North Island Trip

North Island Trip–Manawatu to Drury

February 25, 2024 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We went to the North Island last month because we had been invited to a conference hosted by some Mennonites from the United States, Canada and Australia. It was held near Cheltenham, just north of Palmerston North in the Manawatu, at the home of some friends of ours who own a conference center. We spent three nights there, and the first morning a lot of us went to a nearby reserve where we walked a track around some native bush.

This isn’t native… but it was pretty interesting! I’ve never seen such huge bamboo. We have stands of it here on the Coast, but it’s very small.

We also stopped at the Stormy Point overlook and had a look at this amazing river valley. Below this picture is a video clip that gives a slightly better idea of the view.

When we left Cheltenham, we drove to Drury, just south of Auckland. It was really interesting seeing the scenery that was so different from the South Island. The mountains had really interesting shapes!

I think this was Mount Ruapehu, but I’m not sure–and we couldn’t see the top of it.

We stopped here and had lunch at a nearby picnic table. I thought it was a beautiful toilet block!

Miss Joy gets carsick, so we stopped for a few minutes to let her walk around. There were blackberries there!

I was startled to see this bright red soil–the first time I’ve seen that in New Zealand!

We enjoyed seeing the sculptures in a lot of towns along the way. We didn’t manage to get pictures of most of them, but Elijah grabbed this one in Ohakune. There was a giant gumboot made of corrugated iron in Taihape, colorful cows in Morrinsville, and bulls in Bulls.

We spent two nights at a community in Drury while we accomplished our other goal for the trip–applying for passport renewals at the United States Consulate. I’ll do a post soon about our day in Auckland, but here are a few pictures of Miss Joy, enjoying being out of the van. She was delighted to find a cat!

Wellington Zoo

February 21, 2024 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

After we crossed Cook Strait on the ferry, we picked Elijah up at the airport. He had spent the week at a youth camp in Dunedin. After that, we went to the zoo.

Gayle treated the children to ice creams and ice blocks. While Miss Joy ate hers, she climbed through a lizard’s throat! It was a slide.

There were a lot of sculptures scattered through the zoo. She loved sitting on them!

Otters

An agouti. The next picture shows an exhibit designed to illustrate the agouti’s habit of hoarding stashes of food!

The red panda was perched directly above our path on a high branch.

The sun bear was fed while we were there. We were amused at the way it used its foot as a table!

Miss Joy’s favorite spot was the chimpanzee enclosure. She and her daddy stayed there for a long time. She was enthralled with the baby, who was climbing around and checking everything out.

I had never seen a capybara before! We have a book about one, titled Capyboppy, so it was delightful to actually see one–although it did nothing except sleep.

The ring-tailed lemurs were fun to watch! When they walk through tall grass, all you can see is the waving tails, which stand nearly straight up.

The squirrel monkeys were a lot of fun to watch, too. We found a bench beside them, and stayed there for awhile. They were quite active.

I really liked the Wellington Zoo. It is small, but laid out in such a way that it feels quite spacious. The enclosures are fairly natural, and the animals seemed reasonably happy.

Crossing Cook Strait

February 18, 2024 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

On the second day of our trip, we got up early at our campground in Picton and went to catch the ferry. We sailed on the Bluebridge line, and our ferry was to leave at 7:45, so we needed to check in by 6:45. We made sure to be there early, and took our breakfast along with us. Some ate in the van while we waited, after we had our family worship time, and some ate on the ferry later. We had a pretty smooth sailing. There was enough rolling when we were on the open ocean that my head felt very dizzy, but it wasn’t too bad. The scenery was gorgeous while we were going through the Marlborough Sounds!

This was soon after we left Picton. We had spent the night at a campground near the bay to the left of this picture where the marina is; Picton harbor is to the right of the point of land in the middle.

One of the Interislander ferries. We followed it all the way to Picton, and passed two others going the opposite direction.

This was likely a mussel or oyster farm. There are a lot of them in the Sounds.

Reaching the open ocean! The Interislander is out of the Sounds in this picture.

We spent a little while on the viewing platform at the bow of the ship, but it was so windy that we went inside after awhile.

Nearing Wellington. There are a lot of windmills around to generate electricity!

I think this is the Baring Head lighthouse at the entrance to Wellington Harbour.

Wellington

Here is a video I put together of clips from that trip, including driving onto the ferry.

This next group of pictures are from our return trip, a week and a half later. We traveled on the Bluebridge line again, but on their other ship. Again, we caught a morning sailing, arriving at the docks just before sunrise.

While we were waiting to board, we could see the Beehive, our country’s Parliament building.

Our last view of Wellington! After this, we stayed inside most of the time. This boat didn’t have the nice viewing decks that the other one did, and the wind was fierce.

We passed this cruise ship as we were leaving Wellington Harbour. Two tugboats were on the way to guide it to the dock.

There was one viewing deck that was pretty sheltered, so I spent time there with the little girls at various times. The wave the ship made cutting through the water was fascinating!

Gayle also spent time outside with the girls. Here Gayle and Miss Joy are peeking in at us!

Back into the Sounds! Little Miss and I spent most of the rest of the trip here on this deck, enjoying the gorgeous day.

Lots of seagulls there!

The wake of our ship as we turned around a point in the Sounds to head into Picton.

Trip to Picton

February 11, 2024 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

On the 25th of January, we took off from home to travel to the North Island. Most of us had never been there before, but we were invited to a conference just north of Palmerston North. We decided to go, and then go on up to Auckland to get US passports renewed for six of the children. Some friends here loaned us their van, since we no longer have a van and would have had to take two cars. We were away for a total of 12 days.

On our way to Picton, where the ferry takes off for the North Island, we stopped for lunch at Lake Rotoiti, in St. Arnaud. There were a lot of eels under the pier that went out into the lake, looking for a handout. It was fun to see them!

When we arrived in Picton, we had a few hours before we needed to check in at the holiday park where we planned to spend the night, so we went to the marina. The aquarium that used to be there, which we visited a couple of times years ago, is gone–there is an empty space where it used to be. The Edwin Fox museum next door is still there, though, so we went through it. We couldn’t actually go on the ship this time, as it is being restored, but we enjoyed watching the film about its history and looking at the ship.