Christchurch

Lyttleton

October 15, 2023 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Near the beginning of September, I had the privilege of going to the HEART South retreat for homeschooling mothers. It was a very special experience to be with around a hundred other mothers who all share similar goals. This year, it was held at the Living Springs camp near Lyttleton, just outside of Christchurch. During the free time on the Saturday afternoon, I went for a walk with some friends. That “walk” turned out to be quite an adventure, as we tried to blaze a trail to a particular destination! The trail we thought we were on turned out to be a dead end, and trying to get back to where we needed to be was a bit challenging. It was a lot of fun, though, and I loved the time reconnecting with old friends.

This is the view up the hill from the camp.

Looking down over the camp buildings toward Lyttleton Harbor. Banks Peninsula is on the other side of the water, to the right.

We walked out past the camp to their outdoor camping area, and enjoyed this view of the harbor.

That evening after dark, I walked outside by myself for a little while to enjoy the warm night. This was the harbor in the dark–except it was much more beautiful in reality.

And, the harbor again in morning light! It was so beautiful!

This was a nettle we saw on the walk on Saturday afternoon. I still haven’t gotten around to looking it up to see what kind it is, but I don’t think I want to touch it!

Then, a few weeks later, I saw Lyttleton from the other side. Simon and I went to Christchurch to buy a car, and the dealer told us to go through the Lyttleton Tunnel on our test drive.

Orana Park, Again!

November 27, 2022 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We went to Orana Wildlife Park in Christchurch twice in the past, but it has been a long time. We needed to go to Christchurch to pick my mom up at the airport, so Gayle and I decided to take our younger family (we have four older children and four younger, separated by four years) to the zoo. We spent about five hours walking around enjoying the animals. What makes Orana Park really stand out, though there aren’t very many animals compared to most zoos, is that we got to watch many of the animals being fed. We followed the schedule and saw every feeding for that day.

The meerkats were given eggs for this feeding.

Though the African porcupines normally sleep during the day, they came out eagerly for their dog biscuits!

Baby emus are cute!

When we arrived at the otter enclosure, they were standing up, begging in high-pitched squeaks and whistles for their fish!

All four children watching the ducks on one pond.

I’m not sure what type of birds these were, but they had a nest in the moat around the rhino enclosure.

Everyone’s favorite part of the zoo visit was feeding the giraffe! We were given olive branches, which we held up so the giraffe could strip off the leaves.

This is the baby giraffe–he’s about a year old.

They had fun feeding the turkey and chickens!

The lion feeding is always fun, too. This was the first day since Covid started that the truck was used to feed them. Only staff were on the truck for the trial run, but they plan to start selling tickets to the public again soon. Two of the three lions in the enclosure remembered this, but one didn’t seem to.

Tasmanian devil

We were very close to the rhinos while they ate their special treat: lucerne (alfalfa) hay.

I was talking to one of the zoo volunteers at the rhino enclosure, and happened to notice this nest right above his head. Not sure that was a good place to stand!

The children loved feeding the trout–and the ducks love the trout food! I tried to get a picture of the trout, but my battery ran out right there.

Antarctic Centre

May 9, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

In early March, we had the chance to go to the Antarctic Centre in Christchurch with the homeschool group we used to be part of. One of the moms from the group organized special rates for us. Gayle and I took the youngest five children and had a fun tour.

We started with a Hagglund ride. Miss Joy is too young to go on this ride, so Gayle took care of her while I went with the other children. About ten years ago when we went the other time, I stayed back from the Hagglund with the current baby, so this time I enjoyed getting to experience it.

Here are two of the other Hagglunds. They are used for exploration in Antarctica, and can go over incredibly rough terrain. They are watertight and very strong!

This was one of the obstacles we went over on the 15-minute ride. It was a very steep hill.

This is the other Hagglund that took part of our group.

We drove over these logs. They are intended to represent broken-up sea ice.

This was another very steep hill, with large boulders in the water at the bottom.

The other Hagglund going through the water.

Just before we went into the 4D theater, Gayle had the children pose here.

This was the highlight of the day for some of the children—the cold room! It is kept below freezing, and then they started a storm. The wind whipped up, and the temperature stopped dropping. It got down to about 0°F for a few minutes.

Field Trip

April 13, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One day last week, we had to take a friend to the airport early in the morning, so I decided to take a field trip. We don’t often decide to do something like that, but there was a special exhibit at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch that I wanted to take the children to. Air New Zealand was celebrating their 75th anniversary, so they had a huge exhibit of their history.

The first part of our adventure was finding a place to park. Esther was driving, practicing her skills in the city. She got to drive around the City Centre area for half an hour before we finally tried out a car park in the middle of Hagley Park and found empty spaces! Then, we had to walk quite a ways in the drizzle to the museum. We really didn’t mind the walk, though. It led through the Botanic Garden, which we hadn’t visited for over six years. It was so beautiful! I want to take time again, on a nice day, maybe in spring, to explore the gardens more. We stopped to admire this enormous macrocarpa tree. Left to right are Mr. Diligence, Mr. Inventor, Mr. Intellectual, Mr. Sweetie, Little Miss, Esther, and Mr. Imagination.

