Away From Home

September 2020 Photos

October 11, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

September was a fairly busy month. At least, we took a lot of pictures!

Mr. Imagination found this hedgehog walking around in broad daylight one day. He wanted it for a pet, so tried to fix it a house and feed it. Unfortunately, it died the next day. They are normally nocturnal, so I’m guessing something was wrong with it.

Our heifer had a heifer calf of her own the second of September. This cute little calf has a mind of her own! She’s a challenge to handle. There will be a post coming soon with lots of photos of cute baby animals…don’t miss it! We’re waiting for one more calf to arrive and then I’ll publish that post.

These plover eggs hatched a few days after the calf was born. We never got a photo of the chicks, though. They are good at hiding! After the first day, we couldn’t even see them, and then the parents moved them out of our paddock to a park where they would be safer.

One evening the river was roaring very loudly. The children piled into Esther’s car and went down to take a look at the flooding. We normally walk through this space to get to “our” picnic spot.

This is the area we have our picnics!

We went to Canterbury for a weekend. The mountains were spectacular!

Miss Joy loves to sit in things!

We saw this tui on the neighbor’s tree one day. The photo doesn’t do it justice; in the sun, its feathers were glowing iridescently. So beautiful!

We bought a high chair for Miss Joy at an op shop. She loves feeling like a big person! She has to have a pillow behind her so she can sit right up to the tray. (We now have it in a plastic bag!)

What is Princess doing?

We had a cookout down by the river for Mr. Sweetie’s birthday. Some friends were with us, and it was a lovely afternoon, even though it was cloudy and threatening to rain.

Simon roasted an apple over the fire after having his fill of sausages!

This giant spider was found in the garden when Esther was replanting rhubarb. It was at least 1 1/2 inches long!

Punakaiki Caverns

September 30, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

When we took our visitors to Pancake Rocks a week ago, we also went to Punakaiki Caverns. This is a cave just down the hill from Pancake Rocks. Gayle and all the children have been there many times, but I had never been inside. It was delightful to be able to go into a cave without a guide and just look around!

Esther is headed into the entrance to the cave, at the base of this cliff.

Going in!

There are several levels to the cave. The boys went up to the upper levels. I did not.

This is another opening, but to use it as an exit requires climbing up this cliff, then clambering down one equally steep, on the outside!

I went around this corner, to a lower level. There were a few stalactites here and there, but mostly just damp sandstone.

Here are some of the best stalactites.

Miss Joy thought it was pretty fun to touch the walls and ceiling!

Three of our boys headed much deeper into the cave than anyone else. I got pictures from Mr. Diligence’s memory card.

See Simon’s coat? By the time the three boys emerged, he was completely covered, from head to toe, with that cave-smelling sand. I should have gotten a photo of them when they came out, but I didn’t think of it till after they had scrubbed off in the sea.

While we were at Punakaiki, we stopped at a gift shop, and this giant croc was there. Miss Joy fit into it!

Pancake Rocks

September 21, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

We had visitors over the weekend, and since we noticed last week that there was to be a king tide this weekend, we thought it would be a good time to go to Pancake Rocks again! The extra-high tide, we figured, should make for a decent show at the blowholes. We were not disappointed! It wasn’t as good as a couple of other times we’ve been there, but lots better than several times. I apologize in advance if this is too many photos for you. It was a beautiful day… and three of us were taking pictures… and I only saved the best from each of the three memory cards… but there ended up being so many beautiful photos I couldn’t decide which ones to leave out!

The waves were fairly high. I love watching them roll in past the rocks!

The first blowhole we reach is the Chimney Pot. It is spectacular—just like I would imagine a geyser looks! This time, there was a rainbow formed in the mist, when you stood at the right place.

Esther carried Miss Joy for a good part of the way.

This is the largest blowhole. We stood here for a long time, watching the water spurting up into a fantastic fountain!

I love watching the water in the Surge Pool, too! It’s so wild.

The waves hitting these rocks are spectacular, too!

See the seagulls nesting on top of the rocks?

