Lots of Helpers

Our family's life in New Zealand

You are here: Home / Archives for Holiday Trip

Holiday Trip

Pancake Rocks

by 2 Comments

I had checked the tides for Pancake Rocks before we left on our trip, as someone told us once that high tide is the best time to go. High tide was to be around 4:00 the day we visited, so we aimed to get there around 3:30. We had been noticing that the waves were quite high, and the wind was from the north-west, so we were hoping for a good show. We really felt that God blessed us, because the blowholes were spouting quite high. What a sight to see!

The first thing we admired when we arrived, however, was the nikau palms. They are quite an unusual looking palm, and the southern-most palm in the world. We noticed some beginning to bloom, then saw that others had seed or fruit clusters hanging below the leaves. Then, we were tickled to see a wood pigeon helping himself to some of the fruit! After admiring the palms for a few minutes and poking our heads into the visitor center/gift shop, we went across the road (the main highway) to the rocks themselves. A lovely concrete path has been built through the rocks, with great viewing areas.

James, with his new camera! Funny thing about that is that he is camera-shy! Guess he likes to be on the other side. Isn’t he cute, though?At one of the first overlooks, we noticed how foamy the sea was. The water was extremely turbulent.The poor littlest boy was stuck going at the snail’s pace of his mom and grandma.

Mom and Esther admiring the rough seas.

This spot, a near-rectangle with walls all around, is in the middle of the rocks. It is aptly named the Surge Pool. Water comes in through two arches, one of which you can see here and the other is roughly under my feet from where I took the picture.

We finally got to the first blowhole! This is called Chimney Pots. If a wave of the right size comes in and ricochets off the rocks at the right angle, over and over again, it will burst up through a channel in the rocks and form a geyser. It was pretty amazing to see the path the waves had to take to get here—there were at least two right-angle corners they had to turn. The power the water still had when it reached this point was awe-inspiring.

I don’t remember what this spot was called, and I don’t know if there is an open channel to the sea or if the water comes through an archway, but it sure splashed up here!

My boys! Left-right: fourth (James), first (Seth), third (Elijah), fifth (Joseph), and second (Simon).

The Surge Pool, from the other side.

The sea on the north side of Pancake Rocks.

After we went all the way around, we decided to go back to Chimney Pot and enjoy the spectacle again. Our second boy found a spot on a bridge where the spray from the geysers blew over him. Not only did he get soaked (and later I noticed salt crusting his face!), but he lured a number of unsuspecting tourists to stand there long enough to get wet as well. I hear that he would ask them, “Do you like showers?” then keep them talking till it blew again!

I took a few videos to try to capture the experience. Of course, it isn’t anywhere as good as being there yourself, but these will give you a tiny glimpse of our experience.

This was definitely a highlight of our trip. We felt especially blessed when we were talking to a friend on the way home, who had been to Pancake Rocks a number of times, and he said he had never seen a show such as we described.

Tauranga Bay and Gold Mine

by Leave a Comment

This is a good way to rest after working in the garden! We only have seven weeks to go before we meet our next little one, and I’m really starting to feel that way. With the help of James, and a little help from a couple of the others, I just got our tomato plants set out. It’s supposed to storm this afternoon, so I wanted them in the ground; we’ve had high winds all week since we got home from our trip so I didn’t want to set them out. Today is still quite windy, but with the hope of rain this afternoon we’re taking the chance. Anyway, now I’m tired and ready for a break, so this is a good time to sit down and work on this!

When we left the Coaltown Museum in Westport, it was lunchtime, so we headed out to Cape Foulwind for a picnic. Just south of the cape, at a little bay called Tauranga Bay, we found a lovely spot. We were pretty close to the beach, with New Zealand Flax and other vegetation all around. Several red-billed gulls and a weka or two entertained us with their begging. After lunch, we let the boys go down to the beach for a little while—and of course they immediately started digging a hole!

Wall Island, where a number of species of seabirds nest.

As we started driving again, we enjoyed seeing the clouds caught on the tops of the mountains. Our weather here often comes from the Tasman Sea, between New Zealand and Australia. When the clouds hit the West Coast, they have to rise to get over the mountains, which causes a lot of rainfall on that side of the mountains! By the time the weather gets over the mountains to our side, it’s pretty dry and we end up with hot, dry winds. Since they come from the north-west, they are called nor-westers! So, on a day like today, when we have a hot, dry nor-wester blowing, the West Coast is most likely getting a downpour. Anyway, it was interesting to see it for ourselves, with sunshine down on the coast and clouds in the tops of the mountains immediately inland, as the next picture shows.

