118 Tuesday Sep 28

Tuesday Sep 28 Day 118

Weather report: Sunny with low clouds in the afternoon. Perfect weather

I went down and started taping the trails in and around Woodstock School. I went down to Hanson Field and taped my way back up. I spent 3 hours taping the trails between Hanson Field, Midlands (high school girls) Ridgeway (elementary boys), Alter Ridge (elementary girls) and the Hostel (high school boys). I did this between 8:30 and 11:30 am. I shall go back tomorrow morning and tape from the residential halls to the school and several other trails in the area. I ended up having to cheat to get back up to the top of the hill using a taxi. Old age is not what one should hope for.

Last evening was the first of the Winterline Sunsets. This is very early as they usually occur during the middle of October and on into November. Unfortunately, I did not have my tripod to get steady video so there is no recording of the sunset. I did find the correct location to tape the sunsets from. The only problem is the location is where the large grey and black monkeys hang out in the evenings. I shall have to get friendly with them.

Today one of the most exciting things occurred. I have a grand total of 2 friends here on the hillside from the native population. A couple of days ago I saw one of the, Pol, driving an Omni van. Today I met Pol on the road and he owns that particular van. It is exactly the type of vehicle I need to tape the paved roads. He will drive me around if I will give him lessons on how to use video equipment. He has a good eye for photographs and wants to expand into video. I will pay for the petrol and he will take me where I want to go. I was thinking of using a taxi to do this, but this young man speaks english and I can get the control over the speed of the vehicle. If I used a tqaxi driver he would not have understood why I wanted to go slowly to improve the qualilty of the taping. I am very excited.

I am making a great push to tape all the trails before the ferns die completely. In 5 days they have gone from verdant green to a bright yellow. Next they will start to drop off the trees and be gone. This is why I am working as quickly and doing so for long hours each day. The rest of the vegetation is still very green and lush.