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Church Picnic and Coal Mine

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The first Sunday my brother was here, in mid-February, we were finally able to have the church picnic that had been proposed about a month earlier. We gathered at the Inangahua Swing Bridge for the picnic. The children had great fun playing at the edge of the river and on the bridge. Several hardy folks, including two of my boys, jumped from the bridge into the deep water underneath. I walked across, braving the swinging and swaying that is inevitable when several children are on it, and was amused at the warning sign at the far end.

Later in the afternoon, one of the church men took us to tour the coal mine that is up in the mountains above his dairy farm. We toured that mine several years ago, but Gayle had never been there, and we knew Mom and my brother would be interested. Because it was a weekend and the mine was not in operation, we got to drive all the way to the bottom of the pit.

Napoleon Hill

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While my brother was here, the boys took him on a four wheel drive trip over Napoleon Hill, which is only a few miles east of us. In the 1860s, there was a thriving town there–apparently until the gold ran out! I believe there was some lumbering there, as well, but the town didn’t last very long. I spent some time one evening researching the town, but couldn’t find much information. This picture is in the front of a book we have titled Westland’s Golden Century 1860-1960; it seems to be the only picture in existence of the small town.

I do not enjoy four wheel driving, but I decided to go along this time, since my entire family, plus Mom and my brother, were going. We took two vehicles: James’s Mitsubishi Pajero, and the Land Rover that Simon had just finished fixing. Some friends went along as well, with their two vehicles–a Land Cruiser and the Nissan Safari that Simon had restored and then sold to his friend. It was quite an adventure! I’ll let the pictures tell the story, for the most part. This first picture shows the house where the people live who maintain the track. They collect a small fee from each vehicle that goes on the track. The waterwheel generates their electricity.

This is a side track that apparently must be attempted each time. James only went downhill, but Simon and his friend both had to go up it, as well. This is Simon going up in the Land Rover.

Going downhill on another side track. The Safari went first, then the Land Rover, and then the Pajero. Simon stood in the track to direct James in driving the Pajero down. I was in that one. These gullies were terrifying enough going down….

When we reached this mudhole, we found the Safari stuck in the mud. Simon pulled him out, and then he went right back in…and got out on his own that time.

After awhile we came out into an open meadow, and climbed to a plateau above it for a lunch break.

Then, we had to go back up the rutted area.

At this point, I climbed out and walked around to the top of that area. I couldn’t handle seeing it, let alone being inside!

This is the Pajero, which I had just vacated.

Somewhere at the top of the hill is the Napoleon cemetery, virtually the only trace left of the town. There is a fence around the area, and a few grave mounds still visible.

We finally made it down to the level of the creek, and drove in the water for a long time.

A waterfall provided a car wash. There was so much mud on the windscreen by that time that a clean was quite welcome!

Shortly before reaching the river, we drove through two tunnels.

After going through the tunnels, the Pajero went home. Mr. Imagination had to do his paper run, and I was finished. The other three vehicles, however, stayed there to go through a number of mud holes. And get stuck. And get pulled out. And get stuck again.

I put together a couple of movies of the trip, using video clips taken by me, Esther, and Gayle.

Nelson Creek and Croquet

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My youngest brother came in early February to spend two weeks with us, returning home with Mom when she went. It was wonderful to get to know him! He is enough younger than me that he was only four years old when I left home, and I never really knew him. We did a lot while he was here! We let him rest on the first day, and the next day took him to Nelson Creek for a picnic lunch. Mom had been wanting to go there ever since she arrived, and we never made it, so it finally happened. We ate lunch and then went across the swing bridge to walk the tracks through the bush.

I found this little garden on a log and thought it was beautiful. These plants are about an inch tall at most.

There were cicadas everywhere! The noise was so loud it was hard to hear each other talk at times. A funny thing I noticed? When I said the sound “s” I couldn’t hear it; the sound of the cicadas drowned it out!

I believe it was that same evening that someone called us to say that the old church in Ngahere was on the move, and would be going past our house after awhile! The building had been bought by someone from Arahura, near Hokitika, and after about three years it was finally being moved there. We wanted to watch it go past, so we went to the park across the road and played croquet while we waited. Such a fun evening! The first person had just gotten around the course and won when the church came into sight.

January 2026 Photos Part 2

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Here are the rest of my pictures from January. The big project in January was to replace the roof of our church, Reefton Baptist. The building is an old A-frame Scout hall. The first picture here was the day they trimmed trees away from the building and took part of a wall off, and started taking the top off the chimney.

The next Saturday, more people went. They took off the old roof and replaced it, and a couple of people spent the whole day jackhammering and sawing the chimney to finish taking it down below the level of the roof. They had the building water-tight by late that night.

Little Miss wanted a picture of my harvest one morning.

One day, Mom and I took the three youngest on a walk to the bridge. We located all three geocaches that are around the bridge–what fun!

Esther was in Timaru for a couple of weeks in January, and one evening she sent me a picture of the sunset. I returned the favor–ours was more brilliant!

The budgies are tamer all the time. Mr. Imagination enjoys them.

So do the girls!

When I went to the greenhouse one day to work, I found two cats enjoying the dry warmth in there!

A friend of ours bought a berry farm last year. He allowed us to come in and pick crops that would be going to waste. These were blueberry bushes in among tayberries. We came home with enough blueberries to last us most of the year!

Picking peas and beans is very enjoyable–see all the colors!

January 2026 Photos Part 1

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I’m not going to attempt to organize these pictures into categories. I’ve had enough trouble getting anything posted that I’ll just put them up in a few posts.

