Away From Home

Trip to Nelson

October 24, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The first weekend of October, we went to Nelson on an overnight trip to visit friends. We were planning to go to a wedding, but because of Level 2 lockdown, only Esther was able to go. We decided to go just to see people, though. We went up there on a Saturday morning, and it was a beautiful day! This has been a very wet year on the Coast, so we thoroughly enjoyed seeing sunshine. We had to stop a few times because of carsick tummies, which made it a longer trip than it would have needed to be, but that gave the boys time to enjoy a creek along the road. Elijah took these pictures on his phone.

A little farther on, I took this picture as we went over the Hope Saddle. The mountains were so gorgeous that day!

We spent that afternoon with a family we got to know in Kaikoura the first few years we were in New Zealand. It was great to reconnect with them! They live at a Christian camp, where he is the cook, so our boys had great fun all afternoon using the obstacle course and other equipment there. Sunday morning we had an open-air meeting with several families on top of a hill on a farm, and then we went into Nelson to meet another old friend from Cheviot. After spending a couple of hours with her, we went to her church, and then drove the 3+ hours home. We were all very tired, but it was great to catch up with so many people.

Jim’s Flat Area

September 5, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, our older boys announced they wanted to take us to see the area in which they have been hunting possums occasionally this winter. We got home from church about halfway through the afternoon, and quickly took off up the road to the east out of town. When we got to the track that leads to Jim’s Flat, we turned off the main road. The boys wanted us to see the hut and the cage that goes across the river at Jim’s Flat. However, when we got about halfway there, Simon, who was driving, suddenly pulled off and stopped. He had found a walking track, which they had been looking for for some time. (It doesn’t work very well to find a poorly-marked track in the dark!) We decided to walk along this track and see if we could find a hut someone had told them about. The track turned out to be easy to follow. It looked like it was probably a bush railway line at one point, likely when the area was logged a hundred years ago or more. It is straight and fairly level, and built up a little from the surrounding terrain in most places. There are a few very muddy places, but we discovered that if we walked right in the middle of them, the ground was firmer than at the edges! The biggest problem we had was that a few years ago, a lot of trees had fallen down across the track. It was likely the cyclone we had in February 2018, right after we moved here. Someone had gone through with a chain saw and cleared enough of the track that we could get through. A couple of those spots the trees were so thick that we pretty much went through a tunnel! We never did find the hut. We think we got close to it, but we were in danger of losing daylight and being stuck out in the bush for the night, so turned around. It was a great walk, though! We all thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s wonderful to have older sons who love to take the family on an adventure.

Did you notice the moss and ferns? They are very typical of the bush around here. We get plenty of water!

Here are a couple of photos Gayle took at Jim’s Hut the first time they went there, in early July. This cage on a cable goes across the Ahaura River. The boys usually take it across the river to go hunting possums. Apparently it’s really exciting when the river is in flood! I’m not anxious for a ride on it myself.

Simon’s House

August 1, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Simon bought a house almost a year ago. I’ve been intending to post pictures of it ever since… finally, here they are! Sorry for the delay, Mom—I know you’ve been curious about what his place looks like. Most of these are pictures James took in the summer. This is the view from the road, up to his garage. His house is on the right; on the other side of the house to the left is the garage where Simon works.

The chimney on the side of the house is gone now. The boys spent a couple of days in June bashing it out. They needed to get rid of it in order to replace a beam under the house there.

To enter the house, you use the back door. This is the mudroom, with the laundry straight ahead. To the right is the kitchen door, and then the door into the toilet and bathroom.

As you can see, the bathroom is pretty rough. The entire house needs to be redone.

This is the kitchen and living area. The stove is very good at heating the house, and the appliances work. The sink tap, however, does not.

There are three smallish bedrooms.

The enclosed porch faces the road, and is accessed through a bedroom.Inside the garage. That is Simon’s Austin on the left. He stored his tractor there until it was needed here this winter for feeding cows. The white thing on the right, closest to the camera, is a Land Cruiser in pieces, I believe. (Another project!)

Another Land Cruiser Simon dreams of restoring. It’s stored in what used to be the chicken house.

Simon has a lot of fruit; these are his blueberries.

The view from the hillside above the house. That’s Simon and Mr. Sweetie mowing lawn, and Little Miss was checking out the raspberry bushes.I went over in June to take a few pictures one rainy Sunday afternoon. This is the house from the road. Simon stores his extra vehicles there!

The backyard, looking up at his orchard.

Enough furniture has been donated to outfit the house a couple of times! I’m not sure what Simon will do with it all when he comes to gutting the house.

