Away From Home

More Pictures From October 2018!

November 17, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Well, I should have looked at my memory card again before publishing last week’s post of pictures. There were several more good ones.

Mr. Diligence made the lions for the skit they performed at the concert. I found him a picture of a lion online, and Esther enlarged it. He glued them together, cut them out, and painted them. Then, he glued them to cardboard and made them stand up.

Simon learned to ride a backwards bike when someone loaned them one many years ago. He has wished for one ever since, so when he had a couple of days off work on a recent long weekend, he built one. When you turn the handlebars right, the wheel turns left, and when you turn the handlebars left, the wheel turns right. So far, all three of the older boys have learned to ride it.

I looked in the living room recently and saw Mr. Imagination telling Goofball to hold still. He wanted her to pose for him to draw a picture of her, but she wouldn’t cooperate. I suggested he hold her still while I took a picture, and then he could draw from that.

Here is the picture he drew and cut out.

Some of our friends from Dead Boring came to see us a few weeks ago. We met in Moana, and had a picnic together beside Lake Brunner. They had two 9-year-old girls along, and Little Miss, once she warmed up to them, had great fun helping them build a “hut.” It was basically an outline of grass, with flowers arranged artistically in it.

I wished I had taken a picture of this scene earlier. When we first arrived, the lake was calm and the mountains were mirrored in it, but then a wind came up. It was still beautiful!

This coal train came along, and stopped on the side track. Soon, we saw the passenger train come from the other direction and pass it, and then the coal train started moving again.

Dead Boring Concert 2018

November 14, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Even though we have moved away from Canterbury, we were still able to participate in this year’s Dead Boring Concert with our old homeschool group. The children wanted to perform a skit this year, so they enlisted the help of friends from here so they would have enough people to fill all the roles. Here are videos of all the numbers our family did.

Jet Boat Race

November 3, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Thursday morning, a friend called to tell us that there was a jet boat race happening on the Grey River, and the boats would finish at the bridge over the Ahaura River just down the hill from us. She gave us the times they would be taking off on each of their three trips up and down the river, and sure enough, we soon heard the first round arriving. The second round started arriving shortly before lunch, so we took off down to the river to watch. We were a couple hundred meters past the finish line, so they were slowing down, but we enjoyed watching them shoot under the bridges and stop just upstream from us.

After all the boats had arrived here, we walked down stream to wait for them to take off again. When we reached the finish/start line, we learned that it would be another 20 minutes, so we went farther and found a good spot to settle down right at the water’s edge. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and the river bottom was so lovely, with bright yellow gorse and broom flowers all over. Yes, those shrubs are a terrible nuisance, but this time of year they are gorgeous!

Once the race started again, we enjoyed watching 19 boats go past. They left about a minute apart, and we could see the spray going up behind them for about 30-45 seconds, for maybe a mile around a couple of bends in the Grey River.

I tried to get a video to show the speed, and did get a few seconds—but then the batteries in my camera died.

Here are the few seconds of video I got.

River and Tadpoles

October 27, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A couple of weeks ago, we spent a Sunday with friends who were camping beside a river about 30-40 minutes drive from us. It was a beautiful, sunny warm day, just perfect for being outside—although a couple of us got pretty sunburned, because we aren’t used to being in the sun!

The children discovered tadpoles in a boggy spot close to the campsite, so they spent the afternoon hunting. At first, they were finding tiny ones, and then they started finding very large tadpoles. We brought some home, and they took home a large number.

The glimpses we got of the snow-capped Southern Alps were gorgeous!

This is the Haupiri River. If you’ve ever heard of Gloriavale, it is directly between where we were standing here, and the mountain in the background.

My big boys tired of hunting tadpoles and wanted something more exciting to do. They borrowed a rope and used it to lower themselves to a pier of the bridge.

Then, they tied a rock to the rope and used it to measure the depth of the river—till the rock fell off!

Little Miss loves having girls her own size to play with!

The gorse is in bloom everywhere. It’s so pretty—wish it wasn’t such a horrible nuisance!

Here is one of our tadpoles. They are living, quite happily as far as we can see, in a tank of rain water with a log floating in it for when they need to climb out. We’re hoping they live long enough to develop into frogs so we can release them!

Waiuta

October 13, 2018 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

Last Sunday, because several people had colds, we didn’t go anywhere for church. Instead, we had a meeting at home (minus Gayle, because he’s in America spending a little time with his mother), and then packed a picnic lunch and headed off on an adventure that turned into a field trip! You know, that’s a disadvantage of being homeschooled. You never get a day off. Or, maybe it’s an advantage—depends on your perspective!

