Away From Home

Trip to Dunedin, Part 1—The Trip South

September 24, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We took a trip to Dunedin, a large city near the south end of this island, a week ago. We left here fairly early Friday morning, and drove till it was nearly dark that evening, with just a few stops. This first picture shows the typical landscape in the Canterbury Plains, south of Christchurch. Mr. Diligence, who sits in the front of the van between his daddy and I, was getting bored, so he borrowed my camera. What this doesn’t show, which is very hard to pick up with the camera but very spectacular in real life, is the snow-capped mountains off to the west. The covering of snow this time of year makes them look a lot taller than they look in the summer, somehow. They look like they just rise suddenly out of the flat plains.

Esther was able, with her good camera, to get a picture that gives an idea of what we saw. This is taken from the bridge over the Rakaia River, which is 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) long. The structure you see is the railroad bridge.

Late in the afternoon, we stopped for half an hour to take a break and enjoy the sea, at Shag Point. This first picture was taken as we drove along the sea; the rest were taken when we stopped. The cliff went nearly straight down, probably 50 feet! Esther and I, and Mr. Diligence who had a headache, stayed at the top; the rest went down a steep path to the sea.

Mr. Inventor and Mr. Intellectual walking along the beach.

Mr. Diligence wishing he felt better, and getting as close to the edge as Mom will let him.

Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Handyman, with Little Miss. Thankfully, he didn’t slip like Mr. Inventor did as he came around that point!

Daddy and Little Miss.

Mr. Inventor and Mr. Intellectual discovered a structure of some sort!

Mr. Imagination and Mr. Sweetie

Daddy with Little Miss

Snow!

August 30, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We got a little bit of snow this August. It wasn’t much; here at our house we had a tiny skiff one morning. Can you see the snow falling in this picture?

The little boys scraped up the snow that slid down the greenhouse and made a little snowman on a sled, but I don’t know if anyone got a picture of it. They were excited about the snow, even if there wasn’t much. The next morning when we went to church, the hills and mountains were gorgeous! We left early in case the road was slick, and kept four-wheel drive on till we got through the dangerous hills.

Because we left for church early, and didn’t have any trouble, we had an extra 15 minutes before time for church to start, so we went out the the Peninsula. We hadn’t been out there in a long time, and it was fun to see the rocks, seals, and waves again.

We certainly live in a beautiful place!

West Coast Trip

August 11, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

In the middle of July, we went to the West Coast for a few days. We had been invited to a concert put on by a community over there, so our first night we stayed at the community and attended the concert the next day. This was the view from our second-floor bedroom. It was a very frosty morning!

The main buildings of the community, from lower on the hill. Each of the three 3-story buildings houses a number of families; they all eat in the second building from the right.

We were given these two rooms, plus one more like this first one, to sleep in.

During the concert, we were seated at tables, and served a delicious dinner. This was my table setting.

This elaborate castle was set up in front of the door through which many of the performers entered.

This dinosaur was on the other side. The head moved by people inside the body pulling on ropes.

An orchestra played for awhile, and then various groups sang. After that there was a series of musicals, plays performed with a lot of singing to tell the stories. It was an incredible show!

We spent the night with some new friends near the community. I was really impressed with the bunkbeds they had built for their children!

The next day, we went to Hokitika. We went to the glass-blowing studio. They weren’t blowing glass that day, but shaping kiwis out of molten glass. We also went to the Hokitika Museum, and to the National Kiwi Centre, where we watched giant eels and a kiwi being fed, and enjoyed looking at a lot of other fish.

We spent that night with some new friends near Hokitika. They have a guest room with an ensuite, where Gayle and I, and the two youngest, slept. Little Miss entertained herself in the sink while I brushed my hair!

We went home over Arthur’s Pass. It was snowing pretty hard as we went over the top, and a lot of snow was stuck to the camper. Mr. Imagination has been wanting very badly to make a snowman, so Gayle took the snow from the camper when we stopped at the information center, and made one. Unfortunately, Mr. Imagination wasn’t very impressed. He wanted a big one!

Little Miss tried very hard to be cheerful, even though she was getting pretty tired of traveling.

We went through Christchurch to Lyttleton Harbor before we went home. It was fun to see the places we had read about in the book The Runaway Settlers—a great story about pioneering in New Zealand.

Last Pictures From June 2016

August 9, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We are really enjoying our kitten. He isn’t as playful as he used to be, but still gets himself into funny places. He also sleeps in very strange positions.

I got a book from the library about the Denniston Incline. One of my boys liked it so well he took pictures of most of the pages in it!

Mr. Inventor and Mr. Diligence go to the dump at the end of our road (a transfer station) every time they can. It’s only open for three hours, three days a week, one of which is Sunday and another of which is Tuesday, our day for going to Dead Boring! They go almost every Thursday, and the Tuesdays that we are home, to search for treasures. One week, they brought me this incubator! The thermostat didn’t work, so I bought one online last week, and plan to try hatching chicks. I’ve never done it before, but have wanted to.

