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You are here: Home / Archives for gore bay

gore bay

Port Robinson

December 13, 2017 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

One Monday afternoon a few weeks ago, we needed to be out of the house for awhile because our landlady was showing a potential buyer through the house. We decided to go out to Port Robinson; a few weeks before that date, Gayle had taken Mr. Diligence out for a picnic and fun time together, and they discovered the trail leading down to the old harbor. The rest of us wanted to see it, too, so we went there on that beautiful, sunny afternoon.

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The path down to the beach parallels the old slipway for awhile. It’s pretty overgrown.

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Gore Bay from the trail.

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Port Robinson

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This is what’s left of the bottom of the slipway. Approximately 120 years ago, the way I understand, this was about the only way to get goods in and out of Cheviot. They had a surfboat which they lowered down the slipway from the top of the cliff and out into the bay to where ships would anchor, to ship wool out. Supplies were brought back up in the surfboat with a winch.

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Mr. Intellectual and Mr. Sweetie

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That red blob is a sea anemone.

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I was intrigued by the swirls in some of the rocks.

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When we saw this flock of seagulls feeding just offshore, we wished we had brought our fishing poles! There would have been big fish there, too, feeding on a school of small ones.

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There are two paua, known in California as abalone, in this picture. Can you find them?

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We enjoyed finding these two large starfish!

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Mr. Diligence was fascinated by the way the starfish held on to him.

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Mr. Sweetie

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Mr. Intellectual and Mr. Sweetie, with Mr. Imagination in the foreground.

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We even got to see a jellyfish!

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Another starfish!

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When it was flipped over, we discovered that it was feeding! A couple of the children were able to see its stomach being sucked back inside after it let go of the snail.

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This was a very fun afternoon—don’t tell the children it was a field trip! We ended our time with a stop at Gore Bay to play in the water for 15 minutes. I’m so glad I didn’t twist my ankle until after this trip and the one to Hurunui Mouth several days later.

I have linked this post up with other homeschooler’s posts, here.

Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: gore bay, Homeschooling, Ocean, Port Robinson

Gore Bay

October 18, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Simon came home for a few days a couple of weeks ago. We loved seeing him again, and spending time with the family he lives with, as well. We took them out to Gore Bay, since the weather was so lovely. I don’t think I had been out there since January! Everything was so clear and gorgeous.

One of the must-sees in Cheviot is Cathedral Lookout, above the south end of Gore Bay. I never tire of seeing this place. I couldn’t decide which perspective I liked better, so decided to use both pictures.

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Gore Bay was so beautiful that day, too! This is the south end, looking toward Port Robinson. It was high tide, so we didn’t go down to the rocks at the point.

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Mr. Intellectual kept busy a long time building this tower.

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Does it look like Simon is happy to be with his family again?

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We went to the playground, too. I felt dizzy just watching the merry-go-round!

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Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: gore bay, Ocean

January 2017 Pictures

February 11, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Soon after the young turkeys were released into the paddock, a bunch of them got out into the yard and congregated here.14-IMG_1708

Right after Christmas I started a bunch of cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli seeds, and New Year’s weekend got them into potting soil. Now, they are in the garden and growing fast. I’m hoping for a decent fall/winter harvest this year—still trying to work out when the best time is to start that crop.

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A family came to visit us the second weekend in January, and that Saturday Gayle took them out to Gore Bay. The boys took their inflatable boat, and the children had fun boating in a lagoon.

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The young turkeys often spend time perched on this gate. They sleep in the tree above it at night. One morning I was in the garden at 6:15 to start a sprinkler, and saw the turkeys get up for the day—or rather, down! They flew out of the tree one after another, or a bunch at a time. So funny!

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Mr. Inventor’s poultry flock: geese, ducks and turkeys. He must have 70 or 80 birds, or even a hundred, in that flock.

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A few days after the family I mentioned above came to visit, I took our children and a couple of theirs to Gore Bay. Since the last time we had been there, sand had come in and covered the rocks on the beach, making a wonderful place to play at low tide. The children had a lot of fun!

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It was fun to investigate a starfish we found.

