Holiday Trip

From Haast Pass to Home

March 31, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

On Day 12 of our big trip in December and January, we made it home! The trip was wonderful, we really enjoyed it, we saw amazing scenery and we spent time with many wonderful people—but it was time to get home. We packed up that morning in the DOC campground not too far from Haast Pass, on the West Coast side of the mountains, and then headed for the coast. It was clear and sunny that morning, and we enjoyed the amazing views of the mountains and rivers as we drove. Here we were, packing up the vans for the last time. We had put the fruit we brought on top of Simon’s van in case possums would come around during the night. We put the laundry up there, too.

When we reached the coast, it got foggy for awhile. I think this is the mouth of the Haast River.

This is Bruce Bay, if I remember right.

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Another river—I don’t remember which one.

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We drove up to the carpark for Franz Joseph Glacier. We ate lunch there, in the vans, because it started pouring. We had talked about walking up to the glacier, but because it was raining so hard we viewed it from the carpark and left again.

It rained off and on till after we went through Hokitika—see the rain coming down in the distance? We made a stop for fuel, but otherwise just kept on driving, and in the end we were glad we hadn’t stopped anywhere, because it took long enough to get home as it was.

From Te Anau Over the Haast Pass

March 28, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

On Day 11 of our big trip, the second-to-last day, we left our friends’ house in Te Anau fairly early and started our two biggest days of travel on the entire trip. We first drove to Queenstown, which took a couple of hours. It poured for awhile, and was cloudy the rest of the day, but the scenery was still incredible.

We drove along this lake for a long time. Queenstown is on the far end of it.

Notice the name on the brown sign? We were were going up the Devil’s Staircase here!

We stopped for a few minutes at a lookout. We would have stayed longer to enjoy the scenery, but a small person in the family had an emergency need, so we got moving again quickly.

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Almost to Queenstown!

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I think this is the other side of Queenstown, on our way to Cromwell.

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Cromwell is a fruit-growing center, so we stopped at a few shops to buy peaches, apricots, and plums. At one, we bought ice creams for the children. Can you tell that Miss Joy loves ice cream?

This place had incredible gardens we could wander through.

This lavender farm was right outside Cromwell.

Mr. Imagination always kept Miss Joy happy when he rode beside her. They spent a lot of time playing with wet wipes. Miss Joy scrubbed her face, neck, hands and feet very thoroughly, over and over!

We stopped in Wanaka just long enough to fuel up the vans, and then headed across Haast Pass. We were no longer in the mood for any sightseeing!

Heading up into the mountains!

After we crossed the pass and were again on the West Coast (notice the difference in vegetation?), we stopped at a waterfall. We saw this log covered with piles of rocks!

The boys enjoyed climbing on the rocks and skipping small ones.

The rocks were all like these.

We debated for awhile about driving the rest of the way home, or camping in a DOC campground a little way down the road. We had about five hours yet to reach home, and it was 3:00 in the afternoon. What a hard decision! We finally decided to stay at the campground and go home the next day, according to our original plan. At the campground, we discovered a creek along a track in the bush. I let the children play in it, and they had great fun! The older boys skipped stones, and coached the little boys in building a dam, and the girls played in the water. It wasn’t very warm, but not cold, either. We had enough clothes for the rest of the way home, so I decided not to worry about wet clothing—we had watertight tubs to put them in for the last leg of the trip!

This was our last night camping with the vans!

I cooked a stew on the campstove in the small picnic area, and we thoroughly enjoyed being by ourselves again!

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See how the beds were set up? It was surprisingly comfortable—and quite cozy!

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Esther took several short video clips of the fun at the creek—enjoy this glimpse into our evening!

Milford Sound—Part 3—The Trip Back

March 21, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

After we walked everywhere we could around Milford Sound, we gathered at the back of the vans to eat our sandwiches. It was raining, so some of us stood under the open back door; others got inside and sat in the seats. Wherever we were, the sandflies were BAD! They came in clouds, attacking every inch of exposed skin. We didn’t waste any time eating, and got on the road again quickly to escape the hungry hordes.

This is what we saw as we got on the road again. The mountains were absolutely spectacular, even through the rain.

Here we were heading up to the Homer Tunnel again, from the seaward side. Again, there were sheer rock cliffs going straight up. It’s nearly impossible to get a feel for it from a photo. I was absolutely awestruck by these mountains.

