Sometime in November, our boys and a few friends went on a short kayak trip down the Ahaura River, the first of at least four kayak trips down a couple different rivers already this season! They are enjoying the water.
Kayak Trip
Ahaura River
Boating the Ahaura
The Sunday afternoon just before Christmas, the boys who were at church decided to boat down the Ahaura River from Jim’s Hut, just at the end of the Ahaura Gorge, to here, near the confluence of the Ahaura and the Grey Rivers. The girls decided to go along to drive the vehicle back, and do some hiking while they were in the area. So, they saw the boys off and then drove up the track a short way. They walked down another track to an old hut, and when they were coming back, some of the boys popped out of the bush! Just after launching the boat and kayaks, the barrel boat got swamped by big waves in the rapids. It sank–and the boys who were in it were glad to have life jackets on! After a brief conference, three boys decided to walk back to catch up with the girls and get a ride out to civilization, while the rest of the party continued down the river with the kayaks. (The boat has never been seen again. It had no flotation devices, and sank in a deep spot. James is unhappy that he lost his water bottle, which he had tied to the boat so he wouldn’t lose it in the river.) About five hours later, the kayakers reached Ahaura and demolished several large homemade pizzas!
Mr. Imagination ready for takeoff.
Little Miss
There is our last glimpse of the barrel boat!
Flood!
The last Saturday in October, we had four inches of rain in 24 hours–and there was a lot more upstream in the hills and mountains. That afternoon, I had to go down to the paddock where our cows live to work with them, and we discovered that the creek had flooded! We had to lead a cow through about eight inches of fast-flowing, muddy water; I discovered that I quickly get dizzy and disoriented with those conditions. I was thankful for a son who steadied me as we went through!
Water was backing up the small creek from the large one that is going through the center of this photo.
James is walking toward the water we had to lead the cow through. It was overflowing the banks of the small creek and going into the drainage ditch that runs through the length of the paddock.
This is the drainage ditch. It normally has a little trickle in the bottom!
This is a close-up of the flooding. The boys picked up the fence at this point, so it wouldn’t wash away.
This was the big creek, just upstream from our paddock, where it goes under the highway. There was a large log caught under the bridge, which is partly why we had a problem; you can see water being diverted to the right, where it went into the small creek and under the highway into our paddock.
I decided to walk down to the river at that point to see what it looked like. Quite impressive! By the next morning, though, the floodwaters had gone down.
Ahaura River/Lake Ahaura
One Sunday afternoon in April, our boys organized a kayak trip with friends from church down the Ahaura River. I got roped into driving the vehicle back after they unloaded the boats, which meant that I got to enjoy a scenic part of the river that I don’t normally get to see.
Another Sunday afternoon, they decided to go on a four wheel drive trip. They ended up at Lake Ahaura, up near the farm on which Simon lives. Elijah shared these pictures with me; the one of the mushroom was taken especially to share with his grandma. There were actually at least a dozen people on each of these trips, but because a lot of them are not our family, I didn’t want to post their pictures.
Kayaking
It all started the day we went to a baptism in Waipara. After the baptism and a shared picnic, someone brought a trailer load full of kayaks. The boys played in them all afternoon. That triggered a renewed interest in boating.
As soon as James had a rainy day for an excuse not to work on building his sleepout, he started building a barrel boat. It happened to be the day Simon came home before breakfast for his days off, and without even coming in the house to say hello to me he was busy cutting barrels open! Several days of work later, with the help of a friend who came over several times, they had the project finished!
Of course, the boat had to be tried out! They only had time that evening to float a short distance on the river, and it rained so much overnight that the river wasn’t safe the next day. However, Nelson Creek was in flood, so they decided to try the boat out on that! Nelson Creek is too shallow normally to get the boat down, but in flood there is enough water. So, they went from church back to our house to load up the boat, our boys’ two kayaks and James’s boss’s kayak, and came back to get another friend’s kayak, and headed to Nelson Creek to jump off.
Several days later, they took the barrel boat and several canoes down the Grey River from the Ahaura Bridge to Ngahere. Esther walked down to the river with them to bring our ute home; they had left a vehicle and trailer at the point where they planned to pull out. They packed a lunch to eat along the way, and had a great time–although two people who normally wear long pants got very sunburned legs!
Today, some of the boys stopped at a yard sale and bought two more kayaks! This will be the summer of boating, I have a feeling.
Mountain Climb
A few weeks ago, when Simon was home for his two days off, he took Mr. Imagination on an excursion. They took along Simon’s deer rifle in case they would see a game animal, but ended up climbing a mountain and not doing any hunting. The only animals they saw were a couple of goat kids. They came home tired, but very happy with the climb they had done. It was a mountain up the road from us maybe a half hour’s drive, overlooking the Ahaura River.
That’s the Ahaura River visible through the trees.
Looking to the northeast from the mountain. Simon was able to make out one of the farms he works on, and Gloriavale is visible, as well.
Mr. Imagination found this katydid.
It was after dark by the time they got home, and both boys were hungry and tired, but they had the time of their lives, and Simon felt rejuvenated and ready to go back to another week of work.
