Ocean

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.

Christmas Day—Beach and Railroad Tracks

January 12, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We actually had our Christmas Day picnic the next day, since Christmas was on Sunday. We went to church that day and visited the family from whom we acquired the kittens. On Monday, then, we went to the beach for a picnic. We ate lunch in a grove of pine trees; the needles make a lovely floor to sit on. The boys played in the water, and then buried each other in the tiny rocks that covered the beach there. We had two extras that day, our nephew and a friend of our boys.

Mr. Inventor stepped on a bee as soon as he reached the beach. He put plantain on the sting and kept in on for a long time. He was quite pleased that it didn’t swell and itch like normal.

After the sting stopped bothering him, he did some beachcombing. I was quite pleased with some of his finds. The starfish washed up just as he was walking past! The orange thing is some sort of sea slug. There were also a couple of nice sponges.

We walked across the railroad track to reach the beach, and on the way back investigated the unusual curves and twists that resulted from the earthquake. I couldn’t get a picture of what we saw in the gravel under the track, but it looked like the earthquake had shoved the track back and forth, pushing the rocks out of place, and the track ended up about half a foot or more to the side of where it started out. We could tell by the rust on the rocks. It was quite interesting. We spent a little time picking cherries on our way home, beside a railway bridge. The bridge either rose, or the tracks on both ends of it sank, because they obviously drop at both ends. The gravel was gone under the end on which we were standing; it had fallen down the hill under the bridge. Kiwirail has a big job to do, repairing the tracks from here to Picton! These pictures show some very minimal damage compared to where the track follows the coast on both sides of Kaikoura.

Gore Bay After the Quake

December 6, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We took my mom to Gore Bay only once while she was here. I wanted to take her again yesterday (she left today), but Monday I ended up in the hospital with a miscarriage, so that changed all our plans for the week.

Gore Bay didn’t seem much different. The boys thoroughly enjoyed playing in the water. It was right on high tide when we arrived, so the water was gradually going out. That meant they had to stay fairly close in because of the undertow, but they had a lot of fun anyway. Mr. Inventor dug a pool for Little Miss to splash in. She loved that!

Among all the white and gray rocks along the shore, we found these red and green ones! They were much prettier when they were wet.

The hillside going down to the water was covered with nasturtiums and sweet peas in bloom. The smell was so heavy! It was really lovely.

One of the first things we noticed when we arrived at the bay was this fresh slip. The soil at the very top of the cliff had fallen down to the bottom. Then, soon after several of us thought we felt a small tremor, we noticed it was still falling; we saw clouds of dust going down several times. Esther tried to capture it in a video; this short clip shows some.

Kaikoura Before the Quake

December 2, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

It’s almost unreal to think that we were in Kaikoura the day before the 7.8 earthquake of November 14, but it’s true. Everything was normal; we spent most of the day at church, then went across the street and over the bridge over Lyell Creek, then sat on the rocky beach for awhile. The boys had fun stacking rocks; Mr. Intellectual built several of these structures and then demolished them. Apparently, the seafloor rose about 2 meters here. They say that rocks are visible now that had never been seen before, and high tide now looks like low tide before! It will sure be interesting to see it when we can get back up there, but that will be a long time. The most optimistic estimate I’ve seen for opening the highway is six months from now.

We enjoyed watching birds—this gull and the shags who were hanging out in the creek.

Gore Bay and Kaikoura

November 25, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The Saturday that Gayle’s aunt and uncle were here, he took them and our children, and a couple of other visitors, out to Gore Bay. I stayed home to work on food for the weekend, so these are the pictures someone else took. Apparently, Little Miss has gotten past her fear of the sea!

They walked around to Port Robinson, and found some unusual things. This was a dead octopus they found washed up.

A live sea urchin!

Two elephant slugs.

Including our family, we had 25 people on Sunday and Monday morning! This was when we had the conference at which Gayle’s uncle spoke. I took this picture Sunday morning just before breakfast.

On our way to church, we stopped at a place from which you can see the Kaikoura Peninsula and the coast for a long ways around. We were treated to a closeup look at this bellbird, who was helping himself to nectar from this kowhai tree.

