stood beside the road jusat outside Westport. Its coast to coast and at least a five hour drive so potentially a full days hitch to Cristchurch, through remote mountian passes, last time I did it I got stuck for 4 1/2 hours in a little redneck town called Reefton.



We'd walked out of the valley that morning and somehow, and I'm not entirely sure how (although I'm pretty sure there were vegan pies involved), its was 4pm and we are just setting out. We had no tent and just one sleeping bag between us... 'neah' It'll be fine. We watched the intemmittant cars go past ignoring us. Hmm so we sleeping cosy in ditch tonight?

Then.. out of nowhere a 1966 Jag XJS 3.4 L Walnut interior pulls up, going all the way to Christchurch! For a while I couldn't stop laughing, the first this I did was take this pic:



And.. if that wasen't sweet enough it was driven by a couple of 'Icies'. Dudes fresh for 6 months working in Antarctica, one driving from Ross to the pole and the other working at the pole. I'm totally into Antarctica.. one of them had even read my fave fiction on the place.. and said it was true to life.. he even knew some of the people the character were based on!

However, after living in the bush for 2 months, well we were not exactly exiting in the same world as clean society! I had only one pair of only trousers which had dried mud to the knees from the walk out. We'd not showered for weeks, my hair was half dreaded and we spent most of the journey trying to work out how bad we smelt...

Would you pick me up?

In a jag?

Happy Valley - The price of coal

Accompanying pics can be found on my flicker sets happy valley & into the valley

There was this moment driving up into the mountains, on the way into a remote part of the New Zealand wilderness, on our way to occupy the site of a proposed coal mine. I was surrounded by dammed fine looking mountains sweeping straight down into the ocean, baking hot sunshine, in a van full of dammed fine looking kiwis listening to some dammed fine kiwi tunes on the stereo... I thought: somewhere along the line I did something right.

We were on our way into Happy Valley to start an occupation of a unique wetland under threat of destruction for the high grade coal beneath, mainly to export for aluminium smelting. Drinks cans, cars, bikes, ladders, foil, office blocks..and much more. It's a Kiwi habit, the endangered NZ Icon, and home to many other species, including a snail unique to the area. And then there's all that carbon in the coal... There is already a huge mine close by, and they want to wreck more of the area. You can read more about the campaign here, I'll tell you more about life in the valley.

Extremes
The west coast is place of extremes.. when its hot, its hot hot hot. When we first arrived in the valley the west coast was 'experiencing a period of unusually dry weather' (that phrase is getting far to familiar). But oh the swimming holes! There are few things more fantastic after getting baked all day than being in a remote wilderness plunging into icy water.. then warning up in the sun on the rocks. I've been learning to jump of big rocks. Well I'm not sure learning is the right word for it, as it doesn't take much skill.. just a bit of nerve. I'd never jumped of anything this high before.



Then finally the rains came.. and we all retreated to our tents. The dry cracked mud for the wetland finally came into its own. It got cold and damp. There isn't a really dry communal space at the camp, and in the rain no one wants to take their sleeping bags out of their tents.. so we mainly end up curled up on our tents dozing an reading all day, venturing out when we get to hungry. Sometimes going out on missions and getting very wet!
The tarp over my tent made a perfect water catcher and I could just lean out of the fly and fill up! The kitchen and shelter tarps made even better ones so we'd fill up every pot and pan we can find with the clear, pure lovely rainwater. mmm so fresh!


De-stress

The different pace of life is so good. There is so much peace, so much time not thinking of anything except concentrating on the rough terrain and putting one foot in front of the other without re-twisting my ankle. New things become important, using your senses, learning to track, checking for footprints, broken twigs, being really aware or your surroundings.



Everyone started having really viviid dreams, really amazing ones that often sorted things out in your head where you wake up feeling better about things you haven't consciously thought about for months. It made me realise how good for you having some good rest, physical effort and concentration can do to your head-space. You can feel how repressive and damaging our lifestyles in the city are away from the nature, space and beauty needed our psyches as well as our bodies. We're not evolved to be shut in boxes and it ain't good for us! Ok enough ranting... back to the the valley..


The world turns



Sunsets in the valley are glorious, there no other word for it. The red tussock of the valley floor lights up aflame in the setting sun.. and then the stars! Hours and hours and hours were spent laid out staring up at the night sky, I've never seen clearer. Real night, without the orange glow deadening everything.