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The family who came to visit asked if they can stay here a few weeks while they wait for their visas to be granted. They are living in our shipping container/sleepout, and Mr. Inventor and Mr. Diligence built this gate to go across the driveway that leads to it so they can drive right up to their room. We had just had a section of fencing across it before, to keep wandering sheep out. They built it out of pallets and a few boards given to them by a friend who moved to Australia a few months ago, and hung it on the gate posts put in by a former resident of this house, using the hinges from the original gate. 30-IMG_1812

Filed Under: Activities at Home, Away From Home Tagged With: gore bay, Random Photos

Gore Bay After the Quake

December 6, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We took my mom to Gore Bay only once while she was here. I wanted to take her again yesterday (she left today), but Monday I ended up in the hospital with a miscarriage, so that changed all our plans for the week.

Gore Bay didn’t seem much different. The boys thoroughly enjoyed playing in the water. It was right on high tide when we arrived, so the water was gradually going out. That meant they had to stay fairly close in because of the undertow, but they had a lot of fun anyway. Mr. Inventor dug a pool for Little Miss to splash in. She loved that!

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Among all the white and gray rocks along the shore, we found these red and green ones! They were much prettier when they were wet.

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The hillside going down to the water was covered with nasturtiums and sweet peas in bloom. The smell was so heavy! It was really lovely.

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One of the first things we noticed when we arrived at the bay was this fresh slip. The soil at the very top of the cliff had fallen down to the bottom. Then, soon after several of us thought we felt a small tremor, we noticed it was still falling; we saw clouds of dust going down several times. Esther tried to capture it in a video; this short clip shows some.

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Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: gore bay, Ocean

Gore Bay and Kaikoura

November 25, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The Saturday that Gayle’s aunt and uncle were here, he took them and our children, and a couple of other visitors, out to Gore Bay. I stayed home to work on food for the weekend, so these are the pictures someone else took. Apparently, Little Miss has gotten past her fear of the sea!62-IMG_0860

They walked around to Port Robinson, and found some unusual things. This was a dead octopus they found washed up.

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A live sea urchin!

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Two elephant slugs.

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Including our family, we had 25 people on Sunday and Monday morning! This was when we had the conference at which Gayle’s uncle spoke. I took this picture Sunday morning just before breakfast.

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On our way to church, we stopped at a place from which you can see the Kaikoura Peninsula and the coast for a long ways around. We were treated to a closeup look at this bellbird, who was helping himself to nectar from this kowhai tree.

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After church, some of the party walked over the Kaikoura Peninsula. I went home to cook tea, but my photographer stayed to walk!

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That was a really good weekend. It was a lot of work to feed so many people, but so worth while.

Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: gore bay, Kaikoura, Ocean

Sunday School Picnic and Gore Bay

June 15, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I looked at the pictures on Esther’s memory card yesterday, and found some from the Sunday School picnic in March that I’d like to share! This picnic is an annual event at the home of a family way up in the hills, nearly to the mountains. After lunch, we walked out in a paddock behind the house. A couple of our boys had spent two nights there in December, and wanted to show us where they had played. It was quite interesting! They discovered that this tree was hollow, and opened up a hole just a bit more so they could fit inside. Here is Mr. Inventor peering out.01-DSCF177702-DSCF1780

This is how you get it—turn sideways and wriggle through! No thanks.

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The valley the tree was in.04-DSCF179005-DSCF1793

They also wanted to show us the big willow trees they played in.

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This was the original house on the farm, built about a hundred years ago. Unfortunately, it is in very poor shape now. It was quite interesting to look at, though.

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The day after the picnic, we took a picnic to another place: Gore Bay. The boys wanted to try out an inflatable dinghy they were given. It didn’t work very well in the waves here, but when they tried it on a quiet lagoon, it worked well.

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Little Miss is terrified of the sea—she wanted to stay safe with Daddy.

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Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: gore bay

Gore Bay

January 22, 2014 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One day last week, we went to the sea for an hour or so. The older four boys rode their boogie boards in the surf, while the little ones played at the edge of the waves, and built a house from sand. The littlest was diligently taking handfuls of sand from the wall his brother built, and patting them down onto another part of the wall!DSCF1639 DSCF1641 DSCF1642 DSCF1644 DSCF1645

Just before we left, we saw this container ship offshore.
Just before we left, we saw this container ship offshore.
Waiting for the last few to finish dressing.
Waiting for the last few to finish dressing.
We went up the hill to look for Banana Passion Fruit. Esther stayed on top of the hill to tell the boys when to come back.
We went up the hill to look for Banana Passion Fruit. Esther stayed on top of the hill to tell the boys when to come back.
Scrambling down the hill after looking for the fruit.
Scrambling down the hill after looking for the fruit.

Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: gore bay, Ocean

Disconnected

September 14, 2013 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We’ve had quite an interesting week!  Monday and Tuesday were normal days, but Tuesday night when we went to bed there was a strong wind blowing and I saw online that a violent storm was making its way north up the island towards us.  Soon after we went to bed, apparently about 11:00, the power went out–and didn’t come back on for over 42 hours! Towards morning, we started having thunder and lightning, and when it was light enough to see we saw a number of branches down around the place.  There was no power where Gayle works, either, so after he went in to see if there was anything he could do with the power out, he came home again to start cleaning up the mess around here.  The boys really enjoyed working with their daddy on that kind of job!  I spent the day working on the mending pile.  Of course, without electricity, I couldn’t use the sewing machine, so I just pinned on patches and did some hand sewing.  The entire mending pile is now waiting for me to sit down at the sewing machine–I should be able to whip right through once I get there.  Esther spent the day reading and writing, but it was rather frustrating because the day was so dark and cloudy.  We don’t realize how reliant we are on electricity till we don’t have it anymore.  We were very thankful for the gas grill we had been given, enabling us to at least cook, and for the fact that we have chest freezers rather than upright ones.  I moved all the things from the fridge freezers to the chest freezers, and we opened them as little as possible.  I also fed the fresh milk to the calves, since we had no way to chill it.  The milk that was already in the one fridge stayed fresh, since I had turned the temperature way down a couple of days earlier and forgot to turn it back up–the milk froze in it!  That was a blessing in disguise!  We used up the food that would go bad in the other fridge, but mostly we had milk products in there which are all right even if they warm up.

That evening we had a very interesting experience.  About an hour before dark,  a car pulled up at the driveway.  There were four people in it, three men and one woman, French tourists in the country for nine months.  They are trying to see the country in the least expensive way, and were asking for a place to set up their tents for the night!  We gave them permission to camp in our yard, and invited them in for supper.  I put together a stew for supper, using potatoes and cooked beef from the fridge, a couple of jars of tomatoes and one of carrots, and a leek that Simon brought in.  Soon after I put it on the grill to cook, I realized that the flame was lower than it had been.  Sure enough, the flame went out after awhile, but the stew was hot enough to eat.  The leeks were just a bit crunchy, still!  We had a fun evening chatting with our surprise guests by the light from headlamps placed strategically around the top of the room, and candles on the table.  They said several times how good the meal was (stew, cabbage salad, bread and butter, and homemade cheese).  I didn’t think it was that extraordinary, but then Gayle asked them what they’ve been eating:  Ramen noodles!  No wonder they enjoyed what we offered!

That night the wind came up again, and by morning was blowing at gale force again.  We still had no power, but at 6:30 Gayle called in to work and learned that they had a generator, so he went in.  I went to town as soon as the shop opened to get a new cylinder of gas so we could cook breakfast!  Our French visitors left about the same time Gayle left for work–I was relieved, as they had pitched their tents close to a big gum tree, which was swaying their way in the strong wind.  It didn’t fall, but if it had it would have crushed them.

The second day, the sun shone and it was bright–what a nice change.  We still had no power all day, and I was preparing myself mentally for another dark evening of cooking over the grill outside, and planning a breakfast and lunch for the next day that would not require cooking or washing dishes.  Then, praise God, the power came back on at 5:35!  What a wonderful sight.  Life is now back to normal for us, and we didn’t lose any more than a cup or two of food. The boys were quite disappointed; they like playing with candles.  One of them was saving all the extra wax that ran off the candles, and melted it down, making another candle from it.

We were also glad be be back in touch with the rest of the world, although it was very peaceful and quiet during the power cut!  We had no internet, of course, and the cell service was also out.  Our landline worked the first day, but the second day it didn’t.

Aftermath of the storm; Gayle and the boys piled up the branches that were too small for firewood.