After church, some of the party walked over the Kaikoura Peninsula. I went home to cook tea, but my photographer stayed to walk!

That was a really good weekend. It was a lot of work to feed so many people, but so worth while.

Snow!

August 30, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We got a little bit of snow this August. It wasn’t much; here at our house we had a tiny skiff one morning. Can you see the snow falling in this picture?

The little boys scraped up the snow that slid down the greenhouse and made a little snowman on a sled, but I don’t know if anyone got a picture of it. They were excited about the snow, even if there wasn’t much. The next morning when we went to church, the hills and mountains were gorgeous! We left early in case the road was slick, and kept four-wheel drive on till we got through the dangerous hills.

Because we left for church early, and didn’t have any trouble, we had an extra 15 minutes before time for church to start, so we went out the the Peninsula. We hadn’t been out there in a long time, and it was fun to see the rocks, seals, and waves again.

We certainly live in a beautiful place!

Whale!

June 21, 2016 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

We were driving to Kaikoura for church Sunday morning when suddenly one of the boys exclaimed, “There’s a whale!” Sure enough, just a few hundred meters offshore was a whale, apparently feeding on the surface in the middle of a small pod of dolphins! There was a fishing boat close by; apparently there was a large school of fish there. Of course, we stopped to watch–you don’t see a whale very often. What a special experience!

Beaches: Timaru and Kaikoura

June 17, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

It’s fun to look through Esther’s memory card every so often. She gets some good pictures, and happily lets me use them. I often either forget I have a camera, or actually don’t have it along, so I’m glad when she takes pictures to fill in the gaps. Here are a few more pictures from the day we walked to the lighthouse near Timaru.

Little Miss was watching someone climbing the outside of the lighthouse. She held on to that apple all the way out there and most of the way back!

Gayle helping Mr. Imagination down the steep cliff below the lighthouse. They walked back along the shoreline.

Enjoying the view from a bench in front of the lighthouse.

Mr. Inventor, Mr. Imagination, and Mr. Intellectual trying out a hut someone else built out of driftwood.

Mr. Diligence, Mr. Inventor, and Mr. Intellectual on a rock north of Kaikoura.

Mr. Imagination pondering something!

Sunday School Picnic and Gore Bay

June 15, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I looked at the pictures on Esther’s memory card yesterday, and found some from the Sunday School picnic in March that I’d like to share! This picnic is an annual event at the home of a family way up in the hills, nearly to the mountains. After lunch, we walked out in a paddock behind the house. A couple of our boys had spent two nights there in December, and wanted to show us where they had played. It was quite interesting! They discovered that this tree was hollow, and opened up a hole just a bit more so they could fit inside. Here is Mr. Inventor peering out.

This is how you get it—turn sideways and wriggle through! No thanks.

The valley the tree was in.

They also wanted to show us the big willow trees they played in.

This was the original house on the farm, built about a hundred years ago. Unfortunately, it is in very poor shape now. It was quite interesting to look at, though.

The day after the picnic, we took a picnic to another place: Gore Bay. The boys wanted to try out an inflatable dinghy they were given. It didn’t work very well in the waves here, but when they tried it on a quiet lagoon, it worked well.

Little Miss is terrified of the sea—she wanted to stay safe with Daddy.

Gore Bay on Waitangi Day

February 14, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Waitangi Day (the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi between the Maori and the English in 1840) fell on a Saturday this year, so Monday this week was a holiday. As always, we enjoyed having Gayle home for the day. He and the boys spent the morning in the garden, ripping out the pea vines and working the ground to replant the fall garden, while Esther and I worked on cabbage in the house. Then, we took a picnic lunch out to Gore Bay. It was a gorgeous day, just right to sit on the beach! I thought it was a bit cool for swimming, but all the boys except Mr. Imagination went in for awhile.

Esther read for awhile.

Mr. Diligence found several rocks and experimented with what color they made when he wrote with them on another rock.

Mr. Imagination picked a handful of nasturtiums, which grow wild along the sea.

On our way home, we drove through the Domain, and came across a family we know. We invited them to our house for dinner that evening, and had a nice visit—a perfect ending to a good day!