Simon was pleased to be able to bring two of his geese over from Canterbury. They mow the lawn for him.

This is the biggest project Simon has undertaken yet. He’s working on replacing the piles under the house right now, as a first step in renovation. He needed to level the house before starting on anything else. I think they have two out of eight “bearers” repiled so far.

Flooding

July 18, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Three weeks ago, while Gayle and I and the five youngest children were in Canterbury for the weekend, there was a lot of rain over here. That Saturday, our three oldest drove down to the river in Simon’s 4WD Pajero to check out the flooding, and Esther took pictures and a video. Little did we know that this weekend would be even worse! I would guess that the flood waters were about twice as high. We never got any pictures this time, though; we stayed inside while it was pouring for several days! Simon had planned to work on the piles under his house on Friday, but as fast as he scooped the water out of the holes it flowed back in! A lot of roads were closed with slips, and the road from here to Greymouth was closed for a day and a half because of flooding. The rain stopped last night, and already today when we went to church the Ahaura River had gone down quite a lot. It’s still as high as I’ve ever seen it!

This is Orwell Creek. This weekend, the water was over a foot deep on the road here!

That’s the Ahaura River ahead, in the gap between the trees. This is normally a parking area.

The nearer bridge is the old one, which by now is completely gone. The other is the new one.

This morning, the water was still up over that spot where the pipes are! This afternoon it had gone down to where the gravel is.Here is a video Esther made of the flooding. The first two clips are from driving along Orwell Creek, both going toward the river and coming back, and then some from crossing the bridge. The road along Orwell Creek is where we walk when we go to the riverbed for picnics.

The Ahaura Bridge—Old and New!

July 11, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

When we moved to Ahuara three years ago, the only way out of the township to the south was by way of an old one-lane bridge. This bridge was also the most outstanding feature of our little village—if we were trying to describe where we lived to people, we would say, “The town with the long one-lane bridge!” Almost anyone who drove through here would remember it. We soon started hearing rumors, though, that we would be getting a new bridge sometime. It took another two years before work was started, but in January or February 2020, we saw the beginnings of a bridge just downstream from the old one. Lockdown slowed the work a bit, but by the end of this summer, it started looking possible that the new one would open soon! We first heard that it would open in April…then May. Weather delayed it some, and a rafting accident which took the life of a local man delayed it more. Finally, the date was set: the grand opening would be on the 12th of June! (Most of us drove over it a week and a half before that; because some paving had to be done on the approach on this side, traffic was diverted from the old bridge over the new one for a day, although we only used one lane.) A few of our boys decided they didn’t care about the opening, and went to town to get supplies for Simon’s house, but most of our family went. After the speeches in the township hall, the crowd of about 200 people walked down to the new bridge. The local school children sang a few songs in Maori,

the Mayor (in the green coat) cut the ribbon with the biggest pair of scissors I’ve ever seen, and the first three vehicles ceremoniously drove across. (Two of the vehicles were school buses, with the children on board.)

Then, the bridge was opened for walkers. We enjoyed walking across and back on the roadway! There is a pedestrian lane on one side; we decided to walk on the other, since we’ll never be able to again!

Looking downstream at the rail bridge.

Looking upstream at the old bridge. See the horse going across, about in the center? The woman who rides him said she often rode him across, but she won’t be going over the new bridge, with its two-way traffic. She took advantage of the last hour that the bridge was open. After we went home, the old bridge was closed and the new one opened. The last vehicle to cross the old bridge was driven by descendants of the woman who was the first to cross it when it was opened in 1929 (they won the bidding for the privilege!). We thoroughly enjoyed the chance to cross the new bridge on the day it opened, and we enjoyed the sunshine, too! Within an hour after we went home, the rain closed in again.

A few days before the new bridge opened, our children and some visitors ran across the old bridge. Esther had always wanted to cross it on foot, and this was the last chance. See the condition it was in? It needed either replacement or a lot of renovations. It’s a little sad to see a landmark disappear, though.

Timaru 2021!

June 13, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We were very happy to be able to go to Easter Conference in Timaru this year, after it had to be canceled last year due to the Covid lockdown. This first set of pictures shows what the young people did on Saturday morning. Gayle went along, and they all walked to a lighthouse. I stayed behind to help prepare lunch and tidy the house for the evening’s gathering.

Of course, skipping stones was part of the fun. Having waves rolling in from two directions made it harder than in a river, though!

They found an outboard motor washed up on the beach. Our boys carried it back to the vehicle, strapped it on the roof racks, and brought it home!