There’s the tunnel! I was quite disappointed that the light had just turned green. I was hoping we would have several minutes to sit there waiting, and soak in the grandeur of the scene.

Have you noticed the water streaming down the rocks all around?

Going down the landward side.

We stopped at a pulloff beside a waterfall. Miss Joy was asleep, so I stayed in the van with her while the others went to the viewing platform. This kea was on top of a motorhome; it rode for a little ways, and then flew back to our vans.

Miss Joy didn’t sleep long, so I got out of the van and went to see the waterfall, too.

When we moved on, the red van went ahead. Maybe I needed to feed Miss Joy? I can’t remember for sure. That left Esther and the two little girls and I together when we stopped at another overlook where we could see this spectacular valley. I can’t remember what it was called, but it was an amazing sight.

Our next stop was the Cascade Creek Nature Walk at Lake Gunn. Miss Joy needed some time to play, so I stayed in the gray van with the two little girls while everyone else went on the walk. These are Esther’s pictures.We also stopped at Mirror Lakes. A nice boardwalk led along the edge of a beautiful pond.

We were trying to get a picture of all the children, and another tourist offered to take our family picture, so we quickly organized for this.

Then, we went back to work on the children’s picture.

Miss Joy didn’t want to be separated from Mommy.

Finally, Daddy had to help keep her in place while I took the picture.

When we got back to Te Anau, we still had a few hours of daylight, so we stopped at the bird sanctuary. This is a takahe, a very rare bird. They have a couple of pairs there.

These are blue ducks, also very rare.

Paradise ducks aren’t exactly rare, but we enjoyed watching them. The mother (the one closest to the camera) was very worried that we would hurt her babies, and kept trying to get us through the fence.

This is a relative of the kea, some sort of a parrot, but I don’t remember what it’s called.

This is another parrot.

A table and chairs just her size!

A little house for her, too!

This is the view from our friends’ house. I would love to see it on a sunny day!Here is a video put together from several clips that various family members. The first clip was taken in the Eglinton Valley, on the way to Milford, by Mr. Imagination. Next is Esther’s clip of going through the Homer Tunnel, and then of going down the mountain from the tunnel. After that is a clip from sea level at Milford Sound, followed by one of the waterfall where we saw the kea. Then, there is one of Lake Gunn and a few from the nature walk.

Milford Sound–Part 2

March 17, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

We were excited to go through the Homer Tunnel. Around eight years ago, we read a book titled Below the Mountains, about digging this tunnel, and have wanted to see it ever since. It is about 1.2 km long, and was blasted out of solid rock. It goes down at a 1 in 10 gradient. It is only one lane wide, so there are lights at each end. At times, people have to wait up to 20 minutes to go through. We only had to wait about a minute and a half—just long enough to get out, stretch, say hello to the kea who was keeping an eye on the traffic, and jump back in.

The mountains surrounding the south side of the tunnel are incredible! As far as we could see through the mist and rain, there was roughly a horseshoe of cliffs going straight up, with waterfalls coming down here and there.

This kea was hopping around beside the road, looking for handouts—we didn’t give him anything!

Into the tunnel!

And out the other end.

On the north end, toward Milford Sound, the road goes down sharply in a series of switchbacks. The tunnel is at around 900 meters above sea level, and it takes only 15 minutes to get to the sound! That is a fast descent.

We have arrived at the Sound!

The sheer cliffs are incredible.A duck on top of a campervan.

Some of the cruise ships tied up at the dock.

Mr. Sweetie under a tree.

Sometimes we got to see Mitre Peak, the famous mountain out in the fjord.

That large white splash in the center is a huge waterfall.

Gayle and James figuring out where to go next.

We walked out on a strip of land that goes a ways out into the sound.

We got a good view of the spectacular waterfall from out there.

Elijah, Mr. Sweetie, Simon, Mr. Diligence.

Me with Miss Joy, Gayle, Mr. Imagination, Little Miss

An oystercatcher

Paradise Ducks

The mist about half way up the right side of the picture is from the waterfall.

Mr. Imagination found this crab.

Baby Paradise Ducks

We climbed to an overlook above the township, and were rewarded with this view.

I was fascinated with the plants growing out of the cliff.

The next post will show what we experienced on our way back to Te Anau. So much spectacular scenery! It about overloaded me.