Our next stop, after driving half an hour or so, was a historic gold mine near Charleston, which was a boom town at the peak of the gold rush. After the gold rush ended, people moved away, and moved the buildings away, so there was nothing left of the settlement. It is now being rebuilt; we saw several motels. The gold mine was pretty interesting, especially for the boys. They had made sure they had their headlamps and flashlights along this time; when we were there 4 1/2 years ago, we couldn’t explore any of the tunnels, since we didn’t have any lights. This time, they went way in to some of them!

This cute play house is next to the parking lot for the gold mine!

The gold here is in the form of sand. It’s pretty much just dust. The miners would dig out the rocks that contained the ore, and crush them with an apparatus powered by a water wheel. When they had the ore crushed back into sand, they would put it in a sluice and run it over copper plates coated with mercury. The gold dust would combine with the mercury, and then they would heat it in a retort. The mercury would evaporate, then condense again away from the gold and they could reuse the mercury. The gold extracted this way, the man in the office said, was about 99.9% pure!

These two pictures show just a tiny glimpse of the incredible scenery we enjoyed on our way from Westport to Pancake Rocks. We thoroughly enjoyed a sunny day, one of only two on this trip.

Coming next…Pancake Rocks! Check back in another day or two and see if I got the videos up here of the incredible show we were privileged to see!

Westport = Coal

by Leave a Comment

The first town we stopped in on our West Coast trip was Westport. Westport is a historical coal-mining town, and there is still a lot of coal shipped out of there! It is interesting to look at the cuts along the road; most of them have a coal seam in them. We learned a lot about coal mining. And, an interesting side note—the motel/campground where we spent the night heats their water with coal! My second boy saw the owner, in the morning, loading coal into a large hopper in a building next to the kitchen/toilet block. He asked if the man buys coal by the truckload. No; he digs it out of his own private mine by the truckload!

The first place we went sight-seeing in Westport was an accidental find. We were trying to get out of town to the north to go to the Denniston Incline, and ended up at Tip End, which turned out to be a breakwall we could drive out on, way out to the end of the Buller River. There is a breakwall on each side of the river mouth, forming a harbor for shipping coal. We enjoyed watching the enormous waves roll past and break on the bar at the river mouth. The end of the breakwall doubles as a memorial to sailors lost at sea, from Westport, and some drowned right there at the sandbar.

Mom and Esther

This is  Nathan,  James,  and  Simon.

After spending a little while enjoying the waves out there, we finally did find our way out of town to the Denniston Incline. For about 88 years, until it closed down in 1967, the Denniston Incline was used to transport coal from mines on top of a very high plateau down to sea level, to be shipped to Westport by train and then on ships. It was only one of at least a half dozen inclines, all of which seem to have operated similarly. This one is in the process of being restored. The basic idea was that coal was transported to the edge of the plateau, either in huge “buckets” on aerial tracks or, later, by truck, then put into Q wagons, which are train cars. These Q wagons were run down a very steep track, by gravity, falling 510 meters in 1.7 kilometers! There were two sections of the track, with a brake at the top of each. Once at the bottom, the Q wagons were unhooked, then hooked up to a train for the trip to Westport. Each full wagon, as it went down, pulled an empty one back up to the top. That must have taken some coordination; a lot of places, there was only room for a single track! They obviously had it timed so that the full and empty wagons passed in the places where there was room for two tracks. We really enjoyed walking around the site, although it would have been much better if the weather was better. It was raining and sleeting and cold during this visit! That is not uncommon weather there, though.

A view on the way up to the top. The road is not for the faint of heart! Very steep, and a lot of winding back and forth. I noticed a sign at the bottom warning that this road is used seven days a week by mining trucks.

The top of the incline, and looking down it. Not too good a picture, but remember what I said about the weather?!

After the incline was shut down, the buildings burned, and these ruins are what is left. The tracks in the upper center lead to the top of the incline; you can see it start to go down.

Gayle and the boys did more exploring than we females. I’m not sure what this was; James has his own camera and he took this picture. Edited to add: I have now been told that this was a track that led up to the mouth of a mine. It had rails on it that trolleys of coal were pushed along to take them to the top of the incline, and there are apparently even trolleys left there!

The next day, the weather was great—and we toured the Coaltown Museum in Westport! We should have done that the first day, and gone up to Denniston the second day. Ah, hindsight. It was quite interesting to see the exhibits, though, after having toured Denniston already.

This is what we saw from where we parked to visit the museum!Not sure who took this picture, but I thought it was cute. Daddy carried the youngest from the van to the museum.A few pictures from the museum: Top is a Q wagon at the actual slope at the steepest part of the incline. Third is the brake drum used to stop the wagons, and bottom is our youngest in front of one of the small wagons they used to pull coal out of the mines.

