Italy this time – this is Lake Iseo. Taken after a particularly calorific trip to the gelateria. Mmmmmm.
Posts Tagged ‘fieldwork’
A change of scenery
Friday, August 6th, 2010High speed trains FTW!
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
Mountain lodge
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010Moving away from the heat, tonight I’m staying in the countryside at a mountain lodge operated by the National Taiwan University. We had a beautiful (unfortunately camera-free) sunset, followed by some fantastic food:
Earlier in the day however, we were slightly hotter. Niels and I were sampling in a river valley in the full sun, at 34 degrees and near 100% humidity. I’m now drinking my sixth litre of water for today. Sampling from 10.00 until 4.30, we have managed to get 40-odd samples which should give me plenty to do back in Cambridge, and if the results are ok a chapter of my thesis. Sounds scary talking about that sort of thing, but it’s a reality I am having to face up to quite quickly.
Taroko Gorge
Saturday, June 26th, 2010Today I went to Taroko Gorge, which was awesome. The weather was cooler and less humid than Taipei, although hiking was still tiring. We met up with a park ranger who has been conscientiously collecting samples for Niels for years, who took us to a fresh landslide which we spent several hours clambering over and sampling. Then I went for a walk up the gorge, and found this:
At the bottom are hot spring pools, the photo is taken from a rickety suspension bridge over the river.
Mud, mud, glorious mud
Sunday, November 8th, 2009Much to Adam’s confusion, I have indeed spent today driving around collecting mud. It has been successful too, I now have a backpack full of little plastic bags of the stuff 
Typhoon Morakot managed some quite impressive sediment deposition, these two are standing on top of a flood deposit that has already been somewhat flattened off by a bulldozer:
2 metres of flood deposit
Venturing upstream, the damage was even more pronounced, with an entire riverbank buried when the river changed course.
Standing in what is now the river, there used to be fields over this entire area
However the most interesting part of the day was finding a stream that had been completely filled with logs washed down in the floods. Some of these were cedar, so there were lots of people with chainsaws hoping to strike it lucky and find some $1000 driftwood. I just took pictures:
A river of logs
I’m in Taiwan
Friday, November 6th, 200915 hours in the air, several more waiting around for buses and planes but I have made it to Taiwan. The weather is warm and humid, I didn’t need to bring all these jumpers. Turns out swimming shorts and sunglasses would have been a better idea. My hotel is on campus, just a short walk from the lab, and looks out onto the beach. It’s a hard life