Holiday Trip

Castle Hill and Beyond

January 20, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

After we left Cave Stream, on the second day of our trip, we went to Castle Hill. We have been there two other times, but the boys have never been able to spend as much time exploring the rocks as they want to, so they wanted to go back.

Mr. Diligence took a few pictures while we drove between Cave Stream and Castle Hill.

There is our van ahead of the one he was in.We quickly separated into groups to walk out to the rocks. Lest you think this photo has been artificially colored, that is the way the sky looked that day! It was so blue I couldn’t stop looking at it!

We almost didn’t stop when we saw how full the carpark was, but then we found space in a second park, to the right here.

The boys, of course, hustled out to the rocks quickly and started climbing.

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Mr. Diligence, Simon, and Mr. Sweetie

This is a tired baby! Esther and I soon decided to take her back to the van and give her a nap on the bed. Though it was quite a hot day, it was very pleasant in that van with all the windows and the side door open. There was a nice breeze, and it has a high roof, which means the heat isn’t trapped down where we sat. She got to sleep for an hour before we left.

Gayle and Little Miss did some exploring on their own, and had fun experimenting with the camera on his new phone.

Mr. Diligence had his camera with him, too, so here are perspectives from high up on the rocks. This is Mr. Imagination and Mr. Sweetie.

Simon and Elijah had to help each other up this section. It was nearly perpendicular to the ground.

Mr. Sweetie pondering life from the top of a rock.

Wild roses The adventurers are coming back! Esther zoomed her camera in to take this from the van. Left to right are Mr. Imagination, Simon, Elijah, Mr. Diligence, and Mr. Sweetie.

Soon after we left Castle Hill, we went over Porter’s Pass, leaving the high basin.

Then, we were suddenly down on the plains! The road drops fast as you come down from the summit of Porter’s.

We spent this night with friends. Their house was too small for any extras, so we happily slept in the vans in their driveway. After a day in the sun, everyone slept soundly, though our faces felt hot!

Cave Stream

January 17, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

On the second day of our holiday, we packed up the vans in Arthur’s Pass and headed out about mid-morning. Our first destination for the day was Cave Stream. Gayle and Simon had gone through it four years ago, and now all the boys, as well as Little Miss, wanted to go through. Esther and I did not! We don’t think it’s that fun to wade through waist-deep, cold water, in the dark!

Here is some of the scenery we enjoyed on our way down from the pass, through the high basin. It was such a gorgeous day!

There were a lot of cars at the carpark when we arrived.

It was incredibly beautiful there! Pictures can’t do it justice—you have to actually be there to really get a feel for the beauty. This is only a tiny glimpse. You could turn around in a complete circle and see amazing scenery all the way around. Also, in a photo you can’t capture the feel of the warm breeze, the fresh mountain air and the scent of the flowers, and the sounds of sheep and lambs baaing off in the distance. Such a wonderful experience!

Mr. Imagination

I saw this wild rose bush beside the track.

The entrance to the cave is that hole down at the base of the cliff.

The boys ran on ahead, leaving Gayle and Little Miss to catch up with them at the cave entrance.

After seeing them off, Esther and I walked on up the trail to the exit of the cave, where the stream goes in. She carried Miss Joy; I carried the security blanket.

The stream used to flow here, but when it eroded back enough that it found a way underground, this streambed dried out.

The stream goes underground here, and this is the exit when you go through the cave.

After our crew came out of the cave and put on dry clothing, we laid out our picnic. We cooked the last of the hamburgers we had for supper the night before.

Miss Joy put on her big sister’s gumboots and walked around the carpark.

Devil’s Punchbowl

January 10, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 4 Comments

We arrived home a few days ago from a family road trip. Warning: There will be many posts over the next few weeks with pictures from our trip! I took over 400 pictures on my camera, and am borrowing pictures from three or four other cameras! I just spent a couple of hours sorting and organizing pictures, and have only finished the first day. This may take awhile.

