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Anniversary Getaway Day Two

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After our day at Fox Glacier, celebrating our 29th wedding anniversary, we started for home in the morning. Because we had all day, we decided to do some walking at Franz Josef first. Our first stop was at Peter’s Pool, which reflects the peaks beautifully.

While we were admiring it, a pair of Paradise Ducks landed.

Once again, this was the closest we could get to the glacier. It’s frustrating to know that 12 years ago we were allowed to walk right to it, but now this is the end of the permitted track. No wonder there weren’t a lot of people there!

Notice this rock? We liked the way it split up between layers!

After leaving Franz Josef, we went to Okarita Lagoon, the nesting site for white herons. We didn’t see any, but the lagoon and beach were beautiful.

Notice the black sand? It was full of sparkles in the sunlight, although I couldn’t capture that with my camera. I brought home a big handful of the blackest sand for Mr. Imagination to try panning, since it probably has gold in it.

In Hari Hari we stopped to see a mosaic garden.

Many different people contributed to this garden. Some pieces are memorials to loved ones. There are a lot of bits of broken dishes. It’s fun to wander around and spot all sorts of little things in here.

Just out of Hari Hari, we stopped for lunch beside the Wanganui River, and this weka came to check us out.

After lunch we walked up the river to locate some hot springs a neighbor told us about. They aren’t signposted, but a local had laid out some clues and marked a path with small piles of stones, so we were able to find them.

I saw a lot of bubbles coming up in this area.

Our last stop was in Hokitika, where we watched this tui checking out the blossoms.

Fox Glacier Anniversary Getaway

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Gayle and I have been married for 29 years, and this year we decided to get away by ourselves for two nights. We chose to go to Fox Glacier, about a three hour drive south of here, because we haven’t spent much time there. I was able to find a motel room for a very economical price (looking now, I think we must have squeaked in at the end of the “off” season, because prices next month are a lot more!), and it was a really nice room. We enjoyed a lot of walking, soaking in the spectacular mountain scenery and glimpses of the glacier, even though we couldn’t get close to it. Best of all, we had two days together without distractions, which is rare. We were both quite ready to get home by last evening, though. No matter how nice it is to get away, it’s even better to get home–and I overslept this morning! This first picture shows the view from our motel room, and the second is a pair of Paradise Ducks we saw on the lawn.

Peak View is about a 10-minute drive from our motel. It’s simply a place in open farmland from which there is an amazing view of the mountains.

This is Fox Glacier, viewed from Peak View.

Next, we went to Lake Matheson and walked around it.

The large mountain on the left is Mount Tasman; the slightly taller one to the right is Mount Cook.

When Gayle stopped to admire these ferns, he was thinking of you, Mom.

Our next destination was the walk up the Fox River valley to view the glacier. Notice the white glacial water in the river?

We took a side track that looped back to the main track, which went over a moraine. It has been ice-free for over 400 years, so there is old-growth forest on a lot of it. The moss all over everything made it feel enchanted!

This was a stump or rock completely covered with these tiny ferns. They were about two inches in diameter. So vibrant!

This was the closest we were allowed to get to the glacier. In 2014 when we were there, there was a track on the other side of the river which let us walk all the way to the base of the glacier.

After a rest back at our room, we drove the half hour to Gillespie’s Beach, a historic gold-mining area. We had a spectacular view of the mountains from there, too!

On the beach, we found this hollow log, and Gayle couldn’t resist crawling inside!

After dinner, we took our dessert back to Peak View to watch the sunset reflected off the mountains. It wasn’t as spectacular as it had been the night before as we drove down there (light clouds had diffused the light, making everything glow), but was still beautiful.

More next week….

More of Elijah’s Pictures

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Elijah spent a week in Franz Josef for work recently, and this picture was on his phone from that time. He sees some amazing scenery on the job!

This was another day, and close to home. Elijah helped get a round bale for the cattle, and took this picture looking east toward the mountains. When it’s not raining here, it is gorgeous!

For this week’s LandSAR training, he had to start a fire without matches, out in the bush. It was raining, which added to the challenge. He used a plastic tarp he carries in his pack to shield the fire, and ended up with the best fire of anyone in his group.

He also went to a larger course with LandSAR this week, to learn better how to use stretchers and ropes. It was held at Fox Glacier (the town), and the pictures he came home with are amazing! Mount Cook is in the second and third pictures, mostly obscured behind clouds in the center. Fox Glacier (the ice) is in the valley in the center of the first picture.

July 2026 Photos

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Princess loves this basket! No matter how lumpy the things stored in it, she’ll curl up and sleep here for hours.