Moonbow
A couple of years ago I didn't know moonbows exsisted. I heard the word and thought it was some hippy invention after to much acid.. wooh, like moonbows man. However, one wet moonlit night after a long wet windy day we were all clustered around the kitchen bender around cups of tea. We were enjoying the break from the relentless rain while watching huge cloulds blowing down the valley below us and catching glimpses of the moon and stars in breaks between the clouds. We were all staring at the moon and then someone glances in the opposite direction and gasps.. we all turn and there arching across the sky in a huge rainbow, but appearing monochrome in the night sky. The area under the moon-bow glowing slightly brighter then the rest of the sky. Now that was quite a thing! Moonbows man!



Kiwi Kiwi Kiwi Kiwi Kiwi Kiwi Kiwi Kiwi Kiwi
After taking part in the kiwi listening, and the serious lack of Kiwis in the Nina Valley, it was an amazing surprise to find such an active kiwi population in HV. Most nights I'd wake up to the kiwis calling. At first I was an expert (all that tape listening!) and was asked to shout 'Kiwi', whatever time of night it was, usually 5 am! But soon everyone started to recognise their calls and soon the familiar conversation struck up.. "Male?" "nah female.."
However I never got tired of waking up to it , so many nights in those quiet hours before dawn laying in my tent on the edge of camp listening to the calls before drifting back to sleep. It hasn't taking me that long to become familiar with exotic soundscape; Bell birds, Weka, Kiwi, Frogs (Ozzie import) Fernbirds, Morepork, Tui and those darn possums.



The bell bird has such a distinctive call, the ones in the valley sang a repeated - DCDAG - and as we went about our days you'd hear people absent mindedly whistling the bell birds tune...

One night we had a morepork flying through camp and land on the kitchen tent as we all watched open mouthed. A shy Morepork come to visit! (check out the pic of the little morepork chicks down on the right - we didn't see any but these are totally cute).

However, that wasn't all we could hear. It could be all to easy to get absorbed in the valley and forget what was so close by, and our long walks in which stayed well away from any signs of human encroachment made this more so. But day and night there'd be huge explosions from blasting, and the sounds of the machinery. Boom, Beep, Crunch, and a reminder of what danger hangs over this remote wilderness. The camp can be seen on the bottom left here and just a sectiojn of the huge Stockton mine looms above. You can click on any of my pics for a larger version.



We wont let it happen here!
www.savehappyvalley.org.nz



More pics of the Valley & camp can be found on my flicker sets happy valley & into the valley
(big ups to the talented Jen - Pics 5, 6 8 & 9 posted here are hers..)

Kiwi Listening - Adventures in Mossworld

Hey, so my blogs are now about *cough* 3 months behind.. well I have been busy.. However while I was in the bush I was keeping track in my notebook. Yeah not my powerbook, I got a boan-fida old fashioned used-to-be-a-tree notebook. Pen, paper, bad spellings that don't correct themselves, doodling in the margins.. remember all that? So I am gonna try and catch up with myself.. so here's ya first moss-packed instalment:

Kiwi Listening - Adventures in Mossworld
Photos to accompany this can be found here.


A group of twelve of us head out of Christchurch through the now familiar Lewis pass which connects to the upper west coast, where Happy Valley is. On the stereo is a strange series of screeches & trills, and the ardent listeners quickly cast their vote.. "Male"..."no, no that was Female, I'm sure of it!"'. Its late, we've been driving alongside a wide river deep in the mountains for some time and eventually park up and camp for the night. We're half way through the pass, surrounded by the huge mountains. In the dark by the new moon starlight I can see the shapes of two hulking mountains to the left, and know somewhere between their peaks is the way ahead, on foot. Up between these dark shapes is the Nina Valley.

Only a few minutes back we'd passed the site of some unmarked hot pools so after we are pitched up Karen & I head back down the road to the unremarkable lay-by and head down a riverside track to the hot springs. Half an hour later we are totally floppy, heated through and submerged from the cool mountain night air. How stylish, realxing in a natural sulphur pool shovelled out of the rocks and shale, exchanging gossip about ourselves and specualtions on our chch crew. Above on both sides tower the dark shapes of the mountains framing some of the brightest stars I have ever seen silhouetted against the overhanging Ponga treeferns and cabbage trees. Its totally unreal. Not for the first time and certainly not the last time this year I think 'Wow, this it truly one of the most amazing moments of my life'. Ten seconds later I'm screaming..

..I've just plunged myself into the freezing waters of the Lewis river. What a rush!