We decided to go explore Waiuta, where there use to be a gold mine. Gold-bearing quartz was discovered on this site in 1905, and at the peak there were 500 people living in the village that grew up around the Blackwater Shaft. In 1951, however, the shaft collapsed, according to a sign at the historical site, and within three months only 20 people were left. A year later, practically all the houses were gone, dismantled to be rebuilt elsewhere. We found it quite fascinating to wander around, studying the various posters that have been put up around the area, and the ruins that are left, trying to imagine the place in its heyday.

This is the road that goes out to Waiuta. First, you travel through open farmland in a valley.

You pass the old Blackwater School, in use from 1913 to 1949, according to the sign above the door.

Then, you drive through thick bush for awhile. A lot of places, it was thicker than this photo shows, with the trees meeting overhead.

We wondered if this trough was for watering horses back in the day?

At last, you come out in the open, and you have reached Waiuta. The building here was the carpenter’s shop for the mine; the smokestack had something to do with running the mine. Possibly steam power for raising and lowering men and rocks from the shaft, which was just to the right of this picture?

There are a lot of non-native plants around, left to go wild from the gardens the miners and their families had. This flowering currant was loaded with blossoms and humming with bees. Simon wants to go back in December and see if there is any fruit on it!

We followed this trail to the old swimming pool.

The swimming pool was about 36 meters long, according to my boys who stepped it off. The other end was quite deep.

Back to the mine site. This machine was used to crush the quartz so the gold could be extracted.

Part of the foundations of the building.

The old mine shaft.

Inside the chimney. Simon noticed that the bricks are stamped Brunner. One of our next field trips will be to the Brunner Mine site, between us and Greymouth. They also had brick kilns there, besides the coal mine.

I think this was the boiler room.

These bushes were in bloom. I don’t know what they were, but the scent was amazing!

Walking back up to the mine from the area where many of the miner’s houses were. The piles of rocks are tailings from the mine. The area on top has been smoothed and planted in grass. We ate lunch at the edge of the bowling green. It is amazingly flat, with very lush grass.

I took this picture to help us find our way around.

After we had explored the main area, we drove up the mountain to the Prohibition Mine. This was connected with the mine in the first area we explored, deep underground. From up here, it was 879.5 meters, or about half a mile, to the lowest level of the mine. The sign said that was below sea level! Men were lowered in a cage, and the quartz was brought back up the same way. It took four minutes to raise or lower the men, but the quartz was moved in half that time.

This was the mine office. Someone has cut a hole in the door of the strong room, and my little ones crawled in.

The view across the Grey Valley from the Prohibition Mine was incredible!

This is what is left of the building in which they extracted the gold. It was built between 1937-39, and I presume it was only in operation until 1951, when the mine closed.

This turned out to be a great way to spend an afternoon when we couldn’t be with other people! It was a beautiful day, and a very interesting site. And, I didn’t know she was doing it, but Esther published a post today about this trip, as well. You can see her pictures here.

Skits for Grandma

September 29, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A year ago, when we were in America, we helped celebrate my mom’s birthday. One of the things our children did was to perform four skits for the family. Their acting was not very polished, and at first they were pretty nervous, but some of the skits turned out fairly well. I had almost forgotten them, and then someone ran across the video we took of them on a memory card. So, I decided to share them here in case anyone is interested.

The first one is based on a story my dad used to tell. I told this story on my blog a few years ago, here.

The second is based on what one of the children thought he heard once, a number of years ago.

The third happened about a year and a half ago–and I still laugh to the point of tears when I watch this video.

And the last one needs a bit of explanation! My dad had a phobia of dentists, especially of getting a shot. He would say the needle they used was so big it took three nurses to carry it in.

August 2018 Photos

September 22, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A friend invited our boys to go fishing with him one Saturday, so Gayle went with all the children to Greymouth. The friend had this kontiki, which takes a longline out a kilometer or two from shore, and has a section with a number of hooks on it. They ended up catching one kowai and a shark that got tangled in the line as they were reeling it in.

When they opened up the shark, they found a number of babies inside! They put the babies in the water, and they swam away.

One evening I noticed the most beautiful sunset over the mountains to the west! The colors were much more vivid than my camera was able to capture.

We took another trip to Pancake Rocks with some more friends who came to visit. This time, it was cloudy and misty, but there was a lot of water coming up out of the blowholes!

Simon had a week off work, so he spent some time on his canoe. Here are the first two strips in place!