Two of our church families own a dairy farm, and they invited us for a bonfire the evening of Matariki (Maori New Years). It was a cold, frosty night, but it was a great time to sit around a fire and roast sausages and marshmallows, and just be together. On the way there, I was admiring the silhouette of the mountains, and tried to get a picture of them in the sunset light.

I had to take Mr. Imagination to Christchurch one day to see an eye specialist because he injured one eye (it’s fine now), and on the way home we enjoyed seeing the sunset light reflected on the mountains. It was much more beautiful than this picture can show.

One of the many creations we get to enjoy.

This rainbow was visible on the way home from church one afternoon. We see many rainbows here!

The table broke one day, and Elijah fixed it. So wonderful to have handymen around!

We went to Greymouth for another eye appointment, and had an extra half hour or more, so the children and I explored the quay. We’ve never taken time for that, and really enjoyed it!

I went shopping in my favorite supermarket one day, and collected all these ingredients for a couple of meals.

One of the girls made this for her breakfast one morning.

Miss Joy got hold of my phone one evening and took pictures of everyone.

The little girls and I met some of my friends at a cafe in Reefton for lunch one day. When I spotted this collage on the wall, I took a picture for Elijah, who collects stamps.

The girls like dolling each other up and then taking pictures!

This bird loves screens. The children practice their typing by racing cars on the computer, and Reepicheep chases the cars across the screen. Rather distracting!

Big River? Not Today!

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A couple of weeks ago, the boys took some friends who were visiting on a four wheel drive trip up the Big River track. They decided to do an easy track this time so they wouldn’t break anything. They got a short distance up the track, and found a washout. That took some time, while they jacked up the back corner of each truck and put rocks under. They kept going; about halfway to the end, they came to a tree across the track. They had failed to take chain saws along, but had an axe and a hatchet, so they attacked the tree with that. Once they had gotten through the tree (best guess is that it was a red birch; it was extremely hard wood), they pulled it off the track with a strap. In doing that, one of the trucks nearly went over the cliff–see the last several seconds of the second video. I’m glad I wasn’t there. They pulled the truck back up, and turned around to go home. They got here just before dark!

Photos by Elijah

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Elijah’s phone takes very good pictures! I enjoy seeing what he has come up with.

He found this little frog in the garden one evening and brought it in to show us.

He spent a week in June working in Fox Glacier. The scenery there is stunning!

One morning before they started work, his boss took him out to Lake Matheson to enjoy the beauty and take pictures. His boss is an accomplished photographer, and gave Elijah some good tips for composition.

Moonlight Track

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The first week of May, we spent a Sunday afternoon with friends, exploring the Moonlight Track in the Paparoa Range. This track is almost directly across the Grey River from our house, but a 30-minute drive because of the location of the bridges. It was a gorgeous, quiet spot to spend a few hours. I quickly found myself alone at the end of the line. I had forgotten to bring my walking shoes, so had to make do with my dress shoes. I enjoyed taking my time and soaking in the quiet of the forest after everyone else ran on ahead.

The views along the Moonlight River were amazing!

After awhile, I caught up with Gayle, Esther and Miss Joy who were sitting on rocks along the river and enjoying the water and the scenery.

We think of Grandma every time we see fungi!

I’m not sure what this was, but it was intriguing.

A couple of us took photos of a friendly bush robin. It actually got as close as about three inches from my feet, but moved so fast that I didn’t get a picture of it there.

I took a few side tracks that looked interesting. One of them came out on this clearing, with a sign that says, ” Moonlight Township 1860.” There was a bustling town here at that time, full of gold miners.

This enormous hole in the ground is at the far side of the town site.

The main track next goes between these piles of rocks. It looks as though the rocks which were dug out in the process of searching for gold were stacked very carefully in various places.

Up a hill on another side track, overlooking the river, I found this roofing iron–all that’s left of a house?

Beside it, Joe and I found this fireplace.

This bit of stone wall was just off to the side.

This pile of stones goes out over the river.

There were a number of caves, where gold was dug out long ago.

Another picture for Grandma–Elijah thinks this may have been slime mold.

I didn’t go as far as the swing bridge. Apparently, it wasn’t too scary!

Recovery

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After he broke his hip, Joe (formerly called Mr. Sweetie) spent six weeks in a wheelchair. That was a challenge, in a house the size of ours with this many people living in it! We managed, though.

First, here are a couple of pictures Esther took while they were in the hospital

As soon as he was allowed to sit up in a wheelchair, Esther took him outside to a park across the street for some fresh air. This furniture is concrete with mosaic decorations!