So what's Kiwi Listening? It's a survey on Kiwi populations. Kiwi are nocturnal, notoriously shy and well camouflaged. However their call is loud and distinctive. On this survey we go out in pairs and sit between dusk and midnight and listen out for Kiwi calls, them mark their direction, number and gender plus locality and weather conditions. I've never ventured off for some many days before with a tent, sleeping gear, stove, billy, outdoor clothes and and food. Completely self sufficient for a week in the bush on my own two legs. Cripes my pack was heavy!

The Nina Valley is Mossworld! I could rewrite this blog with 'moss' as every third word and still not get across how ubermossy it is. Its knee deep in places.. On good nights some of us slept out under the stars on the soft bouncy moss, it was that spongy.



The first night it chucked it down, but me and my co-listener stuck to our spot on top of a knoll and I sat there under mega-drips from the trees above getting colder and wetter. I didn't even want to put my hood up as it would affect my hearing. There was nothing to be heard in the forest, not a bird, not even possums. So cold! I think I spent the entire last hour pretending I was staking out some evildoers headquarters or a lookout for a welcoming party for some dodgy shipment of something, so I wouldn't quit... The next day I found out we were the only listening pair that didn't give up and finish listening from inside their tents. Bah!

The rest of the week was a glorious adventure through moss and mud, crossing rivers, exploring side valleys up to the tops, stopping to jump into icy, icy rivers before splitting of into pairs at night to listen in a new spot. Check out the pics!



Sadly we heard nearly nothing. There was a possible hearing on the first night. On the last night I got so comfortable in my listening spot in the moss that after midnight I just curled up and went to sleep, then later suddenly awoke. My listening partner appeared.. "did you hear it? did you" "eh?" and thus was the first of many nights to come where I found I had trained myself to wake up to the sound of Kiwi.

We had a great adventure in the Nina Valley. After a couple more clumsy miss-haps and R-I-C-Eing Bonnie suggested I should be wrapped in moss... I also gained quite a reputation as the loony brit that threw herself into the icy water when ever I got the chance. But it was hot! The hike out was very, very hot. I could hardly take it, every stream I soaked my sun-hat so it would drip all over me as I walked. When we reached the icy Nina river again I collapsed into it and lay on my back under the water with my nose poking out and gulped down the water that flowed passed for at least 15 minutes. Not sure how I didn't get hypothermia.

Most of the group then headed back to Cristchurch, but a few of us headed on west, hitching through the rest of the pass to the coast and onto the start of the occupation of Happy Valley....

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

So...my blog seems to be turning into purely 'links to other blogs I can be found at' as I dont have time to keep this one happy for now. But wow I'm havin' a blast..

So from tomorrow I'm on the Rainbow Warrior for 3 months doing the ships blog!

weblog.greenpeace.org/paradiseforests

Come visit me there and leave me some comments. I won't be on my usual email till may. I will be able to send some, some leave me a message on the blog and i'll mail you..

xx

Offline....

Hey guys, just to say I have heaps of new pics and stories.. I'm having so much fun.. I keep thinking wow.. you don't get many days this good in your life.. then they keep on coming! However, no time to post any tales right now, I've been living in the bush for weeks and I'm headed back into a Valley we are occupying to stop a coal mine in a few hours.. I promise I will when I'm reunited with my laptop in a couple of weeks. There are more details of the campaign a few posts & pics from me here:

www.savehappyvalley.org.nz/blog

x

Adventures on the south island..

Kia ora te whanau, I'm still not convinced about this blogging lark.. now I've been having lots of adventures I've not really had the time or access to talk about it! ...a big sorry I'm being so rubbish at communicating, I had no credit on my phone for 3 weeks (& no shops!) I'm not getting much on-line access and I've a lot of campaigning/acitvisty work & logistics type stuff on which I have to see too before I can reply to whanau.

But heres a bit of a ramble about the last month.. hopefully some of the pics will speak for them selves, theres two now albums on flickr.. 'bush' and 'tramp' (kiwi term for a several day walking mission) theres links to individually mentioned pics.. or the whole albums.

Bush & Tramp

So it started with a plan.. We drew a map of the top of the south island on the whiteboard with the dates and location of everyone we would like to meet and everywhere we'd like to go and 'there be dragons' and things like that.. of course the adventure didn't quite end up as we planned..

Em, Nomis & I (friends from wellington) started off from wellington on my favorite ferry ride in the world to the south island.. getting in very late so being the brigands of the high seas we are, we bedded down in the brig of a pirate ship for the night. Which was under a big wooden ship-shaped climbing frame in the park in Picton..

THE DEEP
We then hitched to Pelorus Bridge, an amazing (if over touristy) part of a clear cool river with impossibility vast deep pools.