The boys spent one afternoon digging up weed plants from the paddocks across the road. I was amused to see Mr. Intellectual and Mr. Imagination coming home this way!

Little Miss loves to listen to her grandma read to her. Grandma recorded herself reading a number of picture books, and Little Miss frequently wants to listen to the whole stack of books.

Mr. Imagination likes to listen, too! Once the others were finished with school, I let them listen without earphones.

Mr. Imagination found an old pingpong paddle, and made it into a paddle for a canoe! I noticed the blade laying around the other day, though.

I went out to our garden with my camera one evening a few weeks ago, and saw the clouds rolling in over the mountains to the west.

Mr. Imagination and Little Miss dressed their toy monkey up with gloves and shoes, and then wanted a picture. I let Mr. Imagination take the picture—it took about a dozen tries.

Caving

September 15, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One of the things my boys most love to do in this area is exploring caves. Back when there was a lot of gold mining happening, a lot of tunnels were dug through hills. Many of these tunnels were dug for a place to wash away the dirt after it had been sifted through, as the men looked for gold. Exploring these tunnels can be rather dangerous, but that’s probably part of the appeal to the boys. Their daddy does always go with them, and as you’ll see in some of these photos from a recent expedition, they are using ladders and ropes and trying to stay safe.

They started out by driving Simon’s Suzuki as far as they could up a rough track. Once they got to where it would have gotten stuck, they walked the rest of the way to some tunnels they had spotted nearly a year ago and wanted to explore more. (By the way, we ladies stayed at home where it was safe and dry!)

They got a lot of practice with rock-climbing—something my fellows love to do!

Here, Simon is going from one cave to another, over a deep ravine. There was an old, squared-off log for a bridge; as you can see, he had a rope tied around himself and secured to a tree.

Here is Mr. Intellectual doing the same thing.

And here is Mr. Sweetie, rappelling down a cliff into a trench that the government financed in the early 1900s to bring water from a lake to wash gold out of the soil (that scheme didn’t work).

Here is the account Mr. Diligence wrote of this adventure in a letter to a relative: Yesterday we went cave exploring up in the hills. [A friend] took us up there the second time we came to visit them. We took the Suzuki because it was a 4-wheel drive and you need a 4-wheel drive to get up there. The first time, we had found a cave and had gone through it. At the other end of the cave was a deep ravine with a river flowing through it. It was about 50 meters deep. There was a square log laid across the ravine to act as a bridge and on the other side was another cave with a bunch of wood inside it. The bridge was covered in moss. Ever since then, we have been talking about getting back in there and how we would get across the ravine. Yesterday afternoon was a beautiful sunny day and we had time. We went back in there and got there by 3:30. Then we climbed a 4-meter high cliff, using the ladder to help. We pulled up the ladder and walked through the cave to one end of the bridge. Simon lowered the ladder down onto one end of the bridge. The bridge shook a little but didn’t give way. Then we tied a rope to the ladder so that if the bridge gave way it wouldn’t fall down. Then we tied the rope to a tree and back to Simon. Simon carefully climbed down the ladder and onto the bridge. It held so he took another step. A few more steps and he was in the mouth of the cave. Since the cave was covered with bushes over the front, he used his machete to chop them away. Within half an hour, we had got all of us across safely and we were exploring. [Mr. Sweetie] found an old pair of shoes with metal soles that looked like they used to have spikes coming out of them. The leather was rotten. We found another cave crossing that one and followed it. It just went out to the ravine again. There was a small shelf that looked like it might have been a walkway going along the ravine. It was two feet wide. I started walking on it and after 10 yards it narrowed down to 1 foot and then it was too narrow to walk on. I looked down across the ravine and saw a square post about 2 inches by 6 inches leaning against the other wall of the ravine. It appeared to have ropes and cables hanging off of it and maybe a tow rope as well. We wanted to go check it out so we went back across the ravine and we got back to the Suzuki. We left the ladder at the car and went down to the river. We waded upstream until we found the climbing apparatus or whatever it was. We climbed up and looked at it and we don’t know what it was. Then we climbed back down and headed home. Thankfully, none of us got hurt and we didn’t get stuck going out again.

Truman Track

September 11, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

When some friends came for a weekend in July, we took them to Pancake Rocks. After enjoying the beautiful sunny day there, we went up the coast a few minute’s drive and walked the Truman Track down to the sea. This is a short track that winds through a lush rainforest with palms and tree ferns everywhere before it opens out onto the shore. The boys enjoyed climbing rocks and poking into caves, and the little ones played in the water.