Christmas

Christmas 2024–Hokitka Gorge

January 5, 2025 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We had to wait a couple of days this year for our annual family Christmas excursion. Simon had to work on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and it rained on Christmas Day anyway, so we waited until the 27th. We had decided to visit the Hokitika Gorge, which we had never been to. It was a bad time to go there, since it is the peak of tourist season and there were hundreds of people, but the scenery was amazing. First, here is a glimpse of what we enjoyed on our way to the gorge.

When we arrived, the first order of business was to eat lunch. Elijah grilled burgers and we enjoyed delicious sandwiches.

Then, we walked the gorge track. The water was incredibly blue! That is caused by minute bits of rock ground off the mountains by glaciers, which is suspended in the water and reflects the blue of the sky.

This little girl got carried the entire way by big brothers. She felt like a queen!

James couldn’t resist crawling through this culvert. It was a tight enough squeeze that he had to keep his arms out in front of his head.

Think she likes the service she receives?

After we finished walking around the gorge, we decided to find some water so those who wanted to could go swimming. We checked out a beach along the sea, but it was open to the sun and those of us who didn’t want to swim decided we wanted shade to sit in, so we found a way down to the Taramakau River. The bridge in the background of some of these pictures used to be a rail/road bridge (see this post), but a new bridge was built beside it about six years ago, for cars, so the original bridge is for trains only. Several of the children went swimming…

…while Simon collected logs for firewood and got his caveman fix by teaching Elijah how to break them up into the right size for a bonfire without using a hatchet. It was pretty funny to watch that process! (No one got hurt.)

They made a very satisfying fire that burned down into a nice bed of coals for roasting sausages and marshmallows. While the fire was burning down, James requested that Esther read aloud to us. She hadn’t brought the book she is reading, but found it in an online library and downloaded it so we could read the next chapter.

Our family Christmas outing was very satisfying! Simon said at the end of the day that it had been “epic”–his highest praise!

Christmas 2023

January 21, 2024 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

For Christmas this year, we decided to go to Punakaiki and walk the Porariro River track. Some people wanted to go to the beach, but more of us wanted to do a bush walk, and this is the one that was chosen. We got there in time to eat our picnic lunch. Because it had been raining, the ground was quite wet, and of course we had forgotten our camping chairs, so we sat on the inner tubes the boys had taken along. That got pretty funny; the four boys who sat on one figured out that they could bounce in rhythm! I tried to get a video of it, but they always stopped as soon as I picked up the camera!

This is a twig that one of the children brought me.

Have a close look at how Simon parked. He was “trying to park beside us.”

The river was in flood; Esther said it was about two feet higher than the other time she walked this track. It was gorgeous!

I saw grooves on the underside of this rock from when they blasted it to form the track.

I’ve never noticed a bud on a Nikau Palm before. It’s huge!

I think this was a tree that fell over and an arch was formed for the track to go through. Gayle wanted a picture of me inside it!

The children all reached the swing bridge ahead of Gayle and I. Of course, James was bored and had to find ways to entertain himself and everyone else. This is what we saw!

We missed this. Esther captured this shot before we got there.

He quickly scooted down when we arrived–the same way he got up!

On the way back, Esther and I walked together. Gayle must have caught this picture of us going across the bridge. Everyone except the three of us walked back on a different track; we returned to the vehicles and drove around to pick them up.

I got a picture of this weka while it very busily searched for worms among the dead leaves.

As always, we enjoyed our day, and headed home quite tired. However, the boys dove right in to working on the barrel boat again!

Christmas 2021

January 2, 2022 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

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!

Christmas Day 2019

December 28, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

Our family Christmas tradition, since moving to the Southern Hemisphere where December is the beginning of summer, is to go on a picnic. Usually, we go away from home somewhere that we don’t often get to, such as the beach. This year, no one felt like going away. We took votes, and all but two of us voted to stay home! We decided to go down to the riverbed below our village and have a cookout beside the creek that flows into the river down there. Gayle and the two little boys went down ahead and started the fire; the rest of us went down when we were ready. The big boys loaded their barrel boat onto the trailer and took it down. We let them off at a place where the creek and road meet, and they loaded our food and other things into it, as the easiest way to get it all to the picnic site. Esther and I then drove on to the parking spot while they floated and poled downstream. Here they come around the bend!

When we were stopped at the ford where we loaded everything into the boat, I let Miss Joy touch the creek. She wasn’t sure about the cold water, but soon loved it!

Off they go! Mr. Diligence laid back in the stroller and had a luxurious ride.

Once we reached our destination and unloaded, the boys went across the creek to cut sticks for roasting sausages.

Miss Joy got to taste a carrot stick—what fun!

Mr. Sweetie broke his arm last week, so he has it in a sling. It’s a greenstick (or hairline) fracture an inch or two below his shoulder, so they didn’t put a cast on it. He’s looking forward to not having to wear the sling next week! It hasn’t slowed him down much, though.

Simon took his air rifle along, so after lunch he boated Esther and I across the creek and we got to try shooting. I never hit the target, but felt better later when he said that he had discovered, after we went home, that the scope was a bit off.

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.

Christmas Day

January 26, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

On Christmas Day, we went to the same beach we’ve gone to the past two years, and had a picnic in our favorite grove of pine trees. The trees make a lovely shady spot, and their needles make a soft, springy floor to sit on.

After lunch, we headed down to the beach. Some of us sat on the shore and watched, and some spent the whole hour or two in the water! We laughed a lot at the boys at times, as the large waves picked up the inner tubes and dumped the boys upside down on the beach, sometimes piling all three of them together! Unfortunately, I didn’t think about taking pictures until just as the tide went low enough that the really funny antics weren’t happening anymore.

I told Simon he had grown a beard, so then Mr. Imagination tried to make one, too. Is it any wonder that I was scooping gravel out of the washing machine the next day?

Here is a video clip showing the fun the boys were having. It was a wonderful day!