After spending Easter day with my new Canadian friend, Laura, at the Motueka Easter market, we went our separate ways, Laura staying in Takaka and me heading to Nelson where I was to attend my first New Zealand Entomological Society Conference!
The first day of the conference I emerged bright and early from my hostel bed, and nervously walked to Nelson Poly Tech where I was greeted by a room full of chatting entomologists, all seaming to be in their mid 50’s and up, and many sporting white hair and fluffy grey beards to match. Luckily one of those grey beards belonged to my good friend Peter Johns who I had just departed ways with a week earlier after our 5 day, 7 destination beetle and flat worm collecting spree. After a quick, confidence-boosting chat with Peter I pushed my way to the registration desk where I was handed my official nametag and Ento Conference pack. Waiting near the desk I bumped into another familiar face, Dr. Robert Hoare, Lepidopterist from Auckland’s Landcare Research. Since my supervisor, Grace, from Landcare, couldn’t make it to the conference, she had assigned her good friend and colleague, Robert, to keep an eye on me and introduce me around. Though I hadn’t spent much time with him before, I had been so thoroughly entertained by his presentation at the Auckland Entomologist Society Meeting last August, that I was happy to be tagging along with someone so interesting. Also amidst the buzzing crowd emerged Bryan Patrick, who I had worked with for a few weeks at the Otago Museum in Dunedin. After meeting a few people and being reintroduced to a few more over morning tea, the lot of us filed in to a lecture hall where we were subjected to PowerPoint presentation after PowerPoint presentation on very similar views on insect related biosecurity. After going to lunch with Robert and Dave (also Landcare Research), and listening to an afternoon full of more, nearly identical PowerPoint presentations, the conference day came to an end over wine and cheese. Here the entomologists caught up with one another, and I explained my presence over and over again, something that got easier and easier to do as the glasses of wine emptied themselves. Having quickly made friends with a handful of the student entomologists, a dinner group was formed and more food and drinks consumed, followed by a more exclusive pub group to follow.
The Following morning I slept in a bit, deciding that getting rid of my hangover was far more important than seeing more PowerPoint presentations about how insects sneak into New Zealand. The second part of the morning lectures (which I arrived in time for) was titled “Medical Entomology”, which really meant “ PowerPoint presentations about mosquitoes.” Not feeling extremely rejuvenated by the mosquito presentations, I decided to skip the afternoon in order to save my energy up. Just before arriving in Nelson I had gotten a phone call from Emily McNair, another Watson Fellow who, at the moment, was also traveling in New Zealand. Emily was coming to Nelson and we planned to go out to eat that evening. After our meal, and a bit of chatting over wine, Emily went back to the hostel, and I went to meet the entomology students at the pub.
Thursday Morning at the conference, everyone was surprised to see Grace Hall had managed to sneak away from work and fly down just in time for the last day of the conference, and of course, the conference dinner! After a full day of presentations, including Robert’s, which was incredibly entertaining as usual, everyone returned to their hotels to pretty themselves up for the dinner later that evening.
I arrived at the restaurant where I met Grace and Robert outside so that I wouldn’t be stuck sitting next to people I didn’t know. Having built my alcohol tolerance up over that last few evenings, I was prepared for a long night, and a long night I got. After eating sushi, gossiping and finishing off a few bottles of wine with my entomologist friends, Bryan Patrick gathered some of the under 60’s who still had some energy in them and we stumbled up some stairs to a bar the next floor up. Eventually that bar closed, and the pack of us took to the streets. Robert and I ended up spotting a trendy looking bar with water flowing down over the windows, and ducked in for a few more drinks. At three in the morning we declared the night over and I was happy to get back to my hostel where I tucked myself into bed for a few hours.
Early the next morning I jumped out of bed and into the shower to try to revive myself for the Conference Field Trip. Possibly still a bit under the influence I pulled myself together (though went off to the showers with no towel) and tried to eat some breakfast. At the bus some of the others were looking just about as out of it as me. I sat with Robert in the front of the bus, where the bumpiness was less of an issue. Others skipped the bus all together for this reason and packed into cars instead. After safely arriving in St. Arnaud, the entomologists split up and went looking for their insects of choice. I of course tagged along with Robert, who was looking for leaf mining moths, and Steve Pawson. We spent the day inspecting leaves a centimeter long for larval damage. In my frail state, the slightest thing would have made me laugh, and of course tagging along with Robert Hoare, I think I may have laughed more that day than in the whole time I’d been away from home.
After the field trip, everyone said goodbye and went their separate ways. Robert, Lisa Berndt and myself however, regrouped in the evening for Thai food and a few drinks at the magical bar with water flowing over its windows.
My week in Nelson has had to have been one of the most rewarding experiences of my trip thus far!
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