Away From Home

Farewell Spit

August 20, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Farewell Spit is a fascinating place to visit. The world’s longest sandbar, it stretches some 18 miles out into the Tasman Sea from the northern tip of the South Island. It is the breeding ground for many kinds of birds. Tourists are not allowed on very much of it; if I remember right you are only allowed to walk on the first 2.5 km or so from the base of the spit. We walked out there, across the spit to the outside beach, and back. Actually, Mr. Imagination, Little Miss and I didn’t get that far; we turned back after only a couple of km. The rest of the family did the whole track, though; it took them about 3 hours.

This is looking out along the spit from the base, where we started the walk. I found the ripples in the sand quite interesting. They are very firm. At high tide the water comes way up this beach, but quickly goes way out again as the tide goes down.

We found this jellyfish washed up. It was about as big in real life as it is on my screen here, about 2 inches in diameter.

Mr. Inventor dug these huhu grubs out from under a rotten log. He wanted to cook them and eat them, but finally decided he didn’t want to haul them around all day!

Paradise ducks.

Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Inventor—not sure what they were doing.

Possibly Roseate Spoonbills? They were too far out to be sure.

Thrilled to be on the ground and able to explore the carpet of seashells! Of course, she had to taste some.

While they waited for the rest of the party to catch up, the boys enjoyed the sand dunes. This is Mr. Intellectual, Mr. Sweetie, Mr. Inventor, and Mr. Diligence.

The beach was covered with shells.

Black swans

There were a lot of dead crabs, or else crab shells, on the beach, too.

Going across the spit to the outer beach.

The outer beach is a lot sandier than the inner beach.

Mr. Handyman, Mr. Diligence, Mr. Intellectual, Mr. Sweetie, and Esther.

Collingwood

August 19, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We stayed at the Collingwood Motor Camp for three nights while we were in Golden Bay. We were there for two nights when we went to Golden Bay three years ago. That time we tent-camped. This time, we have a camper, and decided to get a cabin for some of us. We can’t all fit in the camper (if we really crowd small people, we can fit five into it), and Gayle seems to have an allergic reaction to it. When we arrived and asked for a basic cabin and site for the camper, they offered us a house for not much more! We were all able to be under one roof that way, in comfort, with the kitchen and bathroom in the same building. The owner of the campground brought us firewood and started the fire for us, and we lived in luxury on this “camping” trip! The campground changed management in October, and the new owners are really cleaning the place up. We had a beautiful view of the estuary!

This is the house we stayed in. Last time we were there, we slept in tents close to where I stood to take the picture, and cooked in the open-air kitchen on the far side of the van.

I got to walk out along the shoreline one morning at high tide, and enjoyed this flock of seagulls and oystercatchers.

Mr. Imagination and Little Miss enjoyed the freedom of being on the floor to play, after a long day in their carseats!

Esther read her brothers a bedtime story. From left to right are: Mr. Handyman, Mr. Inventor, Mr. Imagination, Esther, Mr. Sweetie, Mr. Diligence, and Mr. Intellectual. No, this isn’t posed.

The rest of these pictures aren’t at the campground, but I thought this is as good a place as any to post them. I loved the reflections in the estuary as we left Collingwood the morning after our arrival there, on the way to Farewell Spit!

The reflections were almost as good as we approached the spit.

We stopped along the way to photograph some herons stalking about the mudflats as the tide went out.

Motueka Valley and Takaka Hill

August 18, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

On the first day of our trip, we went all the way to Golden Bay. Google maps said it would take 5.5 hours; I figured that meant 8 or 9 hours for us, since we have to stop occasionally and were towing a camper with our van. The van really slows down going up hills by itself, let alone with a camper, so going over the mountains, I knew would be slow. We left here at 8:30 in the morning, and it was 5:30 when we arrived, so I wasn’t too far off. We did make a few stops, to fill up with diesel twice, once to view Maruia Falls, once to do a bit of grocery shopping in Motueka so we’d have enough food for the next few days, and again for a short walk to an overlook on top of Takaka Hill when we saw that we were making good time.

This first picture was taken while we were still heading for the Motueka valley; I liked that rock formation on the hill.

As far as I know, this is the only commercial orange grove on the South Island.

Going up Takaka Hill, between Motueka and Golden Bay.

Looking down from the top of Takaka Hill.

Esther on the path to the overlook on Takaka Hill.

Esther captured these two beautiful pictures.

And here is Mr. Diligence taking his own picture of the rock above!

Another view from the top, looking toward Motueka.

This rock is granite; the entire top of the hill is littered with it.

Maruia Falls

August 17, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

On the way north from Springs Junction, after crossing the Southern Alps over Lewis Pass, we stopped at Maruia Falls for a little while. This waterfall is spectacular!

Mr. Handyman

Mr. Imagination

Mr. Handyman taking Little Miss from me.

Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination throwing rocks in the river below the falls.

Mr. Handyman holding Little Miss.

Mr. Sweetie

Mr. Inventor

My dear hubby.

Mr. Imagination

Mr. Diligence and Mr. Sweetie coming up the path in front of their daddy and his sister.

