a hiking we will go....

Hey everyone,

Yesterday was a pretty crazy day. Instead of doing our traditional marine bio projects, all the students got to tag along with one of our resident terrestrial biologists (terrestrial biologists living at a marine biology lab!?) who was studying obligate mutual relationships between a certain species of plant with a moth. However, instead of helping him (like we were supposed to) we decided to be touristy and just hike.

Our site was the famous Mt. Tetiaroa from which the atoll Tetiaroa could be seen. Mt. Tetiaroa, along with a few other mountains were all part of a volcanic crater that helped form Moorea, but with years of erosion and such, parts of it collapsed, creating a series of mountains and valleys.

Some really cool stuff during the hike were these lizards called skinks which had bright red heads and blue tails. We also saw a couple of wild chickens but apart from that not many other animals were seen. Of the plants, we saw the invasive weed called Miconium, which happens to also plague other tropical islands such as Hawaii and is noted for loosening topsoil and created large area landslides shortly after it rains. We also saw some huge Tahitian chestnut trees, and some plant that resembles a strangler fig (a pretty cool plant).

The hike was a rather strenuous and long. We started heading off around 7:10 am and we didn’t end until 1:30 pm. The path although, well planned out (other hike trails in Moorea are not as defined), was steep and was not without it’s perils including steep ledges, mangled vines (which can trip you if you’re not careful), low hanging tree branches, and smooth slippery rocks. We thought the way up was tough, but we were far from correct. We took an alternate route down the mountain, which faced the southern slope. This is important because here, in the S. Hemisphere, the sun is always part of the northern sky, this means that the southern slope has less exposure and is therefore, wet and slippery. You combine wet and slippery with steep and you know you’re in for a lot of trouble :P.

We had a jolly time, slipping, shrieking, and getting a few injuries (I got a rug burn from hugging a tree) as well as a few others.

One more thing to mention about the hike is the amazing view you get when you reach the ridge of the volcano. Looking on either side will reveal an ocean. I would have taken a panorama of this for you, but unfortunately my batteries died.

To make the situation sadder, I think I broke my charger. I tried recharging the batteries in it, but the charging light doesn’t come on. Does anybody have any ideas on how to fix this?