A Rocha Canada Week 1

Greetings to all family and friends.

Goodbye Bartletts!

Anna and I have just experienced our first few days at A Rocha Canada and are loving it. We arrived early in Vancouver after about 24 hours in transit. The plane to LA couldn't take off soon enough as we waited in anticipation for the full flying experience: warm meals, cramped legs and loads and loads of movies. I managed to get through three movies (highlight being District 9) before drifting off for some brief snatches of sleep. Anna fared worse in the sleep department, struggling to get a meager hour's sleep.  Having breakfast at 3am NZ time was a little unusual.


On route I realised that my maths had let me down, meaning that we would spend 7 hours in LA waiting for our next flight. US Immigration killed an hour of that, semi-comaed scrabble killed 30 minutes with the rest spent wandering back and forth until we decided to have a wee nap in the transit lounge. Again, I was the superior sleeper managing to put together a couple of hours over a series of dozes. We were horrified to learn that our 3 hour Alaskan Airlines flight had no in-flight entertainment nor free food! Alas we had to settle for juice and tea and some more sleep.

The final hurdle was Canadian Immigration. We had been warned that at least one volunteer had been turned away at the airport due to questions over whether the volunteering would require a work permit. So we were a little nervous when the immigration official who left us waiting for 5 minutes came back with a second officer, hand cuffs in-hand. Hurrah it 'twas a only a joke and they sent us on our way all stamped up.
Because we were early we had a bit of time playing guess the A Rocha staff. After several close calls,

David Anderson (the new Centre Director) and Marine (a conservation intern from France) turned up with an A Rocha sign. We got to the centre just in time for dinner with Anica (A Rocha staff member) and Roxy (Centre Life Community Organizer) and then bed.





   

 Some mountain on the way to Vancouver

To ease myself in slowly, I began with a conservation science group meeting the very next morning. I couldn't miss a good opportunity to get myself acquainted with science projects going on.

The resident Great Blue Heron
The rest of our week has been a week of gently getting eased into A Rocha life and all that it involves.  We have been getting to know the many people that live on and off-site, and are slowly getting ideas of what our roles here might be here.                                                 

It is fun seeing the different creatures that live here in Canada.  Squirrels, coyotes, crows, woodpeckers, owls, and humming birds can all be seen and/or heard here at the centre.  It's an idyllic site with a barn, hothouse, a couple of houses, lots of chickens and roosters, big vege gardens, and various ponds.  It was a pleasant surprise when we arrived to find that this has been the warmest winter in Vancouver for 50 years or something.  There was snow in December but now the days are fairly warm and it looks like we'll be heading into an early spring before long.