Milford Sound—Part 1

March 14, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 4 Comments

Near the end of our trip, we spent a day driving to Milford Sound and back. We have wanted to go there for a long time, and especially to see the Homer Tunnel, which is part of the highway going out to Milford.

We started out around 9:00 from Te Anau, where we had spent the night with some friends. There were low clouds; we could see the water of Lake Te Anau, and the lower slopes of the mountains.

As we drove on, the clouds thinned little by little, and we caught glimpses of the towering mountains lining both sides of the road.

This valley with farmland opened up as we came over one hill. Most of the way, we drove through a valley with mountains fairly close on either side.

Lake Te Anau is long! I think this is near the end where the highway goes away from the lake shore.

After about an hour of driving, we left the farmland behind completely and were driving through wild country.

This is the Eglinton Valley, where we stopped at a pull-off for a few minutes.

The weather soon closed in again.

We stopped at another pull-off to swap drivers. This would have been about an hour and a half after leaving, just before we reached the Homer Tunnel. There was a beautiful little creek, and a lot of interesting vegetation.

…to be continued. After my first sorting, I got down to 141 pictures for this day. I got that reduced to around 120—still too many for one post!

From Invercargill to Te Anau

March 7, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

On the ninth day of our big trip, we drove from Invercargill to Te Anau. To drive straight there would have taken only a couple of hours, so we decided to take a longer route and see more sights. W went west and a little south, and stumbled across a historical museum in Riverton. Because it was raining, we decided to spend part of our day there—it was dry inside! The museum was very interesting. Our tour started with a movie about the Maori and the first white settlers in the area, and then we spent time exploring the wonderful exhibits. Someone noticed this poster, showing gems that can be picked up at a nearby beach, and Esther took a picture of it. The boys enjoyed the room with all the rocks! I liked the historical exhibits better, but this room was quite interesting, too.

We found Gemstone Beach on the map, so we decided to stop there. It was drizzling, but not too hard. The group of people in the center of this picture are our children. They figured that the creek might be a good place to find gems.

This is what the beach looked like. Most of these stones are about 1/2-3/4 inch in diameter. Such a variety! I don’t think we found anything too valuable. We found a lot of jasper, and some that may have been jade, and a lot of others that were just plain beautiful. We filled a 2-quart bucket with them to bring home. They are still sitting in that bucket, except for a few that I put in a quart jar to weight it down so it wouldn’t spill when I put sunflowers in it.

I was quite amused when I noticed “Windswept Trees” on the map! Yes, there were windswept trees—but not more than other places along the coast!

Here are some of the windswept trees.

Shortly after our visit to Gemstone Beach, where we ate our picnic lunch, we turned north and drove for a couple of hours to Te Anau. I would love to see what the area is really like; it was very cloudy and we couldn’t see the mountains that I’m sure were towering over us.

We saw a sign for a historic bridge, so decided on the spur of the moment to stop. That’s one thing I enjoyed about this trip. Most days, we had enough time that we could stop when we wanted to see something. We planned the trip so that, except for the last two days, we never drove more than 2-3 hours a day. This bridge was fun to walk across.

Simon standing on the bridge cables.

Simon found a rope swing down by the river, and gave the little ones some rides on it.

We saw a lot of farming!

When Miss Joy fell asleep, we decided not to stop for awhile—and then came around a curve and saw this area, with a pull-off for photos. We stopped for about a minute to enjoy the scene.

I think this is Manapouri. I was intrigued by the mountain sticking up in the middle of this picture.

I was also amused by the name on this sign.

On to Bluff!

March 4, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We spent most of our day in the Catlins. There was so much to see! Such beautiful scenery. The sun even came out, making the world even more beautiful. This is very near the southernmost point of the South Island.

Can you guess which direction the prevailing winds come from?Those mountains off in the far distance are Stewart Island. For some reason, I had never realized that Stewart Island was visible from the mainland, so it was a surprise to be able to see it.

We stopped for a few minutes near Fortrose. In the mouth of a river there, you can see a shipwreck at low tide. We were an hour or so too late to see that, but the cliffs were spectacular!

Stewart Island

Miss Joy was thrilled to find a puddle! It was the first real fun she had in days. She was quite sad when we took her away from it to move on; she was getting very tired of being in the van in her carseat.

These shags were on a tiny ledge partway down the cliff.

I don’t remember where this was! It had to be near Bluff.

There were interesting murals on several buildings in Bluff.