Notice the people on the bridge in the background, just in front of the Chimney Pot blowhole? That might help you get a feel for the scale of this place.

By the time we reached this viewing platform, Miss Joy wanted to get down and walk around by herself.

Simon took her, but she wanted to pick things up.

A bunch of the boys broke off flax stalks and had a mock sword fight with them.

They gave one stick to Miss Joy.

She was delighted with, and ran around brandishing it, until…

…she suddenly spotted some flowers! She recognized them; I often pick a few in our yard and give them to her. The stick was instantly discarded, and she got down to pick them.

Simon picked her up again, and held the stick behind her back. She reached around and got it, then started whacking him on the head with it.

This was a wonderful day to be outside! It’s the rainy time of year here, and in the week before this day, we had had 1 1/2 sunny days. It was great to be outside, enjoying such a beautiful part of God’s creation.

Here is a five minute video I put together from a lot of shorter clips, to give you a little bit of our experience. One clip, which starts at about 3:22, doesn’t have much action, but I loved the happy baby noises that can be heard.

The End of the Road

July 5, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

During lockdown, most of us stayed home the entire time. Because their jobs are deemed essential, Gayle and Simon were able to go back to work after just three weeks, and Esther went to town to do the grocery shopping a couple of times. However, some of us never even got into a vehicle for six entire weeks. By the end of that time, we were quite ready to see something else, so one Sunday afternoon when it was too rainy to go down to the river bed, we decided to take a drive. A road goes out of our town to the southeast, and ever since we moved here we’ve been wanting to drive to the end. We decided that was the perfect time to do so! The road goes through farmland for a short ways, then through dense bush with only logging roads going off to the left side; the Ahaura River parallels the road to the right. After the dense bush section, the road comes out into farming country again, and then dead ends at the river, about 45 minutes’ drive from here. The scenery was amazing! There were several waterfalls in one area. We stopped to take photos of this one, and then stopped a little farther on where a farmer was moving cattle across the road.

At the end of the road, we drove up onto a stopbank and along it to the end where the river goes up against the mountains.

After we turned around, we drove along the stopbank the other direction from the road, until it came to an end in a paddock. Miss Joy woke up then, while we were bumping along over big rocks, and looked at me with the most puzzled look on her face, as if she was asking me what in the world was happening.Here are a couple of views of the river as we drove back.

We saw a flock of Arapawa sheep in a paddock on the way up the road; as we went back, a few of them were on the road. They raced along in front of the van for a good ways until they finally tired and turned off.

We also saw another herd of cattle being moved across the road!

It was really good to get away from home for a short time, and quite fun to see some new places.

Five Thousand Sheep! (includes video)

June 21, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A week ago, we went to visit some friends in North Canterbury. It was a beautiful day for traveling, with clear skies all the way over the mountains. This was about half an hour from home. The mist rising from the river, in front of the mountain, was stunningly beautiful!

The tops of the mountains, around the pass, were covered with snow.

We reached the other side of the divide, and as we left the highway and traveled up to our friends’ farm, we saw more snow-capped mountains in the distance.

Then, we arrived on their road, and saw this mob of sheep coming toward us! They move their 5,000+ sheep from the hills to their flat farm every winter for grazing, and this was the day of the big move. We’ve heard about this move for years, but I never expected to get to see it. What a nice surprise that it happened the day we went to visit! Our three oldest boys joined the ones who were walking behind the sheep, and helped them get the rest of the way to their destination.

The scenery continued to be stunning as we drove on up the road into the hills to their house. What a beautiful country!

I took a video of the mob of sheep as we drove through. Enjoy a tiny bit of our experience!

Back to Waiuta

June 14, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

A couple of years ago, when Gayle was in America for two weeks to visit his mother for the last time, the children and I went to Waiuta for a picnic and to explore the fascinating former gold-mining area. On one of our last lockdown Sundays, we went back there. We had been going down to the riverbed for a picnic every Sunday, but we wanted to do something different after five or six weeks. We cooked some sausages and wrapped them in a towel to keep them warm, and took a few other things for lunch. After lunch, we took off on a walk. The first time, we thought about going down the trail to the Snowy River Battery, but Mr. Intellectual had a twisted ankle so we decided not to walk much. This time, we went down that trail. What a hike!