All in all, it was a very educational time we spent in Westport! The museum is very well done, and economical for even a large family. We would love to spend more time at the Denniston Incline, and I look forward to seeing further restoration there. A lot has been done since we were there four and a half years ago.

More about the trip to follow!

Off on a Holiday!

by Leave a Comment

We don’t get to take very many trips, which is fine with me, being a homebody, but ever since May we’ve been planning to go to the West Coast while Mom is here. Gayle has a very hard time getting permission to take time off from work, even though he is legally entitled to it, so we were excited a couple of months ago when his request for a week right now was finally approved—after waiting three or four months for his boss to make the decision! We borrowed a neighbor’s pop-top camper again, and Wednesday morning last week packed it and the van with all we thought we’d need for a week of camping, and then took off!

We made it across the range of hills directly to the west of us, and passed through the little village of Waiau, then crossed the Waiau River on this long one-lane bridge. It’s a good thing it has a passing bay in the middle, as someone was coming toward us and had to pull off for us to pass! Then, we went up through wilder and wilder hills towards Lewis Pass.

We saw snow on the high peaks as we drove toward the mountains, and then as we got closer could see that it was snowing at that moment, up high! When we reached the top of the pass, there was actually snow on the ground! We haven’t seen snow up close for over two years, so we stopped a few minutes to let the boys check it out. Our youngest had never touched snow, and he was thrilled. His biggest brother was very happy to help him investigate this new stuff.

The terrain changed as we went down the west side of the pass.

We had to laugh at the snowplow we saw—rather a contrast to the ones in Michigan! It had come over the pass behind us.

When we reached Reefton, we could tell something was different from home—we smelled coal smoke in the air! Apparently, that’s what people heat with there. We saw a coal mine near the township (village), and a train of coal cars on a siding.

Soon, we were driving along the Buller River. There is a pretty wild gorge that the river, and the road, go through. One place, a road had to be carved out of the cliff. As you can see, there is only one lane! Quite the engineering feat.

Nelson Trip, Part Four: On the Way Home

by Leave a Comment

The trip home seemed to take a long time—much longer than going! Is that because everyone was tired? Especially the littlest was sick and tired of sitting in his carseat. We did stop a couple of times to enjoy the scenery. The first stop was at an overlook at the Hope Saddle, which everyone agreed wasn’t really worth stopping at. There were some beautiful views, but it was mostly trees in every direction.

We did have a surprise there, though: two guinea pigs in the bush! The boys tried to catch them (of course) but I was not sad when they did not succeed!

A couple of bored boys took pictures as we drove on from there through the mountains.

The highlight of the day was Maruia Falls, where we ate our picnic lunch. Notice the bark/wood floating in the water? It was slowly swirling in a circle.

Nelson Trip, Part Three and Split Apple Rock

by 2 Comments

After eating lunch and letting the children play for awhile at Kaiteriteri, we drove a little farther on, to Split Apple Rock. We hiked down a steep trail from the car park to the beach, and suddenly saw this amazing rock!

There was amazing black sand on this beach, which kept itself separate from the golden sand. It was also much heavier. Must be a lot of minerals in it!

We also got to see and hear a tui! That was a new experience. The song is beautiful, but the video I took to try to record the sound only picked up the sound of the waves.

This was another beautiful beach!

The children explored some caves they found at one end of the beach, using headlamps they ran back up to the van to get, and found some Little Blue Penguins back in a crack! That was a special experience.

And then, a tour boat came along and anchored just offshore so the passengers could enjoy a cup of tea in these beautiful surroundings—and the man taking the tour recognized us and shouted hello across the water! That was special.

After leaving Split Apple Rock, we drove around to Marehau, at the beginning of Abel Tasman Park, just to see the area, then, without stopping, went back to our friend’s house with a very tired family. Despite being tired, however, the boys (and some of their girls) went down to play in the mud flats, since it was high tide. They came in at dark, covered with mud and cold!

I was intrigued by these boats, left high and dry on mud flats when the tide went out.

The view from our friend’s deck:

Nelson Trip, Part One

by Leave a Comment

We had planned to go to Nelson to visit friends over Easter weekend, but because of the storm had to change our plans. Three weeks later, we were able to go there. As we drove north, we were very thankful we hadn’t tried to go! The scars from the storm were still very visible, and it was obvious that we would not have made it through with our van.

It was hard to capture the destruction with the camera as we drove; these pictures just show a fraction of what we saw.

Vineyards in a valley just south of Blenheim.

