Today was the first of our weekly Wednesday Field Trips. aka: "well, at least this is better than class". Today we headed out in a flying nun bus to the Hatfield Forest and later, Wicken Fen. These were all part of our British Countryside class which talks about the politics and economics of the environment of the British Countryside. It's nearly as boring as it sounds, but actually is pretty important, so we try.

First of all, let me just say that for all those of you who have taken kids on a school field trip via long bus ride, try to get in with a University class next time. Pretty much every time the bus was turned on, everyone fell asleep and slept until we got to the destination of choice. Very relaxing for the bus driver.



So, this is what a "forest" looks like in england. It is actually set up this way on purpose because most of the forests were created to be hunting grounds for the King. If you'll notice, the trees in these pictures seem to have a big trunk splitting into a bunch of thinner trunks. This is a result of a tree-regrowth method called "coppicing". That isn't that interesting, but it made the trees seem really unearthly to me, a Canadian used to having just standard one-off trees. The whole forest was very cool.



Here is a little glade I found, which is an example of how the trees were put in groves, then the caretaker "coppiced the shit out of them". It gives a cool appearance, and there were even animals there....just cows, but still.



This is Chris "eBay" Tilley, in some gallows we found lying around. Brave fellow, he is. He's a MUN kid, who definitely has a hilairous accent and all that business.



And finally, this is Marcel, another MUN kid. This is a prime example of the lifestyle of those crazy MUN kids with only 4 courses....Having a beer at 11am on a school field trip to a forest. Classy.

Later we went to the Wicken fen, which, when the Newfoundland kids were talking about how they'd describe it to their parents, they said "it's a bog, by!"

More pictures later,
Nat