Being the budget mission we were (and hating camp sites) we found a magic spot hidden in the bush under Ponga tree ferns, Beech and larger canopy trees where we wouldn't get spotted by anyone after camp fees.

We met up with an cool American EF! activist/botanist and all spend a few days here swimming, eating, swimming, walking, swimming, sleeping out under the stars, comparing cultures and activist scenes & slang around the world and learning heaps about the plants from Em our native plant expert.



INJURED!!
I bashed my knee swimming, and I didn't think much of it at the time.. ouch maybe, and ohh its bleeding a tiny bit.. and got on the to task in hand for the next two days of swimming, walking, lazing about in the bush, exploring waterfalls and more swimming in the deep, deep clear pools..

Two days on and I'd already been for my pre-breakfast swim and suddenly my knee was like a balloon and weird squeeky feeling when I moved it, so it was quickly into R.I.C.E. action (Rest, Ice, Compression & Elevation) to fix it so we could go tramping. No an easy thing when you are living in the bush and hitching..although I'm sure hitching with a stick, bandages knee and ice-pack gets more rides!

So.. on the road again and as out last civilization stop of a week we got in supplies, had some rather dysfunction multi hitching communications problems, camped up hiding down a river.. But it all ended well and we all eventually got to a place caled Marahau for the new year which is the stunning start of the Able Tasmen national park with many stunning beaches and surrounded 360 by hills. Check out the pics here and the next few pics.



Have leeks, will travel : 'pack'

We finally get ourselves together on new years day we then hitch over the mountains to get to the start of out tramp into the wilderness.. the last ride, who was quite randomly was someone my friends know from wellington, who was looking for somewhere to park her van for the night, so we persuade her to come with us to a little free camping spot a little ways down the valley Em knew where we want to start our tramp from.



As we pull into the lay-by there a strange sign and ballons attached to a post 'disgraceland - phy-trance retirement village'.. “oh there seems to be hippies here..” “is that a teepee?” “is that Sarah?” and ended up at an party in the woods with 2 sound systems and random friends from all over.. luckily there was also a drum & bass sound system! All very surreal and very New Zealand!

So realising the road end was 38ks down the valley, and in the rain no traffic (opps!), we persuade a random friend of a friend at the party called 'hobbit' to drive us 30ks down the valley and up over the hydro station (the track started down in the mist by the reservoir at the end of this valley). So after a last swim in the heat them came winding along and unsealed road through the bush with 6 hippies, 2 crosses and a Jack Russel!

WINTER
We set of up into the mountain in the wind and the rain.. there are no pictures of the next part of our journey as the weather was so wild.. we climbed for a couple of hours then passed Lake Peel, which was more in the air than in the lake, then across the ridge where we all got blown over several times.. the gusts would come and I'd anchor myself with my feet and the walking poles and big pack against the wind and it was still impossible to keep standing. Then the biting hail started....Never been so glad to reach a mountain hut!

The weather stayed largely pants so we didn't walk far, just a couple of hours a day one night sleeping in a very pre-historic rock bivi at 1000m, with a not very warm fire. Very Cool. It looked very much like the one used in the Fellowship of the ring for Wethertop.



After a cold, cold night was woken to what looked like someone taking a photo then the world went BOOM!!! and we were in the middle of a huge thunder cloud. I've never heard thunder roll around for so long and so loud. BOOOOOOOOOOOOM, ROOOOOOOOM, UUUOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM UUUUUUUHHHHHHH UUUUMMMMMMM.

The weather finally cleared and we tried for an accent of MtArthur.. but the weather came in and we were up on the ridge
in driving horizontal snow!

We got sooooo wet.



At the road on the other side of the range we got cell signal and I texted a friend who lives in the area(ish!) to see if we could stay we started walking down the valley and an hour or so into walking down the road to civilisation and she came an picked us up and took us to a land of sunshine, beds, fruit trees and showers! Ahhhhh.

I'm now in Cristchurch a new land of meetings, organising, saunas, banner making , t-shirt printing and surfing.

Yes surfing! before you get to excited with the image of me in a tight wet suit long hair straggly with salt around my shoulders and surfboard under my arm (although the were was probably a few moments like that) . I have to tell you the first time I went out in the wet suit i managed to put it on both inside out and backwards.. as as for actually catching waves.. hmmm well thats another story.

Well theres loads more tales to tell.. thats just a taste of the last month... please keep mailing me your news – even if I'm poo at responding, I appreciate it heaps.

arohanui xx