Sunday evening we had a sing to wrap up the weekend. One of the men there took these pictures of Miss Joy joining in the singing and sent this to me. She had turned the wooden box in which the songbooks are stored upside down, and used it as a seat. Little Miss is in front of her, on the left of the picture; to the right is a little girl her age; the two girls spent a lot of time playing together over the weekend.We thoroughly enjoyed our weekend in Timaru—two years is a long time between conferences! Thank you, friends from Timaru, for putting the conference on again.

4WD Excursion Up the Snowy River

May 30, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Gayle, Esther, and all our boys went with a number of other people from our church on a drive along a rough track up the Snowy River. The road along this river comes out on the main road about 20 minutes’ drive north of us. They went up that road to the end, where they had morning tea at a farm, and then took the track a couple of kilometers into the bush to a former gold-mining area—the Alexander’s mine and gold stamping mill. Here is some of the scenery on the way to the farm.

Mr. Sweetie gesticulating about something at the farm. (Notice his new glasses, Grandma?)

The center vehicle is Simon’s Pajero. The one in front is his boss’s Land Cruiser, affectionately known as the Troopie (because it’s a troop carrier). My family has been talking about the electric system for this farm ever since they got home. They generate their own power with a water turbine. The power is taken to the buildings with a single Number 8 wire, and most of the year they have to leave the lights on all the time so they don’t burn out the system, because they have too much power!

The first river crossing!

The Troopie has made it across; will the Pajero and the other Land Cruiser make it?

Simon hooking up a snatch strap so the Troopie can help him get up the muddy bank. He says the water was icy.

Checking out the ruts the Pajero made. The bank was apparently about three feet high before the Troopie went up it, and then the Pajero smashed it down some, too.

Eating lunch.

A tree was across the track—it’s a good thing someone had a chain saw along!

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The old stamping mill at the end of the track. They used to use some sort of cyanide treatment to extract the gold. Here is a video I took several years ago of a stamping mill that can still be used; it will give you a bit of an idea how they worked.

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Back out at the road!

The vehicles emerged not much the worse for wear. The Troopie had no damage. The other Cruiser had some, and Simon lost a bit of trim from the sill under his door. They were pretty muddy when they got home, but that was the worst. Simon is hoping to do this kind of thing a bit more often, now that he has a vehicle for it.

Here is a video we put together from clips that Esther took of the river crossings:

A Day at the River

May 23, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Some friends from Dunedin came for a visit on a weekend in March. We took them down to the riverbed for a picnic. It was a perfect late-summer day, and the children enjoyed playing in the water, as usual.

It was a wonderful day!

Antarctic Centre

May 9, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

In early March, we had the chance to go to the Antarctic Centre in Christchurch with the homeschool group we used to be part of. One of the moms from the group organized special rates for us. Gayle and I took the youngest five children and had a fun tour.

We started with a Hagglund ride. Miss Joy is too young to go on this ride, so Gayle took care of her while I went with the other children. About ten years ago when we went the other time, I stayed back from the Hagglund with the current baby, so this time I enjoyed getting to experience it.

Here are two of the other Hagglunds. They are used for exploration in Antarctica, and can go over incredibly rough terrain. They are watertight and very strong!

This was one of the obstacles we went over on the 15-minute ride. It was a very steep hill.

This is the other Hagglund that took part of our group.

We drove over these logs. They are intended to represent broken-up sea ice.

This was another very steep hill, with large boulders in the water at the bottom.

The other Hagglund going through the water.

Just before we went into the 4D theater, Gayle had the children pose here.

This was the highlight of the day for some of the children—the cold room! It is kept below freezing, and then they started a storm. The wind whipped up, and the temperature stopped dropping. It got down to about 0°F for a few minutes.

Tramp to Elizabeth Hut

April 25, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

About the middle of February, Gayle and all five of the boys went on a tramp to Elizabeth Hut, in the mountains to the south of us, with several other men and children from our church. I stayed home with the girls, and with the help of a neighbor, did the milking. Mr. Diligence took his camera along and took these photos. Here they are getting ready to head out. Simon is in the center, and Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination to the right in the photo.

They tramped up a river valley.

These little fish were found trapped in some puddles that were drying up.

This is a hot spring partway up to the hut. At some point in the past, someone made a concrete pool, but it’s in bad shape now.

Inside the hut! There are only six bunks, so the men got those and most of the young boys spread their sleeping bags on the floor.

They headed back the next morning. Soon after setting out on the 4-5 hour tramp, Simon twisted his ankle, and just kept going. He could hardly hobble by the time they got out, and didn’t walk on his foot again for a few days.

They all thoroughly enjoyed this tramp, and want to do it again!

Away From Home

Thank you!