Before we started down the Snowy River track, we did a little exploring around the site of the village and the mine shaft area. These little holes were in a bank beside an old tunnel that went into the hillside. We were curious what kind of creature made these holes, but we couldn’t figure it out.

Esther carried Miss Joy for awhile. Later, when we went down the Snowy River track, Mr. Intellectual took her. This baby is popular!

This is some of the scenery we enjoyed!

These boys went off on their own exploration, and then ran to catch up with us. Actually, I guess it’s not all boys—I see Little Miss there, too!I took this picture to show Little Miss the cloud I was trying to describe to her.

The trail down to the river goes down very steeply, through a dense forest. It is beautiful! There are trees very thick on both sides of the trail, dripping with moss, and you can hear, though not see, a small creek flowing over rocks off to the left.

After awhile, you come out where you can see a little farther. The river is at the bottom of this canyon.

Finally, we got to where we could see the rest of our party. They were WAY down there! I zoomed in about as far as my camera can go to take this picture. This was the Battery, where they crushed the quartz that the gold was in, and extracted the gold.

Looking down the Snowy River from just above the Battery. The old Powerhouse is down the river somewhere. Two of the boys went down there and back up a different track while we reclimbed the trail we came down—all 222 steps plus much more steep, slippery mountainside.

Some of the lichens I saw along the way.

There is moss everywhere. I loved this soft, fuzzy moss!

It was getting dark as we went up the mountain. When we emerged at the top, though, the sun was still shining.

More moss and ferns. The variety of those plants on this Coast is amazing!

Fox River

June 7, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Last week, we had a national holiday, and one of the men in the church organized a tramp for anyone who wanted to come. Everyone who normally attends our little house church, except one man who wasn’t feeling good and another who was out of town, came, plus one other man and two tourists who were visiting one family. We had an incredible day!

I had never been on a tramp that long, so wasn’t sure how I would do. The sign said it would take two hours to reach our destination, the Ballroom Overhang up the Fox River, which is a little way up the coast of the Tasman Sea from Pancake Rocks. I’ve never walked that long at a time, let alone up a river. And with all the little children in our group? I knew it would be interesting!

Our group of 36 started out from the carpark at Fox River all together—and were soon strung out along the trail, as we knew we would be. The leader carried a radio, two others in the middle had radios, and so did the one at the end, all set to the same channel, so that we could keep in touch. At least, that was the theory; it didn’t work very well! (No one got lost, though.) Most of the time, Gayle and I were near the end of the line, and some of our boys were at the beginning. Our three older boys all helped to carry the younger children, and all five of our boys carried our family’s lunch. That left me free to focus on walking and taking photos. There were a lot of younger children who needed carrying! Fourteen in the group were under 10 years old. Besides Miss Joy, the youngest member of the expedition, there was a 1 1/2-year-old, a 2-year-old, and two 3-year-olds, who were all carried nearly all the way. We also had three 5-year-olds, plus a few slightly older ones who also needed carried over the river crossings. The older boys did most of the carrying.

This was the sign at the beginning of the track.

For the first half hour or more, we walked through areas like this. I love walking through these green tunnels of tree ferns and other trees, all dripping with moss in this cool rain forest! It feels almost magical.

Little Miss and one of her friends.

The rock formations were stunning!

A friend took this photo of Gayle and I.

This photo of Mr. Diligence and Mr. Sweetie was taken as we were resting and regrouping after the first river crossing, about 45 minutes into the tramp. We walked about another hour before the next crossing—there were six more after this first one, before we reached our destination! No bridges; we waded through on foot.

This tiny creek was one of several that crossed the track in one area. We had to step carefully over them.

The color of the water was amazing!

Because this is a rain forest, there are ferns and moss everywhere! The variety is astounding.

I saw these rocks across the river from the track at one point.

