Mountains – Page 4

This has been a pretty normal week–lots of school and other real life, too.

Baby wants more kombucha!

Baby loves his daddy! These Usborne puzzle books have been very popular this week.

Part of school every day–the most popular part–is practicing math facts with a game on the computer. I forgot to include these two pictures last week! Our hedge was trimmed.

The children have been bringing in heaps of these field mushrooms. They are delicious!

The hills to the north-west of us.

We see a lot of these cows in the paddock next to the house.

Baby fell against the wood stove Sunday night. Ouch!

After trying in vain to get into this laundry basket, and squealing in frustration, he picked it up and brought it to me. I put him in–and he was delighted!We enjoyed the sight of snow blowing off the tops of the mountains north of Kaikoura as we drove to church this morning. Finally, here are some of the pictures Esther took when we stopped at the beach on the way home this afternoon. One boy was moving so fast all the pictures of him turned out blurry!

We are convinced that we have the most beautiful route in the world to travel to church. We decided to get some pictures of the highlights along the way, and the weather today cooperated beautifully–bright and sunny on the way in the morning, and clearing again on our way home. We travel about 70 kilometers (about 43 miles) from Cheviot to Kaikoura every Sunday, and it takes us about an hour. The route varies from rolling hills to rugged hills to seacoast.

Our heifer in the neighbor’s paddock down the road, with her friends the cow and horse. Mount Lyford is visible off in the distance.

A close-up of the last scene.

As we reached the end of our road we saw another neighbor moving steers down the road.

On the next road, we saw a farmer moving his sheep and cattle to new grazing.

Snow-capped mountains beyond Saint Anne’s Lagoon, beside Highway 1.

The view as we travel down Highway 1 between Cheviot and Parnassus.

The Waiau River.

Snow-capped mountains peeking over the lower, closer hills.

The Leader River.

Hills along the Conway River, heading toward the Hundalees.

In the Hundalee Hills.

The road is quite curvy in the Hundalees!

Going up the steepest hill.

Over the top! We’re heading down towards the ocean now.

Looking up the Oaro River valley.

Our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean for the day; Kaikoura Peninsula in the distance.

Barney’s Rock

The railroad parallels the highway, which runs along the seacoast.

The beautiful, rocky, Kaikoura coast.

This part of the route has a lot of curves, too!

The road goes through a set of tunnels twice.

At last we come out to where we can see snow-capped Mount Fyffe, towering over the coast.

The mountains going away from the sea.

What a view these dairy cows have!

We made it to Kaikoura! Coming down the hill into the town.

We are now on the street the church is on. The trees are Norfolk Pines.

We have arrived! The cement block building to the left is our church.

Four hours later…we came out to see snow on the hills at the end of the Blue Duck Valley!

Snow was still falling in the Blue Duck, beyond Mount Fyffe.

Heading back south…this is South Bay, on the south side of the Kaikoura Peninsula.

Last year in September, the mountainside “slipped” here, burying both the railroad and the road, and going 40 meters out into the sea. They estimated that 5,000 truckloads of debris were removed, and the road is quite a ways farther toward the sea than it was originally.

Back into the Hundalees.See the road off in the distance? That’s where we’ll be in about two minutes.

The Conway River. The yellow-flowered tree to the right is wattle.The Waiau River again.Gayle’s favorite spot along the route–a deep valley beside the highway.At the turnoff from Highway 1 to our place.Home again!
So, what do you think? Do we have any rivals? I’d like to see your route, if it’s anywhere near as beautiful as ours!

Our Week

The Most Beautiful Drive to Church in the World?