Mr. Diligence

Mr. Inventor, Mr. Intellectual, and Mr. Handyman looking down on the falls from the upper viewpoint.

Home to Lewis Pass

August 16, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

While my sister-in-law was with us for the past month, we took a trip to the north part of the island. With snow on the mountains, the scenery was spectacular as we traveled toward Lewis Pass! This first picture doesn’t do justice to the depth of this valley. We always love seeing this scene.

I don’t know what this building was, but it’s rather picturesque.

This ridge parallels the road between Waiau and Rotherham for a couple of miles, then there is a break, and then another ridge is along the road for the same distance.

Mountains on the way up to Lewis Pass.

A snowplow headed up into the Pass. We followed him for awhile, and then he pulled off and let us pass him.

On the west side of the pass! We went north from Springs Junction, and I was amazed at the range of mountains to the west of us, on the other side of the valley we were driving through. They were so rugged, with sharp tops!

Apple Picking!

April 26, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Every year, we like to take an afternoon in April and drive around through the hills to the west of us, looking for wild apples along the road. We never get over there otherwise, and it’s a beautiful drive. The apples are the excuse to take a family drive! We all enjoy it. We went last Saturday, and it turned out to be a beautiful afternoon. We ended up picking or picking up about 7 bushels (14-15 banana boxes full) of apples, mostly for the cow. We have plenty for ourselves already, and since it’s so dry, we’re feeding her apples and pumpkin to supplement the dry grass she has.

This little girl is learning to accept her car seat.

Mr. Diligence with a huge apple—we always stop at that tree!Mr. Intellectual with his two apples from the special tree.

Notice how dry the landscape is. We have not had significant rain since about August. Even so, it’s a beautiful place!

Mr. Diligence and Mr. Intellectual, climbing a hill to check out a tree we normally pick from—it has fallen over, though.

Mr. Handyman, doing what he does best! (Growing, teenage boy.)

We couldn’t resist doing a mini photo shoot of this beautiful baby!

While we were at it, we got a nice picture of Mr. Intellectual……and of Mr. Sweetie.

They found a dead hawk on the road.

Esther spent a lot of time trying to get a picture of this curious, friendly fantail.

Gum trees are so beautiful, with their white trunks and branches.

At one place, five or six bulls were grazing the roadside. All that kept them in was an electric tape! Those massive creatures seemed quite placid, but I was glad to be inside the van.

Fossil Walk in the Waipara River

April 22, 2015 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

Two weeks ago, one of the dads in our homeschool group led a walk up the gorge of the Waipara River, to look for fossils. There are a lot of fossils in the rocks there, and they wash out in floods. He has an extensive collection of fossils, and has found some pretty interesting animals—one was even named after him!

We started with a picnic in the river bed. After everyone was done eating, we started walking. The first thing we did was cross the river in a place that was about a foot deep, then walked through a very rocky area. For a ways, we walked in the river, where it was only a few inches deep, then walked on the rocks again, then on a grassy area. Eventually, we came out at the base of a cliff littered with concretions, enormous round rocks. They are at all levels of the cliff, and as the cliff face erodes, they come down. Thankfully, none came down while we were there! Our leader didn’t allow the boys to climb as high as they wanted to, for their own safety. We only saw a few fossils, but had a beautiful walk with good friends! The man in front center of this picture, wearing a backpack and gumboots, was our leader.

That tiny white object my finger is pointing to is a shark’s tooth! In the one area we walked through, there were a lot of these shattered rocks.

This was a vertebrae from a marine reptile.

My Mr. Diligence found this greensand, a type of sandstone.

That’s my Mr. Handyman in the middle, helping carry one of the little children. The first concretion I found. I sat on it to feed my baby, and the wife of our leader commented that she had sat there to feed her baby several years before!

The boys all had fun climbing up and sliding down this cliff!

One of the concretions, ready to come down (it was probably 50-100 feet above us).

Another fossil vertebrae.

More concretions. Mr. Imagination on a concretion in the river.

This picture is for my Mom. I thought of you, Mom, when I saw this very unusual thistle here and there along our walk.

Mr. Handyman on a concretion!

The scenery along our drive was spectacular, too! Also, notice how dry everything is. We have only gotten about an inch of rain since New Year’s.

Yes, one place the road was really this steep!

Timaru, Part 2

April 21, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Saturday night tea was a barbeque at the house we stayed at. The people we stayed with last year, the parents of the man of the house where we stayed this year, were there. He is a baby-lover, and I was amused when he shouldered me aside to take my baby from his wife when my baby was crying! She liked him and settled down on his shoulder several times, like she doesn’t do for very many people.

Sunday morning was a normal church service, then lunch at the parent’s house, followed by an afternoon service, tea at church, a gospel service in the evening, and then a singing at the parent’s house again. What a day! It was wonderful. These pictures are all of the singing in the evening.

Our hosts for the weekend:

Grandpa saves the evening again! I was so thankful for the help with our baby.

I think this one missed out on hearing what the point of the evening was! He had fun with the toys while we sang.

