Boating

Boating the Ahaura

January 19, 2025 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

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!

Kayaking

January 14, 2024 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

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.

Boating Down the Creek

September 17, 2023 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

About a month ago, Gayle and most of the boys and the little girls went down the hill to Orwell Creek, which loops around the hill on which our village sits before emptying into the river. They took an assortment of watercraft, and floated down the creek to the mouth. Gayle drove along to pick them up at the end, and took several photos and a few video clips when he was close to the water. These aren’t very good photos or videos, but they’re fun! The first photo is near the beginning of the excursion; the second is near the end.

Christmas at Lake Haupiri

January 26, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

For our family’s Christmas celebration, we took a picnic lunch and ate it beside the Haupiri River. Then, we went back down the road a couple of miles to the boat ramp into Lake Haupiri. The boys launched their barrel boat and spent the afternoon boating around the lake and playing in the water. I enjoyed sitting in a camping chair in the shade and looking at the scenery! The second picture shows Gloriavale, directly across the lake.

Boats

January 16, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Mr. Intellectual continues to work on his strip canoe. He finally got all the strips glued together, and has been working on sanding it. It’s beautiful! Here it is nearly finished, and then with the last strip in place and part of the sanding done.

Meanwhile, the boys have been enjoying their barrel boat. Here it is after the first use, when they went down the Grey River.

This was the day they used it next, when we went down to the creek below our town with some friends to spend a Sunday afternoon in the water. They punted up and down the creek a number of times, but then that got boring, so they decided to sink it. The only way they could get it to sink was to take the plug out of the end and let it fill up with water—and even that took a long time!

Then, they used it on Christmas Day on a lake—I’ll publish a post in a few weeks about that. The most recent time they used it, Simon took Esther and one of her friends, and our two little boys, down the Grey River. They sunk it, and now they have to rebuild the motor—or dry it out, or something. It ended up quite dented, as you can see in this photo that Mr. Intellectual took to show someone.