We saw the famous sign at the tip of Bluff, but there were no parking places nearby, and there were a lot of people around, so we just drove by and went elsewhere.

Instead of taking our picture by the most famous sign in Bluff, we went back to this sculpture and took some pictures.

Then, we drove up to the Bluff Lookout. I stayed at the van for awhile to feed Miss Joy. There are some of my children at the top! Esther took the pictures below from up there; I climbed up when the baby was finished, but didn’t take any pictures.

Stewart Island

The aluminium smelter is in the center of this picture.

And, that was Day 8 of our trip! We spent the night with some friends just north of Invercargill.

Curio Bay

March 2, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Our second stop, on the day we drove through the Catlins, was at Curio Bay. The friends with whom we stayed the night before told us that we would be able to see a petrified forest if we got there at low tide, so we timed our day in order to reach there then. Mr. Imagination found this shrimp soon after we got down onto the rocks. We really enjoyed seeing rock pools again! The ones we used to explore in Kaikoura were destroyed in the earthquake, so we haven’t been able to explore them for a long time.

This bay really reminded us of the Kaikoura Peninsula. It had pretty much the same type of rocks, and rock pools everywhere.

We soon started finding petrified trees! Some were laying down, like this one.

Some seemed to have charred wood.

Some were stumps sticking up.

There was even bull kelp, like in Kaikoura!

This natural bridge was fun!

Another horizontal log.

These swirls in the side of the cliff were fascinating.

Mr. Sweetie found this crab.

We were also fascinated with the layers in the cliff.After exploring the rocks for awhile , we went back to the vans and had a picnic.

We passed this beautiful estuary right after we left Curio Bay.

Purakaunui Falls

February 28, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We spent the Sunday night of our trip with some friends who live in the Catlins, an area in the far southeast part of the South Island. We asked them for some ideas of good places to visit on our way to Invercargill the next day, and one of their suggestions was Purakaunui Falls, a walk not too far from their house. We made that our first stop for the day. I took a picture of the sign at the beginning of the track because I knew I wouldn’t remember this name!

The track went through dense bush, along a creek. It was beautiful and peaceful!

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The waterfall was spectacular! It reminded us of Bond Falls in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, except on a smaller scale.

Mr. Diligence, Elijah, Mr. Imagination

Simon, Elijah, Mr. Sweetie in between them, and Mr. Imagination

Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination

Little Miss

After we left the waterfall, we had to stop on the road for a minute because some farmers were moving a mob of sheep down the road. We didn’t actually see those sheep, but we did see this mob in some yards just down the road.

The Catlins are beautiful! Rolling green hills with bush here and there, and sheep and cattle on the hills.

At times we drove along the sea; this is a river mouth.

The beaches are beautiful!

South of Dunedin

February 24, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We spent two nights with our friends in Dunedin. While we were there, I didn’t take any pictures. It was pouring the entire time, and we mainly stayed inside. Our friends had built a guesthouse, which we slept in. I wish I would have gotten a picture, but every time I went to it, I was trying to carry a baby and an umbrella, and dodging around the river that was running down the path we took up to it! It was very comfortable, and we enjoyed our time with them. We left late Sunday afternoon, and headed on south to visit some friends in the Catlins. Just before we left, Esther wanted to get a picture with her two little sisters, in the new dresses she made for them all just before our trip.

Our friends live on a mountain, and the road going down is slightly daunting! I have no idea what the gradient is, but it’s steep!

This is the Dunedin Train Station, which I posted pictures of the other time we were down there. You can find the pictures here and here, if you’re interested.

More interesting buildings in Dunedin.

Houses on the hillside. Dunedin is a very hilly city!

Maybe half an hour after we got on the road, the skies opened in a cloudburst. It was raining so hard that we had to slow down quite a lot. We could hardly see ahead of us. We kept moving, but slowly, and soon the rain let up—but then we started seeing flooding.

We crossed a bridge over the Taieri River, and saw the water pouring over the stopbank on the far side. Esther was taking a video at the time, and caught that.

I don’t think anyone drove into that paddock that day!

It was rather a relief to get away from the flooding as we continued farther south. I was a bit concerned that the road might end up closing, and didn’t want to be caught somewhere we didn’t want to be.

The Clutha River was high, too, but not as bad as up north.

The Catlins are beautiful! Rolling, green hills with cattle and sheep on them.

Holiday Trip

Thank you!