Monday we headed home! First, we got a picture of the family we stayed with. Their hospitality was amazing!We stopped several times, and the last stop was a long one. We needed to pick up a rooster someone was giving us, and when that man and Gayle get together, they will talk a long time. We got home in time to unload and eat before bedtime, though. Mr. Sweetie got hold of my camera and used it to amuse himself all the way home. I deleted most of the pictures he took, but here are a few, including a selfie: This little girl slept most of the way home, to everyone’s relief.

Timaru, Part 1

April 20, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We went to Timaru over Easter weekend for a conference—a weekend of church meetings. The Assembly in Timaru had invited a number of speakers, and four came, two from Australia and two from the north part of the North Island. It was a wonderful weekend of Scripture teaching and fellowshipping! We went last year, and enjoyed it so much that we had been talking all year of going again. (And now, the boys are talking about NEXT year already! So, if anyone from Timaru reads this, know that some people will be very much disappointed if you don’t hold the Easter Conference again!)

We left here about 8:00 on Good Friday morning, and didn’t have to stop once! We made it to Timaru in time for lunch at noon, and attended both the services in the afternoon. After tea at church, we returned to the house at which we were staying, and got our camp set up. Esther and I and the baby slept in the pop-top camper we borrowed for the trip, that night, and Gayle and all the boys slept in three tents in the yard. After the tents were pitched we visited in the house for awhile, and then just as we were getting ready to send the children out to bed, they found a distraction—stories read by the man of the house!

Saturday, there was only one service, mid afternoon, so everyone who stayed at the house we did went to a park and the beach in the morning. Timaru is beautiful! There was a fire in the late 1800s that wiped out the business district, so everything was rebuilt with stone. The buildings are gorgeous!The boys really enjoyed the park. A man was there with several miniature horses, which you could ride for $5. It was free to sit on them, though, and Mr. Imagination loved that.

The man in the red jersey here was one of the speakers. He had had to leave his wife and six children behind to come, and was missing them.The boys loved the playground equipment, too. Left to right are the man with the horses, Gayle, Mr. Diligence, Mr. Intellectual, Mr. Sweetie, ?, Mr. Handy Man, and Mr. Inventor.

Mr. Sweetie on the swing.

Mr. Diligence and Mr. Imagination, upside down on the swings!

Left to right are Mr. Diligence, Mr. Inventor, ?, ?, and Mr. Handy Man.

One thing that fascinated me about the beach was how it is receding. When the port was built, it changed the currents. Now, sand is deposited in Caroline Bay.When Europeans first came, the beach was at the base of the cliffs those buildings are on! Our host remembers when it was about halfway between there and where it is now, over a quarter mile out!

The port was at the edge of the park, clearly visible from where we were, so after we left the park, we drove through what we could of the port before we went back for lunch. They were loading a couple of huge freight liners. The four cranes you can see in the middle of this picture are all on one ship!

This is a view of the beach and town from the port.

After leaving the port, we drove past this row of old warehouses.

December Pictures

January 10, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Yes, I’m a bit late, but here are some more pictures from December. And, by the way, we are still waiting for baby to arrive. It’s due in a couple more days, but I won’t be surprised if it’s late—we’ll see! We’re pretty anxious to meet this little one and see who he/she is!

The day after Grandma left, the two littlest boys decided to lay in her bed and study a leaflet we got at Willowbank.

We cleaned the garage out one day. I finally gave the permission the boys had been waiting for since we moved: I let them haul out and burn a lot of boxes! First they loaded ALL of them onto the wheelbarrow Simon got free at the dump (he just had to buy a new tube for the tire and had a good tool!).

Seth’s birthday landed on Sunday this year, and he wanted to walk over the Kaikoura Peninsula. Gayle took all the children across, while I drove around to the other side. Two of the boys ran the whole way, so had to wait a long time, and one of them was so bored that I handed him my camera and told him to take some pictures.

We had three little turkeys in the house for a few weeks. They were rather fun to watch! Some nights, their owner, Simon, would go around catching moths for them to eat. That was pretty hilarious to watch, as at the time, the moths were bigger than the turkey’s heads! After awhile, it was time to put them outside. They are thriving in a small pen now. We let them free-range until they ate all the leaves off my pepper plants one day.

One sunny warm day I got all the newborn clothes washed and hung out. So fun!

Just for fun, a couple of random shots of some of our critters—the steers and the ducks.

On Christmas Eve, the local Anglican church always has a special service for the children. They are supposed to dress in Nativity-scene costumes and sort of act out the story as it is read. Our boys were asked to be Joseph and the wise men, and one ended up being Herod when the boy who had that role backed out. We still had enough wise men, as the two littlest boys decided at the last minute they wanted to be kings, too! Esther created the costumes, and each boy designed and made his own crown, except the two littlest.

This has been a common scene this summer. I have had the boys spend half an hour a day in the garden pulling weeds, and they are doing well at keeping the weeds under control. One of the days Gayle had off work over Christmas he joined them; they were doing the job before breakfast, before the day got hot. I’ll do another post soon to show the garden. It is gorgeous this year!

One afternoon, Nathan wanted to take a picture of a spider in his room. He couldn’t quite get a picture of it, but played with the camera for awhile anyway!