Christmas 2021
For Christmas this year, we decided to go on a picnic at Jim’s Hut, about a half-hour drive east of here, up the Ahaura River. Our boys have been there a lot of times, hunting, and Gayle has been there once, but the rest of us hadn’t seen it yet. I got a picnic ready, and we headed off, in two vehicles. Our van wouldn’t make it up the track, so Simon and Elijah each drove his 4WD. We got almost to the turn-off to Jim’s Hut—and Simon turned off the other way, onto a two-track going into the bush. It turned out, once we got together again and heard the story, that James had heard about this track (at least he thinks it was this one!), and they decided to explore something new! Here we are, following Simon’s Pajero. He wanted to use his kayak in the river, so he had a trailer on behind. These pictures were taken through the windscreen of Elijah’s Rav4, while we were bumping around.
Mudholes don’t faze that truck!
These ruts, however, were a different story. The reason for the blurriness is that we were being thrown around a lot. I think this was a few seconds before we stopped and all piled into the Pajero, leaving the Rav behind. Just ahead, the track got even rougher, with gullies at least two feet deep to navigate. Simon did very well, and the Pajero performed beautifully; I held on tightly!
The end of the line—Simon decided he wouldn’t try going through this creek, because the bank on the other side went up too steeply. The track goes on, but we decided not to walk it this time.
The bush is beautiful back there! I couldn’t possibly record the colors of the ferns, or the cool dampness, or the sound of the rushing water. You’ll just have to imagine!
Simon found a dead tree right away, and his trusty hatchet came in useful. Soon, we were treated to the sight of a tree crashing down into the ravine.
We laid out the picnic on the trailer, and had lunch, then packed up, got turned around, and went back out to the main road.
Finally, we were on the track to Jim’s Hut…and there was a tree across it. Out came the hatchet again!
The Ahaura River in front of Jim’s Hut.
Elijah tried fishing, but when someone is swimming in the same place, it doesn’t work very well. Several of the boys ended up swimming across the river and back.
The boys often take this cage across the river.
Some of us walked down to Jim’s Flat. It’s an open meadow surrounded by thick bush.
Looking upstream, to the mouth of the Ahaura Gorge…
…and downstream.
The girls wanted a ride over the river in the cage, so Simon and James obliged.
The kayak made a couple of trips up the gorge.
One more picture… I took this on our way out, going from home toward the mountains. Notice the bales of hay? Whoever mowed the roadsides baled it, too!
A Flooded River, and Mountains
We have had a lot of rain lately. One day, someone told us the river was quite high, so Esther and the younger ones walked down to take a look at it. It was up at least a meter higher than usual at that point. (Last week when we went down to the riverbed for a picnic, there was evidence that it had been a couple of meters higher than normal at some point recently!) We live about a quarter of a mile from the river, and could hear it roaring loudly from here. Usually, you can see a wide stretch of rocks here, going about halfway across the river.
Two weeks ago, we went “over the hill” to visit friends in Canterbury. Soon after we got over Lewis Pass, we had people feeling carsick, so stopped along this river for several minutes to let tummies settle down. It was so beautiful! Such a clear, blue sky and clean air, and the snow in the distance.
This was after we got out of the mountains, and I was looking back.
We enjoyed seeing this herd of Belted Galloways. Those calves were so cute! I wish the light had been better, but this was the best I could do for a photo.
We very much enjoyed two days of meetings with our church family over there. I took this photo just before we left, while I was sitting in the van feeding the baby. It was hard to leave!
Going home—more snow-capped mountains!
Several months ago, I wrote a review about a science program we were using. I just got an email that they have a new resource available, free. It looks really good, and a lot of fun. There are heaps of video lessons in it, and if they are anything like the ones we watched from this company already, we’ll learn a lot from them and be fascinated at the same time. I look forward to enjoying these soon! Go to the landing page for the Mighty Feathers Science Goodie to see what you think. If you like the course and want to subscribe to other topics, use this link, and enter the code loh12 for $5.00 off your purchase. I’d like to know what you think of the Mighty Feathers course, if you try it out!
Jet Boat Race
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.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFYM_GUcf28
And there you have it–our impromptu field trip this week!
Chautona Havig’s free Kindle book this week is 31 Kisses. I enjoyed it, but didn’t write a review; it’s kind of a “fluffy” book—not a lot to it. It’s just clean, fun romance.
Family Walk
One Sunday afternoon, our entire family walked down to the Ahaura River. We went down a road near us that went straight down the hill to the railroad track, then turned to cross a large creek.
Esther was very much not impressed with this old bridge. She calls it rickety, although many trucks cross it every day!
The creek.
After looking at the creek, we walked a long way to get to the river bed. It’s not the easiest place to push a stroller, but it worked all right with the big boys who enjoy pushing their little sister.
We had to cross the creek to get out to the Grey River.
This is the confluence of the Ahaura and Grey Rivers.
Just below where these boys are, the water rushes extremely fast through a very deep chute. They were at the top of it, keeping each other from washing away.
We passed these calves on the other side of the creek on our way home. We sure enjoyed that walk—this is a very beautiful area!
Mr. Imagination picked these lovely flowers for me.