The pot this kitten is sitting in is another dump treasure. Mr. Inventor found the skillet underneath it at the Kaikoura dump for less than a dollar. He has since cleaned it thoroughly with a wire brush and seasoned it, and I’m now using it in the kitchen. The pot is a little harder, and in worse shape, but he’s hoping to restore it as well.

Mr. Inventor made these two knives. He sold the bigger one.

The children playing at Dead Boring. There were a lot there that day!

Our Dead Boring group—even Esther was there that day!

June 2016 Pictures

June 23, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I happened to have my camera in my pocket the other day when I was in the garden and discovered this beauty!

Preparing lunch the night before for our trip to town. It takes a lot of sandwiches to feed this crew! Making them assembly-line fashion helps.

What do you do with a big pile of coasters from the dump? Build castles!

Sunday afternoon fun. The little boys were trying to play the organ.

Mr. Diligence was playing with a bean bag.

Whale!

June 21, 2016 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

We were driving to Kaikoura for church Sunday morning when suddenly one of the boys exclaimed, “There’s a whale!” Sure enough, just a few hundred meters offshore was a whale, apparently feeding on the surface in the middle of a small pod of dolphins! There was a fishing boat close by; apparently there was a large school of fish there. Of course, we stopped to watch–you don’t see a whale very often. What a special experience!

Weka Pass Railway

June 19, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Once a month, we go to church in Waikari instead of Kaikoura. Normally, we go back home the same way we go there, via the Scargill Valley. In April, however, we went through Waipara to visit a friend on our way home. As we left Waikari, we noticed that the Weka Pass Railway had a sign out by the road, and then we saw the steam engine coming! This old railway line is only used now for an excursion train, and only runs a couple of days a month. We turned around and drove back to Waikari to see the train come into the station, and then Gayle got the idea of taking the children on a ride! Someone had to drive the van to the other end. He would have done it, but I offered to let him ride with the children, and I would drive the van and pick something up from a friend in Waipara on the way to the station at that end. The children loved that ride! They still talk about it. Hopefully we’ll be able to do it again sometime—I would love to go, too!

Coming into the Waikari station:

Coming up to Frog Rock:

The station in Waipara. This used to be the Cheviot railway station!

In places, the train goes through a pretty deep gorge.

There is a turntable at each end, on which the engine is turned around before being hooked up to the other end of the line of cars.

I happened upon this video of the railway. I haven’t watched it all—it’s 57 minutes!—but I watched snatches here and there through it. Beautiful scenery!

Beaches: Timaru and Kaikoura

June 17, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

It’s fun to look through Esther’s memory card every so often. She gets some good pictures, and happily lets me use them. I often either forget I have a camera, or actually don’t have it along, so I’m glad when she takes pictures to fill in the gaps. Here are a few more pictures from the day we walked to the lighthouse near Timaru.

Little Miss was watching someone climbing the outside of the lighthouse. She held on to that apple all the way out there and most of the way back!

Gayle helping Mr. Imagination down the steep cliff below the lighthouse. They walked back along the shoreline.

Enjoying the view from a bench in front of the lighthouse.

Mr. Inventor, Mr. Imagination, and Mr. Intellectual trying out a hut someone else built out of driftwood.

Mr. Diligence, Mr. Inventor, and Mr. Intellectual on a rock north of Kaikoura.

Mr. Imagination pondering something!

Sunday School Picnic and Gore Bay

June 15, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I looked at the pictures on Esther’s memory card yesterday, and found some from the Sunday School picnic in March that I’d like to share! This picnic is an annual event at the home of a family way up in the hills, nearly to the mountains. After lunch, we walked out in a paddock behind the house. A couple of our boys had spent two nights there in December, and wanted to show us where they had played. It was quite interesting! They discovered that this tree was hollow, and opened up a hole just a bit more so they could fit inside. Here is Mr. Inventor peering out.

This is how you get it—turn sideways and wriggle through! No thanks.

The valley the tree was in.

They also wanted to show us the big willow trees they played in.

This was the original house on the farm, built about a hundred years ago. Unfortunately, it is in very poor shape now. It was quite interesting to look at, though.

The day after the picnic, we took a picnic to another place: Gore Bay. The boys wanted to try out an inflatable dinghy they were given. It didn’t work very well in the waves here, but when they tried it on a quiet lagoon, it worked well.

Little Miss is terrified of the sea—she wanted to stay safe with Daddy.

Fun at the Park

June 11, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We had to go to Christchurch last week for Mr. Inventor’s orthodontist appointment. While he and I were in there, the rest of the family walked to a playground down the street. That was quite a treat for these country children! Here are Mr. Handyman and Little Miss.

Mr. Intellectual

Mr. Inventor watching Mr. Intellectual, Mr. Imagination, Mr. Diligence, and Mr. Sweetie.

Esther gave Little Miss a swing ride. Apparently, Little Miss loved it so much she was quite upset when they quit swinging.