Another storm rolling in over the hills to the west of us. We had an interesting experience the week before, also.  We had helped to organize a meeting here in Cheviot with a speaker from Creation Ministries International.  We had a barbeque before the meeting; about 50 people came for that, and there were probably about 75 at the meeting itself.  That was very good, but we also really enjoyed having the speaker, Tas Walker, and his driver in our home for the night.  Friday morning before they took off for Christchurch, we took them, and a single lady from our church, who also slept here overnight in her van, to Gore Bay.  We really enjoyed our chance to get to know Tas.

Our dear friend Pete helped with the cooking.

The men cooking sausages for the BBQ. Tas Walker is the second from the left.

Cathedral Gully above Gore Bay–beautiful erosion!

The boys enjoyed this little cave.

We admired the rock layers in Port Robinson, just around the point from Gore Bay.

Fine rock layers. The geology of Gore Bay is amazing.

Sea tulips–a type of sea squirt.

Our picnic, after exploring Gore Bay.

His own personal table, complete with food and drink!

Filed Under: Activities at Home, Away From Home Tagged With: Canterbury, Cheviot, Geology, gore bay, Storm

Beach Clean Up

August 24, 2013 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We were given a trip on Whale Watch this week.  They asked that, in return, we spend some time doing a beach clean up.  Last week, we had a day that was so lovely and warm that we decided we would do it then, at Gore Bay.  We split up into two groups; three of the boys went one way and the rest of us went the other way.  I told them to start back after half an hour and we would meet up near the start.  It is amazing, and disgusting, what you find on the beach!  Why don’t people pick up after themselves?  Most of what we found had been thrown under the bushes at the edge; there were a lot of beer bottles.  Yuck!  We also found an old tire and some lumber, but the most unusual find was the huge wad of frayed rope that the boys found!

One group went north.

One group went south.

He said he wouldn’t help, since he couldn’t go on Whale Watch, but when we got started he couldn’t resist! After our time cleaning up (and deciding we should do it again in a few weeks), I let the boys play on their “raft” again for awhile.  They sure are having fun poling that around the lagoon!

While we waited for the rafters to come back, these two built a bridge. I found this mermaid’s purse.Mussel shell with coral on it.The biggest find of the day!

And then, the camera got dipped into the water, so we had to buy a new one in order to take pictures when we went on Whale Watch!

Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: Canterbury, Cheviot, gore bay, Ocean

Jed River Cemetary

July 26, 2013 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Last Saturday was a gorgeous, warm (for winter) day, so Gayle suggested that we take our lunch out to Gore Bay and have a picnic.  What a good idea!  Since it was high tide and therefore not good for beachcombing, we decided to try to find an old Maori graveyard that a local farmer pointed out to the boys last spring.  We didn’t find that, but we did find an early European cemetery, dating back to the earliest days of settlement in this area.  The most recent burial there was 19 years ago.  There are around 25-30 graves, only about 1/3 of which are marked.  It was a beautiful spot for a cemetery–on top of a hill overlooking the Jed Estuary and Gore Bay, and so peaceful.

Getting ready to go

To go to the cemetery, we had to cross the mouth of the Jed River/Buxton Creek. It was only an inch or two deep, but with it being high tide, there were often several inches of water. Seth ended up carrying the two youngest over by himself!The trail from the beach to the cemetery was fun!

The Jed Estuary, with an old woolshed on the far side, and Gore Bay in the distance.

This is all that marked one grave.

All that’s left of the gate to the cemetery.

After exploring the cemetery, the boys worked on punting their “raft”–a large forked log–around the lagoon at the place where the Jed River and Buxton Creek flow into the sea.  They had great fun learning to maneuver it around, and then pulled it out so it will hopefully still be there next time we go.

The boys reenacted Hone Heke, a Maori chief in the 1840s, who chopped down an English flagpole on a hill overlooking present-day Russell, four times.

A hut that someone built out of driftwood. Daddy helped pull the log to a deeper part of the lagoon. Pulling the log out

Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: Canterbury, Cheviot, gore bay, Ocean

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The Family:


Dad and Mom (Gayle and Emma)

Girl #1, Esther, my right hand

Boy #1, Seth (Mr. Handyman)

Boy #2, Simon (Mr. Inventor)

Boy #3, Mr. Intellectual

Boy #4, Mr. Diligence

Boy #5, Mr. Sweetie

Boy #6, Mr. Imagination

Girl #2, Little Miss

Girl #3, Miss Joy

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