Holiday Trip

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.

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.

Cave Stream

November 19, 2016 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

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!

Castle Hill

November 18, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

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.

Cass

November 17, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

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.

Trip to Dunedin, Part 5—The Miscellaneous Pictures

October 7, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

How would you like to live on a road like this? Our friends do! We kept the van in first or second gear to go down it!

I love the old buildings in Dunedin! Christchurch had them when we came here, but a lot came down in or since the earthquakes.

We still don’t know what the Chinese Gardens are like. It cost to get in, so we did free things instead.

Saturday morning we had to drive south of Dunedin to pick up a turkey Mr. Inventor bought to be the new father of his flock. This is the farm from which we bought it.

The boys were fascinated with the man’s junk pile!

Random scenery on the way back to the city.

In the Settler’s Museum. Mr. Handyman twisted his foot Saturday climbing Mount Cargill, so he was glad to rest awhile.

We walked a block or two in Dunedin after dark, and saw this amazing garden. There are two sets of stairs coming down the hill, making an X, with the flower bed in between. I think the flowers were pansies, and the green plants were celery!

There are a lot of stone fences around the area.

A couple more old houses I liked!

And a beautiful church.

I liked the bus stops, too. So much prettier than Christchurch’s glass and metal ones.

Inside the Settler’s Museum—trying to figure out how it was welded together!

I don’t know what this is; it’s on top of a hill between Oamaru and Dunedin.

This building is in Oamaru; I saw it on our way home.

Trip to Dunedin, Part 4—Inside the Train Station

October 5, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I have never seen mosaics like on the floors inside the Dunedin Train Station. This was the center of the lobby you walked into when you went through the main front door.

This is the landing of the staircase to the second floor,

…and the steps themselves.

The floor all the way around the top was like this:

Looking down from the balcony on the second floor: The top picture in this post is the center of that floor.

The walls around the main lobby are incredible, too!

And check out the iron work on the stairway railing!

The iron work was the same all the way around the balcony over the lobby.

The rest of the artwork was amazing, too.

I guess these three pictures should have gone with the last post, outside the station, but here they are. This is a close-up of the sculpture on top of the tower:

Even the doors are beautiful!

These plaques are on the inside of each of the pillars in front of the building. I’m guessing that the pictures represent the important or outstanding features of Dunedin.

Trip to Dunedin, Part 3—Outside the Dunedin Train Station

October 3, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The Dunedin Train Station is the most photographed building in New Zealand, the second most photographed building in the Southern Hemisphere (after the Sydney Opera House). I can understand why. We took so many pictures of it that I’m dividing them into two posts. It is an incredible piece of architecture. This station was completed in 1906. One hundred ten years ago, people built beautiful buildings!

The gardens in front of it are absolutely amazing, too, even this early in the spring, or late in the winter—whichever you choose!

This is the steps going down from the porch in front of the door.

I let Mr. Intellectual give us a sense of scale for one of the pillars.

This excursion train is still in use.

An end view of the building.

The other side of the building, the platform side.

Standing on the platform.

Coming up next…the incredible artwork built into the inside of the building.

Trip to Dunedin Part 2—Climbing Mount Cargill

September 29, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

While we were in Dunedin (pronounced Doo-NEE-din, in case you wondered), we stayed with a family who live on Pine Hill, on the road to the Mount Cargill Lookout. Saturday afternoon they took us up to the top, and we hiked around for an hour or two. It was quite a strenuous walk for those of us who are terribly out of shape, but the scenery was worth it. The boys took the opportunity to practice rock climbing. This is Mr. Inventor.

We went to a rock outcropping that overlooks the city of Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula. I hustled Mr. Inventor away from the edge with his little sister. It went straight down a long way there.

Mr. Imagination

Mr. Diligence

Everyone posed for a picture on top of the rock.

Looking north along the coast. It was an incredibly clear day, and we were all thankful for very little wind—they said that was quite unusual.

That rocky point in the middle is where we took the picture of everyone.

Climbing up the rocks.

Entrance to the Otago Harbour

Trip to Dunedin, Part 1—The Trip South

September 24, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We took a trip to Dunedin, a large city near the south end of this island, a week ago. We left here fairly early Friday morning, and drove till it was nearly dark that evening, with just a few stops. This first picture shows the typical landscape in the Canterbury Plains, south of Christchurch. Mr. Diligence, who sits in the front of the van between his daddy and I, was getting bored, so he borrowed my camera. What this doesn’t show, which is very hard to pick up with the camera but very spectacular in real life, is the snow-capped mountains off to the west. The covering of snow this time of year makes them look a lot taller than they look in the summer, somehow. They look like they just rise suddenly out of the flat plains.

Esther was able, with her good camera, to get a picture that gives an idea of what we saw. This is taken from the bridge over the Rakaia River, which is 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) long. The structure you see is the railroad bridge.

Late in the afternoon, we stopped for half an hour to take a break and enjoy the sea, at Shag Point. This first picture was taken as we drove along the sea; the rest were taken when we stopped. The cliff went nearly straight down, probably 50 feet! Esther and I, and Mr. Diligence who had a headache, stayed at the top; the rest went down a steep path to the sea.

Mr. Inventor and Mr. Intellectual walking along the beach.

Mr. Diligence wishing he felt better, and getting as close to the edge as Mom will let him.

Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Handyman, with Little Miss. Thankfully, he didn’t slip like Mr. Inventor did as he came around that point!

Daddy and Little Miss.

Mr. Inventor and Mr. Intellectual discovered a structure of some sort!

Mr. Imagination and Mr. Sweetie

Daddy with Little Miss

West Coast Trip

August 11, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

In the middle of July, we went to the West Coast for a few days. We had been invited to a concert put on by a community over there, so our first night we stayed at the community and attended the concert the next day. This was the view from our second-floor bedroom. It was a very frosty morning!

The main buildings of the community, from lower on the hill. Each of the three 3-story buildings houses a number of families; they all eat in the second building from the right.

We were given these two rooms, plus one more like this first one, to sleep in.

During the concert, we were seated at tables, and served a delicious dinner. This was my table setting.

This elaborate castle was set up in front of the door through which many of the performers entered.

This dinosaur was on the other side. The head moved by people inside the body pulling on ropes.

An orchestra played for awhile, and then various groups sang. After that there was a series of musicals, plays performed with a lot of singing to tell the stories. It was an incredible show!

We spent the night with some new friends near the community. I was really impressed with the bunkbeds they had built for their children!

The next day, we went to Hokitika. We went to the glass-blowing studio. They weren’t blowing glass that day, but shaping kiwis out of molten glass. We also went to the Hokitika Museum, and to the National Kiwi Centre, where we watched giant eels and a kiwi being fed, and enjoyed looking at a lot of other fish.

We spent that night with some new friends near Hokitika. They have a guest room with an ensuite, where Gayle and I, and the two youngest, slept. Little Miss entertained herself in the sink while I brushed my hair!

We went home over Arthur’s Pass. It was snowing pretty hard as we went over the top, and a lot of snow was stuck to the camper. Mr. Imagination has been wanting very badly to make a snowman, so Gayle took the snow from the camper when we stopped at the information center, and made one. Unfortunately, Mr. Imagination wasn’t very impressed. He wanted a big one!

Little Miss tried very hard to be cheerful, even though she was getting pretty tired of traveling.

We went through Christchurch to Lyttleton Harbor before we went home. It was fun to see the places we had read about in the book The Runaway Settlers—a great story about pioneering in New Zealand.