Working In Welly

Working In The Lab

After an hour flight, I arrived at Wellington airport on a Monday morning, where I was met by my boss Graham. He drove us out to a small town just north of the city called Lower Hutt, where GNS have an office. For the first few days I was helping out on a few, small specific jobs but eventually I was put to the task that I had come down here for.

There are many ways to date a rock, but when you have very old material and (in simple terms), that rock has the right kind of stuff in it, you can use an accurrate technique called Argon-Argon dating. The method uses isotopes and the equipment that performs such a task is only available in a few places globally. Once a year, Graham flys out to the USA where he meets the 'big boys' of geology......the United States Geological Survey (USGS). They kindly allow him to use their equipment to age the rock's he brings along and which are generally volcanic material from all over New Zealand. Before the rocks get sent across the Pacific however, they need to be prepared. There are a few stages to the preparation and I was down in Wellington to perform the first.

About 10 minutes drive away from the GNS office, is their National Isotope Centre - a place full of laboratories with hi-tech equipment, most of which will remove at least one of your limbs if your not watching them all. I was working with 2 peices of such equipment.

I was situated in what's called 'the rock crushing room' and my job....was to crush rocks. It basically involves using various machinery, that grind, crush and destroy any rock you place into it. The aim however was to then collect the samples of rock within different grain sizes. The key to the whole job was sterilisation. If so much as one grain from one sample snuck into another sample then the ages could be way off what they should be. Ultimately, a part of my job was therefore to clean a lot, generally with chemicals that really hurt if you accidentally spill them on any cuts you may have picked up from sharp volcanic rocks!!!

It was an enjoyable two weeks in the lab. Thankfully, by the time I left I still had all major extremities still attached to my body. There was one close call when I nearly took off my thumb - but overall it was a successful job - well done.

I've never hidden the fact that I like the city of Wellington and on my weekends I had further opportunities to explore it. I made a second trip to the National Museum, Te Papa, which has pretty amazing exhibits of pretty much everything NZ, especially Maori culture. I also did the very touristy activity of taking the famous red Cable Car that chugs up the steep hill from Lambton Quay to Kelburn. At the top you get spectacular views over the city and beyond. There is also a cute little museum on the cable car, it's history and workings, which would be even more interesting if you had an interest in cable cars at all. Continuing on, and you come across the Carter Observatory which also has a small musuem of which you can stroll around. I finally took a walk back down to town via the Botanic Gardens which is a pleasant way to walk back home, even if you do get lost and end up stuck in Lady Norwood's Rose Garden!!!

Wellington really is a great city, you can walk along it's streets and always find something going on. It was street dancing on this occassion. The summer had most certainly arrived too - with sunny days greeting me every morning, even if there were gale force winds pretty much 24/7......thats Wellington for you.

The other really cool thing about this trip is that for the first time in a long time I felt like a backpacker again, on my own. Since arriving in NZ, Iv'e been travelling around with Darren from home and although he's now in Queenstown, Iv'e made so many friends in Auckland that it doesn't really feel like travelling but just living - which isn't a bad thing either. I'm just saying it was nice to sort of not no anybody and just start chatting to random travellers again. Well, I say all this nonsense - but the day I arrived at my Wellington hostel and stepped into my room I was greeted by two guys who I had stayed with at the hostel in Auckland for quite a while. That's how this travelling works!!!

After two great weeks, I had a final beer with the boss, his new wife and some friends before catching my flight back to Auckland. It was Thursday night and the following Monday was a bank holiday. So a three day weekend had sprung up.........What shall I do I thought.....................?