Last weekend, we entered a time machine, which took us back in time about 18,000 years to a much colder version of the Manawatu – the last glaciation period. And we did this by walking just metres from our house. We were fortunate to have as our time-machine guide professor of physical geography Ian Fuller. This bit of time travel solved a number of mysteries that had drawn on my curiosity for some time. As I have described in previous posts, to access our gully stream, we wa

We have had about 80 mm rain in the last few days, so we ventured down to the gully with deep anticipation as to how this may have reshaped the stream at Kawakawa Island. Though far from an expert, I guessed that the thick carpet of tradescantia each side of the stream would be interfering with the natural pattern of bedload movement and depositation that the stream would do in more natural conditions. The weed was clearly trapping sediment but by holding fast to the ground m

As you may have read in my previous posts Kawakawa Island - our lockdown nature restoration project and Journey to Kawakawa Island, our family has been spending a bit of time down the bottom of our gully, removing the thick carpet of tradescantia and planting kawakawa and other seedlings of species that naturally grow in the gully ecosystem. Yesterday, when I was rescuing a mahoe from the suffocating tentacles of tradescantia, I asked my son to fetch a rock from the stream, t