The flower beds were stunning!

On the way to the airplane exhibit, Mr. Imagination and I got separated from the rest, because he was asking questions about some of the other exhibits. I let him take time to ride the horse in the Christchurch street area.

This spot allowed you to decorate your own airplane. The boys spent a lot of time here. You could email your finished design to yourself; they turned it into a model you can print, cut out, and put together. We only ended up doing that with one, though, Mr. Sweetie’s.

When we left the museum, someone pointed out that the downspouts were decorative! I love late 1800s-early 1900s architecture.

Mr. Diligence made his model plane on a rainy day several days before our field trip; Mr. Sweetie is holding the model he made from his design at the museum.

Orana Park

April 10, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We have been going to Christchurch every six weeks or so for the past year and a half, for Mr. Inventor’s orthodontist appointments. Of course, these are always on weekdays, so I just take the children unless Gayle takes a day off work. The most recent one, however, was on a Saturday because the orthodontist was planning to take a few weeks off, so we made it a family trip. It happened to be Mr. Imagination’s 5th birthday, so we decided to celebrate by going to Orana Wildlife Park. What fun! It was a drizzly day, and chilly, so there weren’t as many people as usual, but the animals were more active for the most part, and we really enjoyed the day.

We enjoyed catching a glimpse of the American bison calf having a feed!

It’s always fun to feed the giraffes.

The birthday boy in front of a lion.

People pay a lot for the privilege of riding in this truck while the lions are fed.

We went back a second time to feed the giraffes.

The male rhino had apparently been taking a mud bath.

We got up close to the rhinos after their feeding, too. Little Miss had fallen down the steps at church the Sunday before this, and hit her forehead on the concrete.

By the time we left, she was tired of being there and wanted to drag her feet on the road when she was in the stroller!

And here are a few photos Mr. Diligence took of the animals.

Day at the Park

November 27, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

After we took Gayle’s aunt and uncle to the airport, we met some new friends in a park in Christchurch. I had “met” the mother online; she blogs at Mommynificent. They were moving from Asia to America, and stopped off to visit a friend in New Zealand. We were happy to be able to meet up, and spent a couple of hours together at this lovely big park on a clear sunny day.

Little Miss loved getting swing rides.

My new friend and I, with our babies—only a month apart!

Mr. Intellectual gave us a scare. Shortly before we were ready to leave, he did a flip off his swing and landed on his face. Once he was over being dizzy he was fine except for the terribly-looking cuts and bruises on his face. By now, he’s looking good again.

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.

Christchurch

September 4, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The last week my sister-in-law was here, I had to go to Christchurch for an orthodontist appointment for Mr. Inventor. While we were there, we took her to the Canterbury Museum. I won’t put any pictures of the displays on here; I find pictures of museum displays to be pretty boring! This is one of the beautiful old buildings across the street from the museum.

A fascinating fountain outside the museum.

The entrance to the museum.

After we left the museum, we spent a couple of hours shopping. This little girl had apparently had all she could take!

Last Day With Grandma

December 21, 2014 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

No one wanted to go to Christchurch the last day of November. Going to Christchurch meant dropping Grandma off at the airport, and we just weren’t ready for that! The tickets said we had to take her there that day, though, so we did it. We went to church in Waikari that morning, since it is on the way to town. Going between Waikari and the highway, we crossed Weka Pass, which is a low pass through a range of hills. There are some spectacular rock formations in that pass! The last one is called Frog Rock.

Since we had about three hours in town before having to be at the airport, we went to Willowbank Wildlife Reserve, a small zoo. Before entering, we were taking a picture of the children in front of this small building, and a bus driver who was waiting nearly came up and offered to take a picture of all of us! We greatly appreciated it; he said he does it all the time.

There are some beautiful spots along the trail that winds through the park.

See the black swan under the branches?

One special extra we had at Willowbank was when we happened upon a group of keepers releasing three emus into an enclosure. They had just gotten them and were opening the crate when we arrived on the scene. It was pretty funny to see those heads popping up over the edge of the crate, then hiding again. Once the door was open and the keepers were all out of the enclosure, it took a long time for the emus to get up the courage to actually leave the crate that had been their home for three days! We stayed to see one bounce out, but after 10 minutes or so moved on and left the 10 or so keepers to keep watch! This was obviously the event of the day at Willowbank!

Willowbank

May 20, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We were able to get tickets to Willowbank Wildlife Reserve for half-price recently, thanks to a tip from a friend. The tickets were good till the end of June, so we were planning to go sometime before then, but weren’t sure when it would work out. Gayle didn’t want to take time off work for that, but neither did we want to go on a Saturday because there would likely be a lot of people there. Then, we ended up needing to go to Christchurch to meet the Vice-Consul from the American Embassy in Auckland when he made a visit to Christchurch, to get the baby’s American paperwork done and apply for his passport. The appointment was in the early afternoon on a Thursday, and both of us had to be there, so that was our perfect opportunity to take the family to Willowbank!

There were tame eels in a pond at the beginning of the tour, and a woman was spoon-feeding them with a little container of food she bought in the office. They would crawl partway out of the water onto the step!