Kaikoura

Trip to Kaikoura

May 26, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

This weekend we made a quick trip to Kaikoura. We hadn’t been back there for church since we moved here, almost a year and a half ago. Most of us went to visit our friends there a year ago, and we’ve seen some of the people since then, but there is one dear lady we hadn’t seen at all. It was so good to be there and touch base again with the people we spent eight years with!

On our way, we stopped for a little while in Waiau, and the children enjoyed playing at the playground in the warm sunshine. Mr. Imagination got hit in the face with a piece of playground equipment (a brother got a little careless in bouncing it) and apparently had a slight concussion; the next half hour of his trip was miserable. After he had a short nap, he was fine.

Left to right: Mr. Intellectual, Mr. Diligence, Mr. Imagination, Mr. Sweetie, Simon

Our next stop was the cemetery in Cheviot where Seth is buried. We had bought a headstone for him six months ago, and hadn’t seen it yet. That was rather an emotional part of the day.

We next moved on to St. Anne’s Lagoon, just south of Cheviot, where we had a picnic lunch. The lagoon was gorgeous on this clear fall day–look at those reflections! It was so nice to see the lagoon full of water again. A couple of years ago, during the three-year drought that Cheviot endured, the lagoon dried up.

After lunch, we headed on to Kaikoura, where we had a joyous reunion with old friends. There were still a few hours of daylight, so we went out to the Peninsula. Most of both families walked partway around at sea level, then climbed a stairway to the top and came back to the car park. The mother and I, and some of the children, walked out on the rocks a little way, then went back to their house and started preparing food. It is so amazing to see what low tide looks like now–so different from before the November 2016 earthquake, when the sea floor rose two meters.

North of Kaikoura

January 12, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

On Sunday after church, we drove north of Kaikoura, for the first time since the 7.8 earthquake 14 months ago. We have gotten used to seeing the new look of the cliff faces to the south of Kaikoura, but to see the ones to the north was incredible. It was shocking and awe-inspiring, all over again, to see the devastation wrought in that minute or two of shaking. We have certainly learned a lot about geology and plate tectonics and natural disasters in the past year.

This is just past Ohau Point, where the worst slip happened during the quake. We used to go to this spot to watch baby seals play in a pool at the base of a waterfall here. According to someone who walked back in there soon after the quake, the waterfall still exists but the pool has been filled in. Here are before-and-after pictures of the same hillside.

This is approximately the place where three cows were stranded on top of an island of soil when the hillside around them fell away.The owners of this farm have lost a lot of their land, and because the Clarence River has changed course, if it floods they are in danger of losing their home and all their farm buildings.

The Clarence River in flood from rain in the High Country.

Here is a picture I took a number of years ago of the bridge above.

We were fascinated to see the evidence of seafloor uplift along the coast. All the white rocks used to be permanently underwater; the old low-tide line used to be at the top of the white line.

This was a spot we were especially interested in. We saw pictures immediately after the quake of a fault line at Waipapa Bay, where the rock looked like it had been sliced with a knife and uplifted 6-8 meters. We believe this is the spot.

More evidence of the seabed uplifting.

A new road/bridge was built out over the seabed at Iron Gate. This bridge was completed after just 14 weeks! The road construction crews were putting in very long hours so the road could be opened before Christmas.

The waves were quite high on Sunday afternoon when we went through. It was getting near low tide then, but when we drove to Kaikoura in the morning it had been high tide, and there was seawater on the road in places from waves breaking at the edge of the cliff. During the next high tide, during the night, waves washed some of the 5-ton blocks of concrete from the seawalls completely across the road! As a result, the road was closed for the morning on Monday while the blocks were put back in place.

The Road to Kaikoura

October 14, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Every time we go to Kaikoura for church, we see changes that have been made in the road since the last time. The road crews are working hard to make things safe! They are hoping to have the job finished by the end of the year. We’ll see—it looks like a lot still to be done.

This spot is where a hillside slipped into the sea in 2010. It took a week to reopen the road and railroad that time, and we called it the Big Slip. Little did we know…. See the bent and twisted posts along that wall? They used to hold up a net to catch rocks. During the earthquake in November 2016, a lot more came down and bent the posts. Those aren’t small posts, either. I took the picture, and the next few, though, because we were marveling at what was happening with the railroad. Large sections of rails and ties, fastened securely together, had been lifted aside, and diggers were smoothing the rocks in the roadbed. In the afternoon when we returned home, they were putting the sections of rails back in place.

The annual old car show in Kaikoura ended that morning, so we were enjoying watching vintage cars going south to Christchurch.

Stopping to wait our turn at the one-way stretches means we have more time to admire the beautiful scenery along the coast. This is the Kaikoura Peninsula from the south.

I don’t think I had ever seen Barney’s Rock so white as this time!

Back Home Again!

September 7, 2017 by NZ Filbruns 3 Comments

Yes, I know we’ve been home in New Zealand for around six weeks now. It has taken me awhile to get caught up on posting on here. I like to keep things in chronological order, because that’s just the way I am, so here we go.

This was our first evening home. We landed in Christchurch around 9:30 am, so got home around noon. We unloaded the van and I cooked lunch; in the afternoon I unpacked all the suitcases and plastic totes we had packed with books, fabric, and other treasures we brought home. We sure enjoyed the warmth of the house; a friend had come early that morning and started both fires for us. It was quite chilly outside, since it was still midwinter. We were used to the heat of midsummer in Ohio, of course, so the warm house was especially welcome. By evening, what with the difficulty sleeping sitting up on the airplane the night before, and the eight-hour time difference between the Eastern time zone of the United States and our time here, these boys fell asleep waiting for supper to be ready. We tried to wake them up to eat, but finally gave up and carried the two younger ones to bed. Mr. Diligence stayed all night on the couch. Little Miss wasn’t asleep, but she was imitating her brothers!

