Holiday Trip

On to Twizel!

February 7, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

After we visited the Aviation Museum in Ashburton, on the third day of our trip, we headed southwest to Twizel. We have friends who live there, and though we’ve been to the area a couple of times already, we always enjoy the walks near Mount Cook, so we decided to spend a day there. The drive is always interesting, too. I forget, in between, how dry inland South Canterbury is! It almost feels like a desert.

This is what we saw from the front seat, soon after leaving Ashburton. I think we had some tired people! The white cord, by the way, is a curtain-hanging cord. We strung it around the van, and hung pieces of fabric on it with clothespins at night when we slept in the van, for privacy. It worked well—but if we weren’t careful, like this day, it would fall down when we put down the sun visor.

As we traveled farther inland, the landscape got drier. (Toes are a great entertainment when you’re bored!)

This is the Burke’s Pass area.

We decided to stop for a few minutes at beautiful Lake Tekapo. The water is so blue! That is from glacial melt; there are tiny bits of sediment suspended in the water, and they make it reflect the blue of the sky.

This church, on the shore of Lake Tekapo, is one of the most-photographed sites in New Zealand.

My beautiful girls! Esther was quite sunburned, still, from the day before.

Mr. Diligence took a picture of us trying to get the picture above.

Little Miss loves to pick flowers, anywhere and everywhere.

Miss Joy just wanted to play in the water.

Mr. Diligence

This is one of the several canals we crossed. They carry water for hydroelectricity.

Nearing Twizel—flat and dry!

Here is Lake Pukaki! Mount Cook is usually visible at the far end; this day, it was cloudy, so we couldn’t see the peaks.

Our friends have a pet bird, and our little ones loved it.

Ashburton Aviation Museum

January 31, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

When we were planning our trip, Esther and I decided that we wanted to go to The Book Barn, a huge used book store. We knew that the men and boys in our family, for the most part, would not be interested, and would be bored waiting for us, so she looked online for other attractions in the area. She discovered that Ashburton has an Aviation Museum, and the website made it look and sound very interesting—and it didn’t cost too much, either. So, on the third day of our trip, we split up. Esther and I and Miss Joy went in one van to the book shop, and everyone else went in the other van to Ashburton. We met them there for lunch, after they had been at the museum for a couple of hours, and then we took a quick tour through, as well.

Before we got on the road, we had a look at a project our host family’s grandfather is working on. This is the empty tomb, built into a hillside, and on a hilltop nearby, he plans to erect three crosses. Inside the tomb, facing the empty place representing where Jesus’ body would have lain, will be a bench to sit on, and Christian literature.

Miss Joy fell asleep immediately after we left.The father of the man of the family with we had spent the night owns this church, the Church of the Open Door. It is not used for services anymore, but he maintains it as a place for people to come in and pray or meditate any time they want to. He comes every Sunday to clean it.

A close-up of the prickly pear around the front.

Inside the church.It’s always fun to see this giant fish when we got through Rakaia.

The museum! It is at the Ashburton airport. The museum occupies three hangers. This photo was taken from the top of the restored control tower.

Little Miss wanted to show me the hospital plane. It was what she was most fascinated with.

Inside was a stretcher and a place for an attendant to sit.

Little Miss under the DC-3.

Going inside the DC-3. This plane is fully operational, but it would cost a million dollars a day to pay for insurance to fly it.

The DC-3 was probably the one Elijah was most fascinated with.

Someone was amused at this sign. They didn’t think they wanted to have to be rescued!

This helicopter was used during the Korean War to transport wounded soldiers away from the front. A stretcher was strapped on to each side, on the outside, with a hood to protect the wounded man from the blast of air while flying. The helicopter’s tail is in another part of the room; it was too big to leave on.

A jet engine.

A sprayer plane, used to spread fertilizer on hilly farms.This may have been the first plane ever flown. It was built at the same time as the Wright Brothers’ plane, and possibly flown first, but didn’t get the publicity theirs did.

The restored 1940s control tower. There was an airforce base near here during World War II.

Mr. Imagination’s favorite thing at the museum was this manual typewriter! He was fascinated by it.

We really enjoyed our visit to this museum. It was definitely worth spending time at! Two days a week, one of which happened to be the day we were there, volunteers come in to work on restoring the planes, and you can talk to them. The founder of the museum was there when we were, and Gayle and some of the boys spent a lot of time talking to him.
Here are a few seconds of video footage that Mr. Diligence got inside the larger hanger.

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.

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.

After we went over Arthur’s Pass, as we approached Porter’s Pass, we noticed a thin line of snow just along the tops of the mountains.

Awhile later, once we were down on the plains, we looked back, and could see the other side of those same mountains!

We took a route we haven’t taken before, and got to enjoy the gorgeous Rakaia Gorge.

On our way home, we enjoyed the spectacular scenery again. This is between Porter’s and Arthur’s Passes, again.

Dobson Nature Walk

November 23, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

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.

Bealey Valley Trail

November 22, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

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!

Lake Sarah

November 21, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

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

Arthur’s Pass—A Waterfall

November 20, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

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.