Holiday Trip

Our last stop before heading home was at the very top of Arthur’s Pass. The Dobson Nature Walk goes up a hillside over the highway. We didn’t see a lot of wildflowers, as it’s still early spring, but the scenery was dramatic. These flowers are the largest buttercup in the world. They were gorgeous!

Little Miss was being independent again. We let her walk one way, but her daddy carried her most of the way back.

This is the highest point of the highway going over the pass.

That bump on her forehead is a sandfly bite.

After leaving the cottage on our last day, we drove back up to Arthur’s Pass. We still wanted to go on a couple of walks we’d heard about, and look for mountain wildflowers. We found the Bealey Valley track first.

The trail led to a bridge over this rapids; it was a lot more impressive in real life than the picture can show! I ended up spending a lot of time on the bridge with Little Miss, while the rest of the family (except Grandma) went up a pretty rugged track. Little Miss looked at the water on both sides, over and over, and then looked through the cracks in the floor to see the water go under. I think she was trying to figure out what the water was doing.

This was a tiny mushroom; the cap was about the size of my thumbnail!

It’s almost a rainforest up there at the top of the pass. So much moss!

Our second full day at Cass was rainy most of the day, but toward evening it cleared. We decided to walk the mile to Lake Sarah. The scenery was spectacular. Little Miss was being particular about who carried her or held her hand; she wanted Mommy or no one. Of course, she didn’t get her way all the way,although we did let her walk by herself some.

Little Miss in front of broom.

Lake Sarah

Gorse

Late in the afternoon of our first full day in Cass, we went up to Arthur’s Pass to try to find a walk that we’d been told about. Here we are paralleling the Waimakariri River.

A mountain near the pass.

After learning about some local walks in the visitor’s center, we decided all we really had time for was a 10-minute walk to a waterfall near the center. We couldn’t find the right trail to it for a long time, but the boys finally located it. So beautiful! Here is Mr. Intellectual in front of the lower fall.

Grandma and Mr. Sweetie at the viewing platform for the upper fall.

Some of the boys found a semblance of a trail to the upper fall, and of course they had to explore that.

The bridge from which we viewed the lower fall.

Gayle has been wanting to explore Cave Stream ever since a week or so after we moved to New Zealand, in 2009. He finally had the chance to do it! The first day we were in the cabin at Cass, he took Mr. Inventor, Mr. Intellectual, and Mr. Diligence to Cave Stream, while the rest of us stayed at the cabin and read, wrote, cooked lunch, or played. The younger two boys weren’t excited about going through the cave and getting soaked in icy water, so just Gayle and Mr. Inventor went through. The cave is over 500 meters long, with a creek flowing through it. In places, the water was waist deep on Gayle, and in other places they had to scramble up waterfalls. It was pitch black in the cave, so they were glad for their headlamps. The other boys carried their shoes around to the end of the cave for them, and explored the trails on the surface.

The adventurers enter the cave!

You can see the cave entrance at the base of the cliff, just on the right side of the river.

This is the exit to the cave. A ladder comes up at the left end of the crack; the water starts plunging down a 3-meter waterfall here. After climbing the ladder, you crawl along the ledge above the water, holding on to a chain.

They have emerged from the cave!

We stopped on our way to Cass to eat a late lunch at Castle Hill and explore the rocks. The boys had a lot of fun! This is the view down the valley as we walked out to the hill.

Looking the other direction from the trail.

We were heading toward those huge rocks directly ahead of us. There were a lot of tourists, mostly Oriental, there when we arrived, and then a busload of them arrived as we started walking.

This rock is out in the paddock by itself.

We were amused, watching the tourists. This pose seemed to be the favorite of the day. Most of the people from the bus just walked out here, took pictures all around, and headed right back to the bus. One or two, though went up into the rocks, then had to run back before they got left behind.

Our boys wasted no time climbing up into the rocks. There are all four of them, at least a hundred feet up. It was a lot easier climbing the backside of this rock than it looks from this side!

Mr. Inventor and Mr. Intellectual had great fun practicing their rock-climbing skills.

Mr. Sweetie had fun finding caves.

Mr. Diligence and Mr. Sweetie did some climbing, too, but in slightly tamer places than their big brothers.

The valley behind the rocks is quite different from the front.

Castle Hill Station

Mr. Imagination called this rock a rabbit.

We got to spend three nights in a cottage in Cass, near Arthur’s Pass, owned by some friends of ours. What a lovely place to spend time relaxing and being together as a family!

Some of the mountains we saw on our way there. This first one is leading up to Porter’s Pass.

The cottage we stayed in.

A mountain in front of the cottage. There is a row of trees directly in front, but if you go around them, this is the view.

The red building is the Cass Railway Station. We enjoyed watching the trains going by at all hours. Except for the daily passenger train that goes from Christchurch to the West Coast and back, all we saw were coal trains carrying coal from the West Coast to Christchurch, and presumably, empty cars going back. I didn’t get any pictures of the trains while we were there, but saw this one after we were out of the mountains, going home.

We roasted sausages and marshmallows our second evening there.

One of the days we were there, it rained all day, so we stayed inside and played games.

That evening, I allowed the boys to roast a few marshmallows in the stove.