A couple of mornings after we got home, we were treated to a visit from this pair of Paradise Ducks in our yard!

Our first Sunday home, we went to church in Kaikoura, enjoying thoroughly the beautiful mountains. Some us us found out how much we had missed the mountains and the sea while we were gone!

Little Miss was delighted to finally get to wear this dress, which a great-aunt had given her. Because of the long sleeves, I saved it to wear here, where it’s colder, rather than in Ohio where it was so hot.

The cats were happy to be home. We picked them up on our way home from the airport, and they obviously remembered this place. We wondered if they would run away, but they were happy here right away. Esther was amused when she saw this scene one afternoon.

This was our second Sunday home; we went to Waikari for church. It poured for a couple of hours, but the skies started to clear as we left, and then we saw this brilliant double rainbow!

Looking back the other direction, this is what we saw.

We greatly enjoyed our trip to America, but there is no place like home, and no place like New Zealand!

Correction—Back to Kaikoura

June 24, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I’m sorry about the missing picture from the post about going to Kaikoura for the first time in a couple of months. I mentioned a broken shipping container, but forgot to add in the picture; that particular photo came from Mr. Diligence’s memory card and I got it from him later. So, here it is.

Back to Kaikoura!

June 15, 2017 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

The highway to Kaikoura was closed just before Easter, when we had two back-to-back cyclones. The cliffs that were already weakened from the earthquake did some more slipping, and a hillside that hadn’t moved before came down. We had about given up hope of getting to church in Kaikoura before leaving on our trip to America, so we were quite happy to learn that the road was to be opened for a week and a half over our last weekend in New Zealand! It was wonderful to get to see our friends there again, after missing 10 Sundays there.

We had to stop at a light near Barney’s Rock, which gave us a good look at a slip that happened during the earthquake in November.

This hillside slipped more in April.

During one of the cyclones, this hillside slipped so much more that the containers, which are filled with rocks, chained together, and bolted to the cliff, were being pushed out to sea. Five of the containers were unhooked and removed so they wouldn’t be lost.

The new slip. They built a new one-lane road over the seabed for temporary traffic.

We were impressed with the size of the boulder that obviously hit this container. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in the way when it came down!

Funny Boys!

March 15, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The day we took family pictures, we also got individual pictures of the children. It was hard to get a good one of some of them. We finally managed it, though; you can see the best results on the sidebar to the right. In between, they had fun climbing this monument. There used to be an obelisk on the top, but it toppled in the November 14 earthquake. The boys took turns being a statue on top!

Mr. Diligence

Mr. Intellectual

Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Intellectual

Mr. Sweetie

Mr. Inventor. He insisted on being up in a tree above our heads to have his picture taken.

Kaikoura Peninsula—High Tide After the Earthquake

February 6, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

On our second trip to Kaikoura after the earthquake, the second Sunday of January, we went to the Peninsula to see what it looked like at high tide.

Here is the same spot at high tide several years ago:

We saw this on the way to church. The earthquake caused the side of the road to slump down.

After leaving Kaikoura, as we started driving along the coast we saw this fresh slip, with the digger just starting to clean it up. We got through—but the road closed early that night. (Part of the highway to the south of Kaikoura, the part that was damaged the worst by the quake, is closed every night from 8pm till 6am the next morning.)

This spot looks like an entire section of a hill dropped down, creating a new gully.

The Oaro overbridge—the bridge with which the highway crosses over the railroad—suffered a lot of damage in the quake. We stopped to have a close look.

At both ends of the bridge, the road dropped about a meter. Apparently, the gravel used for fill under the ends jiggled away during the earthquake. Most of the bridges around dropped at both ends, but most only a few inches. This, of course, is unusable; you have to detour around this spot.

New Look at the Kaikoura Peninsula—Low Tide

January 22, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

During the earthquake, the seafloor rose from one to two meters above the former level. This has dramatically changed some parts of the coastline; in Kaikoura, high tide now is approximately where low tide was before the quake! There are rocks visible now that no one knew about before. We went to the Peninsula last Sunday afternoon, around low tide, to see how different it was. This is how it looked just above low tide in 2010, and up until the earthquake:

This is taken from approximately the same place, now, at about the same stage of the tide:

We walked out to the distant rocks, which we were never able to reach before; there was a channel deep enough to snorkel through even at low tide before the quake. Out there, we discovered a colony of baby seals flopping around on the rocks, making a lot of noise. We saw a few of the mothers come in to feed their babies after several days fishing out at sea. It was just amazing to get to see all that—and then, when we returned to the van at the carpark, we got to see a pod of dolphins jumping offshore. I took several videos of what we were treated to, and Esther helped me put them together, so you can enjoy a tiny glimpse, too.

Here are several more pictures of the Peninsula at sea level:

Most of the family also climbed to the top of the Peninsula; I stayed in the van with the two littlest ones. Here are some pictures Esther took from up there; the first is from several years ago, and the second is the same place now.

The Road to Kaikoura on New Year’s Day

January 18, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We had not been to church in Kaikoura since the earthquake, on November 14, so it was an exciting day when we were finally able to go on New Year’s Day. Unfortunately, I had a severe migraine, so had to stay home, but the rest of the family went. Esther took my camera and got a lot of pictures of the condition of the road. It’s much better than it was immediately after the quake! There has been an enormous amount of work done already. Compared to what it used to be, though, the roads are pretty rough. I couldn’t believe the way the guardrails were twisted. In this first picture, though you can’t see it very well, a bridge on the main highway is completely gone. Traffic has been rerouted around a narrow back road.