Rugged hills and valleys south of Blenheim.

Somewhere between Blenheim and Nelson.

We had the most beautiful day for our trip up there! The sun shone all day, and everyone was happy. No grumping all day—what a blessing!

Holiday Trip Days 6 and 7

by Leave a Comment

Friday morning we loaded up again in Collingwood after enjoying a gorgeous sunrise over Golden Bay at high tide.

The boys tried fishing, but the reel broke.

We stopped at Pupu Springs on our way back to Takaka Hill–the largest spring in Australasia, which produces 14,000 liters of water per second and has the second clearest water on earth–second only to that under the Ross Ice Shelf.

The colors under the water were amazing!

The river that flowed away from the springs was clear as could be!

Takaka Hill–see the road we were on?

I enjoyed the rock outcroppings on top of Takaka Hill.

We stopped to buy fruit at the bottom of Takaka Hill, and got a close-up view of some of the vines we had been seeing–kiwis!  We had never seen them growing before.

We spent Friday night camped in the backyard of some friends, and in the morning they helped load up and tie down for the last time.

Our route home took us through an area where there had obviously been a forest fire a few years ago.  What desolation!

Fall colors along Leader Road as we neared home….

Baby was happy to be home again the next morning!

Holiday Trip Day 5

by Leave a Comment

Wednesday evening we made it as far as Collingwood, on Golden Bay.  We decided to stay two nights in that campground, as there were a number of things we wanted to do close by and it was as far north as we were able to go.  How nice not to have to take down tents and load and tie down the trailer Thursday morning!

The boys were up at the crack of dawn again, down at the beach to see what they could find.  This was the prize find–same boy who found the weta the day before–a dead shark! One person told us it was a dog fish; another said a carpet shark.  Either way, it was fascinating.

Sunrise over Golden Bay. This is high tide.

Grandma found a good place for her devotions just above the high tide line.

The morning’s beachcombing finds.

We drove up along the coast to Farewell Spit that morning.  These are some of the mud flats we passed in an estuary along the way–high tide.

The base of Farewell Spit. It is an enormous sandbar stretching 26 km (16 miles) into the Tasman Sea.  Four people walked a few kilometers out on it; I stayed back with the youngest five boys.  This is the inside of the spit.  I happened to overhear a tourguide telling the group he was with that there are 2 million hectares of land in the nature preserve here at high tide; 11 million at low tide!

They found several jellyfish stranded by the receding tide.

Mud flats and the spit.

After eating our picnic lunch, we drove to Cape Farewell, named because it was the last sight Captain Cook had of New Zealand.

The boys ran up the hill above the overlook.  Rather nerve-wracking for Mom and Grandma, envisioning boys getting too close to the sheer cliff dropping down to the sea!

The mudflats in the estuary at low tide, on our way back to Collingwood.

This is the beach at our campground when we arrived back in the afternoon, at low tide!  What a difference.  The tides rise 5 meters here (16 feet).

It was cold, but the boys played in the water anyway.  The older boys were able to wade through the chest-deep water to the sand bar, and decided to build a raft so they could ferry the little boys across.

Before the raft could be built, the tide turned and the water was rising too fast.

They built sand castles instead.

This is the same place a few hours later, with the tide about halfway in.

Holiday Trip Day 4

by Leave a Comment

Wednesday morning the boys were up and exploring the campground before breakfast.  One of them found this weta.

After leaving Nelson and passing through Motueka, we went up Takaka Hill.  This is looking back down, in the direction of Motueka.

We stopped near the top of Takaka Hill at an overlook.  These gray rocks were all along the trail out to the lookout.  We learned at our next stop that they are marble.  Marble was quarried from this hill to build the government buildings in Wellington many years ago.

A view from the lookout.  At the far left is the Tasman Sea, beyond the orchards and vineyards near Motueka.  Nelson is on the far side of that bay.

Our next stop was only a short distance from the overlook, at Ngarua Caves.  We thoroughly enjoyed touring this beautiful cave.

At some time in the distant past, moas (the smallest variety, not the giant ones) fell into the cave and died; their bones have been found there.

This area of the cave had a “new” growth of stalactites forming.

The way out–this is the hole through which the cave was originally discovered by a survey party in 1876.

The landscape around the cave.  If I understood right, some of the filming of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit was done here.

There are a lot of sink holes on this hill.  At our previous stop, at the overlook, we saw signs warning about them.  One of our boys was fascinated and badly wanted to see one; finally here he got his wish!

Going down the other side of Takaka Hill, towards Golden Bay.  The road winds back and forth down the side of this hill–an incredible drive!