Aromatic Adventures

2015 is the year of the ANZAC as two nations remember and commemorate the landings at Gallipoli in April 2015. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corp. ANZAC day is commemorated on the 24 April each year with a national holiday and a day of reflection and remembrance. For both our nations it has embodied our sense of nationhood as this time in history was when NZ especially was beginning to develop its own identify as a nation and not just as a British colony. Most kiwis and Aussies try and make a journey to ANZAC cove in the hauntingly beautiful Gallipoli peninsular in Turkey. I had a very special opportunity this year to travel as part of a small contingent of 88 people to commemorate the work of the ANZAC nurses from August 2015, in harsh and trying conditions caring for the thousands of wounded ANZACS. We got to dress up in authentic recreated costumes as we learnt about how the nurses lived, worked, and in some cases died (10 NZ nurses perished when the Marquette...

The initial results are in comparing 2 samples of kanuka hydrosol distilled from 2 locations in NZ. I will share a brief over here as the full results will be shared in a international aromatherapy journal shortly. Thanks to some crowd funding support via give a little page (now closed) and self funding I was able to get two samples analysed-one obtained from Waiheke island (supplied by Jill at Alembics NZ ) and the other from a kind donor in the Nelson Lakes region. both samples were steam distilled in a copper alembic still with the essential oil not removed. The analyses were completed at the Callaghan Institute-here is a summary of what they found. Aromatically, both samples differed significantly in detectable aroma, with the Waiheke sample being a lot stronger. It cannot be determined whether this is due to the process of distillation or some other factor as more samples would be needed. This is visually apparent in the two graphs below. The key constituents identified...