See Mr. Intellectual and his two little sisters in the middle of the photo?

About in the middle of this next photo is a stream of water gushing out of a cave into the river.

I think this is a bush robin. It was very friendly; hopping around only a few feet from me.

This is the Ballroom Overhang, our destination! The photos don’t do it justice at all; it’s enormous. I took the first one looking straight up. We ate our lunch here, and then quickly left to start back to the cars. It had taken us three hours to get there; it took 2 1/2 hours to get back.

Off we go down the river bed!

A creek came into the river from this side canyon, across the river from where I was standing. We had just crossed the river, and another crossing was only a short distance ahead of us.

The last river crossing! If you look closely, you can see several of my boys carrying little people. The one closest to me was Mr. Diligence carrying Miss Joy. I hardly saw her that day! I fed her at this river crossing, going both ways, and at the Ballroom Overhang; otherwise, other people (teenagers) were carrying her.

Almost out to the road again! We left our vehicles at 10:30; it was 4:30 when we returned. We were all rather tired, stiff and sore, but it was a good tired, stiff and sore! That day out in nature was incredible. The scenery—what I got to see in between picking my way over rocks and around mud and through rushing, cold water, barefoot, over slippery stones, was amazing. The company was wonderful, too! To top off the day, we lit a fire on the beach and roasted sausages. It was quite cold by then, but still a great experience. We are blessed!

Taking a Tramp Part 3

May 17, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Here is the last installment of Mr. Diligence’s story about the boys’ tramp. Find Part 1 here and Part 2 here. I have added captions to the pictures in those two posts, in case you want to go back and read more about them.

As we went on we slowly went down. We came to a scree slide that we walked across. P wasn’t feeling well. We gave him the last of our water then went on. Simon and J were carrying his pack again.

Mr. Intellectual going onto the scree slide.

Taking a break on an island on the scree slide.

An hour later we stopped for a break. We still hadn’t found water. Fifteen minutes later we found water. It was delicious. P was able to take his pack again. We came back into the bush as we went down. It was around 4:00 p.m.

Simon with an antler he found. See the trees in the left background with red/brown under the bunches of green leaves? Some locals call them monkey trees; the branches go every which way like a Dr. Seuss tuttle-tuttle tree.

These four pictures show the descent to the river.

We followed a creek down to the river. We knew approximately where the hut was. We searched for half an hour, then finally found the hut. We had rice and tuna for tea.

The track going out to civilization from the hut.

Looking back at the scree slope they had crossed the day before. This was taken after leaving the hut on Sunday morning. They thought the scree slope looked like Australia!

Sunday morning we left the hut at 8:30 a.m. We found the track and followed that. The track eventually came out on the river. We followed the river for a while, then went back to the track. We saw a couple blue ducks. Later we couldn’t keep following the creek, so we guessed there had to be a track. We finally found the track. We cleared it a little so other people could find it. One of the track markers fell down so we used a couple of J’s zip ties to fix it. Later we saw another couple of blue ducks. Blue ducks are extremely rare. They are grayish with a white bill, and on their underside they have a slight reddish tint.

Three pairs of these ducks have been sighted in this region; this group saw two of them.

There were a few boulders in the creek the size of a small house. We ate lunch near the hot springs. Then we walked out. We got home at 3:30 p.m.

Taking a Tramp Part 1

May 3, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

In early March, before we had any idea that such a thing as lockdown would happen, our three oldest boys went on a long tramp with three men who are part of our little housechurch. They backpacked to a couple of huts up in the mountains, and actually climbed to the top of one mountain. They were gone from Friday noon till early afternoon on Sunday, and came home ready to fall into bed (and needing showers!) but on top of the world and excited about doing it again! Mr. Diligence needed to write a story for our writing group, so I assigned him to write about the tramp, and email his story to Grandma. He also gave me permission to share it here, along with his photos. He wrote the story in two parts, so watch for Part 2 next week!

