Sitting
here in an office that overlooks Evans Bay, watching the whitecaps dance across
the waters driven on by a steady wind, it is hard to believe that all this is
real. Granted, the trip was enough of an ordeal to erase any doubt from my mind
that I had just spent the past 30 hours traveling nearly 15,000 km across land
and sea to reach this place, but when you travel by airplane, the journey rarely
eases you gracefully into your destination.
The
flight from Auckland south across the North Island towards Wellington was marked
by one fairly interesting experience. Soon after leaving Auckland, we passed
through a layer of clouds that all but completely masked the ground below. This
seemingly unbroken blanket suddenly developed a large opening, through which
soared the flanks of what I later learned was the very large active volcano
called Mt. Ruapehu.
Just
as I gathered my bags and made my way outside the terminal, Steve O'Shea and
Clyde Roper pulled up. Clyde jumped out of the car (thankfully he waited until
it stopped) and made me feel so incredibly welcome that the tiredness of the
journey just melted away.
A quick e-mail to let everyone back home know that I had made it safely and we were off for a tour of the NIWA facility and for my first face to face (or should I say face to tentacle) meeting with the giant squid.
