Hiking

One Friday evening in the middle of February, one of our older children had a sudden inspiration: “Why don’t we go camp at Nelson Creek tonight?” Gayle and I weren’t interested, but all the children were, so, except for the two little girls, they all packed up tents and sleeping bags and breakfast, and took off. It’s only 15 minutes from home, so quite doable on the spur of the moment. They cooked sausages over a fire for breakfast and then took a long hike before coming home late in the morning. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves and want to do it again sometime.

Mr. Intellectual, Mr. Diligence, Simon, Mr. Imagination, Mr. Sweetie

Mr. Sweetie, Simon

Simon

Nathan

On top of the hill—Mr. Imagination, Simon, Mr. Sweetie, Mr. Diligence, Mr. Intellectual

After their hike, they went for a quick swim. These two boys couldn’t see each other! There is just enough of a curve in the cliff that they were both asking Esther where the other one was!

That same afternoon, Simon loaded three of his brothers into our ute and went to pick up a few more boys, friends from the North Island who spend part of their time down here, and they all went looking for a track Simon had heard about. They couldn’t find it, so they ended up back at Nelson Creek, and grabbed a friend who lives in the village. He went along, and they went up the same track our children had hiked that morning. When they got to the end, however, instead of coming back down the track, our friend led them down into a ravine, saying there was likely an old mining dam down there. They had quite an adventure scrambling down sheer cliffs and through such a narrow valley that they had to have a foot on each side to get through.

This pickax is likely left from the old gold-mining days.

Simon brought two of their friends home for the night, and the boys decided to sleep on the lawn under the stars. About 3:00 in the morning, though, it started to rain! One of the boys woke up and felt the rain, so woke the others and they all quickly came inside. When we got up in the morning, there was one boy asleep on the couch, and the rest were in the bedroom. I was very pleased that my boys could do something like this with friends; they don’t have this kind of opportunity very often. We have so many great places to hike in this region.

Sunday after church, we decided to take a hike before going home. We drove south from Kaikoura, along the coast, on our normal route home, but stopped where the highway goes away from the coast into the hills, at Oaro. After parking the van beside the beach, we took off walking. Someone had told us about a cliff where there are a lot of fossils, and the boys wanted to find some. We walked along a trail through lupines in full bloom, first, then crossed the Oaro River. We never got our feet wet! The river goes through gravel, under a bank several feet high. Then, we walked along the access road between the railroad and the beach.

This boy likes to do what everyone else is not doing–in this case, everyone else was on the road–but not him!

The most surprising discovery we made appeared to be a train wreck, from 75-100 years ago. There was a string of railway carriages pushed over the bank to just above the high-tide line of the beach, and even a steam engine! We found out a couple of days later that old railway cars used to be pushed over the edge to help stabilize the bank. The next excitement came when we got to a section of beach where there is a retaining wall for a good ways, and the water comes right up to the base of it. Most of us walked along the roadway on top, but two adventuresome boys decided to walk along the ledge at the bottom of the retaining wall. Well and good–except it went a lot farther than we ever imagined, and got narrower and narrower! They had to keep moving to different levels to keep going. There was no way to get them up over the top–they had to go on or go back! They made it eventually–but I think this mom probably has a few more gray hairs!

Another boy got down on the ledge after he got to the end of it, and went back to help keep the 3-year-old going, and safe. Brotherly love!

While he waited for the boys to come to the end of the ledges, Daddy found a place to sit out of the wind and let baby play with rocks.

The next section was lovely sand that reminded me of Lake Michigan beaches, except that it was dark instead of bright yellow. So warm to the feet! After that section, the shore turned rocky again, so we walked on the road again, between tall stands of fennel.

This boy was pretending to hide from the train (long before it showed up!)

Baby rode most of the time on Daddy’s shoulders.

We knew the passenger train should be coming through soon, so we were watching out for it.

The children stood on a small hill to wave at the passengers, and when it had passed we started back for the van. By now, the sun had gone behind the hills and it was getting cold. The children all armed themselves (against ??) with dried-out fennel stalks and we marched. Daddy got to the van first, with baby, and I straggled in last with the 3-year-old. We all agreed it had been a wonderful experience, even though we never did figure out which cliff had the fossils.

Hiking

Thank you!