Anyway, on with the story! We left here around 3:00 in the afternoon on Monday, the 28th of December. We had decided to only drive an hour and a half the first day, to allow time to pack and get everything wrapped up here. It’s a massive undertaking to get ten people ready for a 12-day trip, and organize care for all the animals, as well. Everyone worked together well, though, and we were ready earlier than I had originally hoped. We traveled in two vans, ours and Simon’s. Elijah had spent a few days taking the back seats out of both vans and building beds in them. That left four seats in our gray van, and six in Simon’s red van. We packed our luggage and food under the beds, and figured out how to fit the entire family into the two vehicles to sleep at night.

Off we go toward the mountains!

The pohutukawa was in bloom in the mountains. This tree is often called the New Zealand Christmas tree. It is beautiful!

The road up the Otira Gorge to Arthur’s Pass is always stunning.

I don’t necessarily like driving up the 16% grade, but the Otira Viaduct is an incredible feat of engineering.

The old road is up there. Can you see why they built the viaduct?

Since we had extra time, we decided to walk up to the Devil’s Punchbowl. We’ve been wanting to do that for several years. Mom, we thought of you when we went up this track!This is the view from the carpark. See the train? It was the TranzAlpine passenger train, just coming out of the tunnel that goes under the pass. The tunnel is 8.5 kilometers long, with a steep grade.

We soon set off on our tramp. Most of the children ended up way ahead of us. Here they were regrouping in a meadow.

This is the view downriver from the bridge.The waterfall comes through the “V” between the mountains.

Here are some of the 401 steps that make the track a little easier!I had not done very much physically for a month, because of a health problem, and the climb up those 401 steps was quite challenging!

The children went past the viewing platform on a track that took them to the base of the falls. I didn’t go there!

Mr. Diligence got this view looking downstream from the base of the falls.

Esther took a video of the falls. It can’t compare to actually being there, but maybe it will help give an idea of what we saw.

I like this one! Elijah is to the left, and Simon is holding Miss Joy. She was not happy up there—she didn’t like the cold, wet spray, and was calling for “Mama, Mama!”

Miss Joy was quite happy to be reunited with her daddy and I.

She wanted to walk down the steps by herself. They let her walk a little, but a 16-month-old is rather slow! Little Miss enjoyed jumping down several steps at once for a short ways.

See Arthur’s Pass Village at the base of the mountain?

Everyone stopped in the little meadow again when they reached it, and waited for us slow ones to arrive. We all rested in the warm sunshine for awhile, and just enjoyed being together.

Little Miss wanted her picture taken as we were walking back to the vans.

We parked for the night in the driveway of some friends who live in the village. They weren’t home, but had kindly allowed us to use their driveway and the needed facilities in the house. This is the view we saw from the van, across their yard, as the sun was getting low.

We cooked hamburgers on a campstove in the driveway. It was getting rather chilly!

After supper, and getting set up for sleeping for the night, some of us played a game of Ricochet Robots on the bed in the gray van.That was a fun, novel experience!

Gayle and Little Miss walked to a small waterfall behind the house. Mom, this is the one we walked to from the visitor’s center several years ago.Then, as it got dark, we settled in to sleep for the night. One or two people slept under the queen bed on the platform in each van, Miss Joy slept on her cot mattress on the floor in ours, and Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination slept on a mattress on a plywood platform set over the front bench seat in the red van. Everyone was comfortable, and everyone slept well that night.

Timaru Trip

May 4, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

We went to Timaru over Easter weekend, as we have since 2014. As always, it was a wonderful time of worshipping and hearing the Word preached, and spending time with many friends, both people we have known for a long time and those we just met for the first time. I took a few pictures of the spectacular scenery on the way and on the way home—but never took the time to pull my camera out of my purse while we were down there!

The sun rose while we were going through the mountains; here we are starting to head up toward Arthur’s Pass from the west.

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