I purchased an engineering course for Joe to do, since when he got hurt he had only a week’s worth of school left. That kept him busy for the entire time he was in a wheelchair, and he thoroughly enjoyed it! Here are a few of the projects he did. The first assignment was to hold a stack of books an inch off the floor, using only one sheet of printer paper and a foot of masking tape. He accomplished it!

This assignment was to create a free-standing tower with a given amount of paper and tape.

When we went back for his six-week check, to receive permission to start walking again, they took an x-ray to check his healing. Quite an impressive screw! About half of it is inside the bone.

February 2026 Photos

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February was a very eventful month! My last eight posts of family adventures have been of things we did away from home with Mom and my brother. Here are the rest of the pictures I have from the month, showing a few things that happened at home and the big trauma that Joe endured.

There was time for the children to play a few games with their uncle, and for him to enjoy the budgies.

On the way to church one Sunday morning, we had to stop for some cattle that were being moved down the road. What fun–we don’t see that very often anymore.

Mom did a few more puzzles, with occasional help from the rest of us. She started another puzzle the day before she left, but I don’t think it’s been touched since then!

I spent a lot of time harvesting. That was when the garden was still beautiful, before the late-summer diseases hit. I loved all the colors here in the pea/bean trellis!

Goofball came along to get some attention one day when I went to pick a few beans for dinner. She sat in the tub for a few minutes, then got out and walked away.

We hatched some more chicks. That never gets old!

One of the girls caught Grizzly in a box.

The day we went to Jim’s Hut, while he was walking along the road, Joe thought he pulled a muscle. For several days, he limped. I asked him about it several times, and he just said it hurt a little, but not bad. Then, on Monday morning, his brother startled him and he jumped. Suddenly he screamed in pain and couldn’t walk anymore. I came into the house just in time to see Elijah carrying him to the couch. An hour or so later, I took him to the hospital. The x-ray showed that the growth plate on his left femur had slipped apart, as you can see here. He was flown to Chrischurch in the helicopter within a couple of hours, and the next day he had surgery. They realigned the bone and put in a screw to hold it in place. He was in hospital for three days. Esther drove over there to care for him and bring him home when he was released.

We were all very thankful to have Joe back at home on Thursday evening! He spent the next 6 1/2 weeks in a wheelchair.

Right after Mom left, I found another slime mold in the greenhouse. That must be a perfect environment for them!

One evening, Gayle took pictures of what was happening outside. Two boys were practicing archery.

I was reading to the girls.

Kiwi Chick, Blackball, Brunner Mine

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We packed a lot into the last Saturday of my brother’s visit. All the males from our house went four wheel driving that day. I haven’t gotten any pictures from that trip, so I can’t share anything, but we ladies had a fun day. That morning a friend texted me that there was an open day at the Kiwi Creche across the river from us at Atarau. The people in charge of kiwis on the Coast collect eggs from wild birds, take them to Christchurch to be incubated, and then bring them back here when the chicks are a month or two old. They have a large area carefully fenced so that predators cannot get in, and they keep the young kiwis safely there so that they can learn to care for themselves and grow enough that stoats and weasels can’t harm them. One was to be released into that area that day, so we rearranged our plans quickly and went.

Before we got to see the baby kiwi, we listened to a talk about what the group does, and got to hold a real kiwi egg that had failed to hatch.

We watched the woman in charge weighing and measuring the baby, and then she carried it around the circle so that everyone could have a close-up look at it. After that, she tucked it into a hollow stump and covered the opening with ferns; kiwis are nocturnal.

We enjoyed seeing these water lilies. The kiwi creche is accessed through the grounds of a lodge, and it is gorgeous!

After leaving the Kiwi Creche, we had a picnic at a roadside table, and then drove to Blackball to have a look around. I had never been there before, so it was interesting to see a new area. On the far side of Blackball, we stumbled across the Blackball Mine, where coal was mined for a number of years before and after 1900. There were a lot of ruins there, and what looked like a great track to hike. We didn’t have time for that, though; Esther had started bread and needed to get home to get it out of the fridge and baked.

On Tuesday, I took the three youngest children, Mom and my brother to Greymouth. It was their last day, and with Esther and Joe in the Christchurch hospital, I wanted a distraction for everyone. We did a little fun shopping (fun for the ladies; the men went along with us). Then, we had lunch at the breakwall and watched a fishing boat go out.

Then, we went to the Brunner Mine at Stillwater and enjoyed the river and the ruins there. The paths and signs have been greatly improved since I was last there in 2018. We all enjoyed this one last fun thing before Mom and my brother left.