A few weeks ago J wanted to take a tramp up in the Haupiri valley up behind Gloriavale. Of course we boys wanted to go along. So we gathered supplies over the last few weeks. We left here on Friday at 1:00 p.m. We picked up J and went on to Gloriavale to sign at the office. They like to know so they won’t send hunters up there. We got to the parking lot and met C there. We waited for about half an hour for P but finally decided to take off walking. We strapped on our packs and walked up a four wheel drive track. P caught up to us in his truck, so we chucked our packs on the back and hopped in. We drove in for about 20 minutes then we parked.

Walking up the Haupiri River gorge, about half an hour after taking off.

Consulting the maps on the way up the river.

Then we started walking. We came to a few mud holes. But we got around those. After about 10 minutes we got to the end of the four wheel drive track. We walked up the dry river bed for a little while till P found the track that went through the bush. After a while we came out of the bush onto Peppertree Flat where there are a lot of peppertrees. They have a pinkish reddish leaf. We went back into the bush and walked on a trail for another half an hour.

Pepper Tree Flat. The red tree is a Pepper Tree.

Then one of the straps on E’s (Mr. Intellectual) pack broke. We had some flimsy safety pins that we put on. They held it together for a little while. Then we crossed the river. We walked for a little while then P said that we had probably missed the hot springs. Since we had extra time we dropped the packs on the track and went looking for it. We found the hot springs and spent a bit of time there. We found a bungee strap there so E used that to help hold his pack on. We walked up the river and across a few slips. At one slip Simon and J pushed a big rock off the bank.

A rest stop on the way up the valley to Elizabeth Hut.

Mr. Intellectual waiting for everyone else to catch up.

Simon and J trying to push the boulder off the side of the track, into the river. They did it–a boulder about three feet in diameter!

We got to Elizabeth Hut at 7:20 p.m. It was quite a nice hut. It had six beds and a table with three small benches. There was a small wood fire. P got the fire going and roasted us all. We ended up opening some windows. The hut was up on a flat area above the river. The roof was red with cream colored walls. J had broght some pasta that we cooked and had for tea. E’s and my packs had both broken. Thankfully J had some zip ties which he used to fix them. He did a good enough job that they lasted till we got home.

The river, viewed from the front of the hut.

To be continued….

Nelson Creek

March 7, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One Friday evening in the middle of February, one of our older children had a sudden inspiration: “Why don’t we go camp at Nelson Creek tonight?” Gayle and I weren’t interested, but all the children were, so, except for the two little girls, they all packed up tents and sleeping bags and breakfast, and took off. It’s only 15 minutes from home, so quite doable on the spur of the moment. They cooked sausages over a fire for breakfast and then took a long hike before coming home late in the morning. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves and want to do it again sometime.

Mr. Intellectual, Mr. Diligence, Simon, Mr. Imagination, Mr. Sweetie

Mr. Sweetie, Simon

Simon

Nathan

On top of the hill—Mr. Imagination, Simon, Mr. Sweetie, Mr. Diligence, Mr. Intellectual

After their hike, they went for a quick swim. These two boys couldn’t see each other! There is just enough of a curve in the cliff that they were both asking Esther where the other one was!

That same afternoon, Simon loaded three of his brothers into our ute and went to pick up a few more boys, friends from the North Island who spend part of their time down here, and they all went looking for a track Simon had heard about. They couldn’t find it, so they ended up back at Nelson Creek, and grabbed a friend who lives in the village. He went along, and they went up the same track our children had hiked that morning. When they got to the end, however, instead of coming back down the track, our friend led them down into a ravine, saying there was likely an old mining dam down there. They had quite an adventure scrambling down sheer cliffs and through such a narrow valley that they had to have a foot on each side to get through.

This pickax is likely left from the old gold-mining days.

Simon brought two of their friends home for the night, and the boys decided to sleep on the lawn under the stars. About 3:00 in the morning, though, it started to rain! One of the boys woke up and felt the rain, so woke the others and they all quickly came inside. When we got up in the morning, there was one boy asleep on the couch, and the rest were in the bedroom. I was very pleased that my boys could do something like this with friends; they don’t have this kind of opportunity very often. We have so many great places to hike in this region.