We finally threw this old foam mattress out, after it hadn’t been used in many years and was just taking up valuable space. The girls had fun with it for a couple of days, and then Mr. Imagination cut it into pieces for archery targets.

Some friends from Australia came to visit one evening, and the girls appropriated the man’s hat and sunglasses for a little while!

The cat got dressed up, too. Think she liked it?

One of Mr. Imagination’s knives.

One Sunday we had lunch with and spent the afternoon with some friends at Maruia. They have an outdoor aviary with a number of budgies, and the girls enjoyed seeing them.

This is the view from their deck, as one storm after another rolled through the mountains.

We did a lot of puzzles with Mom. That was a great way to spend relaxed time together! This first one was Miss Joy’s; the others were a group effort.

We had another hatch of chicks in January. After I took them out, while the unhatched eggs were still in the incubator, Princess took a nap with them. As soon as I started picking them up, to take them outside and open them to see what went wrong, she was wide awake. She knows that they will be her snack!

Birds and Slime Mold

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Usually, we see many birds on the flax blossoms in December, but this year they didn’t really show up until January. Then, we enjoyed many different species. It was fairly easy to get decent pictures of the tuis.

The bellbird was a different story! These are not only shy, they move fast. Most of the pictures turned out blurry.

These birds are frequently photographed, too.

This bird is Little Miss’s pet. The girls had great fun one day when they let her out in the garden.

I walked into the greenhouse one morning to turn off the water and saw something very strange on top of the mulch. When I looked closer, I decided it was probably a slime mold, so when Mom got into the house I told her about it. We went and had a look, and she agreed with me. It had already started to disintegrate, just an hour after I first saw it! The first picture was taken about 8:00 in the morning.

This was about 2:00 in the afternoon.

3:00 in the afternoon.

Two days later.

This was a fruiting body, where many slime molds join together to reproduce. Look up slime molds–they are fascinating! They are not animal, or plant, or even fungi, but in a classification of their own. They move, and have intelligence–without a brain. Amazing creation of God!

Hokitika

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One Sunday in January we couldn’t get through to Reefton where we have been attending a small Baptist church. There were some culverts that had to be replaced in the road, and because of the narrow valley at that spot it was not possible to create a detour. The only way to get to Reefton from here on that Sunday and Monday would have been to drive to Greymouth, up the Coast Road to Westport, through the Buller Gorge to Inangahua, then to Reefton–a 3-hour drive rather than our normal 30 minutes. We decided to go somewhere else for church! We chose a small Church of Christ in Hokitika (an hour away), and packed a picnic lunch. One person in the family was deep in a conversation when almost everyone else had left church, so we filled our car and part of the family went to locate a place to eat our picnic. While we were waiting, the girls played in a very unusual pohutukawa tree with aerial roots, and we investigated a cannon. Elijah studied it, found a number of markings and formulated a hypothesis about how those markings were used for aiming the cannon, then looked it up online to see if he was right. He was–partly!

We also enjoyed the view up and down the Hokitika River–what a gorgeous day!

After the rest of the family joined us, we ate our lunch, then drove back through town a little way to a wood-chopping competition we had seen. A man who works with Simon was there, but we didn’t quite stay long enough to see him chop. On the way, Mom wanted a picture of this clock tower in the center of town.

These men are sawing through logs.

These 13-15-year-old boys were chopping through logs; each one had an older man coaching him.

After watching the wood-chopping for awhile, we went out to the beach. First, we stopped at the sign made of driftwood (probably the most-photographed item in the area!).

Then, we walked down the beach to the end, at the mouth of the Hokitika River, to check out the driftwood sculpture contest that was being held.

The titles given to the sculptures were very entertaining. This one is “In the Moment,” although we’re not sure what that was supposed to mean.

Pardon the language on this next sign. We sympathize with the sentiment, however–wekas are a major problem for gardens in this region. Can you see the “weka” digging up the garden (just behind the right-hand label)?

This one is “Questionable Pet.” Most of us agreed that this was our favorite.

Burl-o-pus

When I see creations like these, I marvel again at the creativity God has built into every person on earth–I love it, even though I didn’t like some of the ideas expressed.

December 2026 Photos

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Here are the rest of December’s photos! For some reason, we end up with a lot of pictures of Princess. One would think she’s a popular pet?

My animal-lover was delighted to find this hedgehog in the garden one afternoon. We told her she had to put it back out there, so the little girls found it a lot of slugs and watched delightedly as it slurped them down.

Jenga blocks rarely get used for the game….

We enjoyed watching the birds on the flax blossoms, as usual in the spring.

Our summer holiday project this year was to replace the lower part of the garage wall in the carport. It was pretty rotten. They ripped off the old weatherboards and dug out a trench for a footer, after propping up the roof. When they were digging, they broke into a cave we didn’t know about, which, at some time in the past, had been formed under the floor of the garage! We don’t know for sure what the purpose was, but based on some paraphernalia found in the attic of the garage when we moved here we have some suspicions. It is filled in now.

The carport was quite a mess for awhile. It was a good thing we didn’t have much rain for that time! I hang laundry in there when it rains.

The flower garden before it turned into a jungle!

This was one of our favorite visitors to the flax–a tui!

Another hatch of chicks. We’ve had very good percentages with the last two hatches–so fun!

One evening, we went to the Domain for a cookout with Elijah’s LandSAR group. One woman brought these balls on strings, and taught Maria how to swing them rhythmically. It’s a Maori game.

We’ve done a number of puzzles with Grandma; this was the first.

The girls created this one afternoon on their bedroom floor with thumbtacks!

We end up with a lot of photos of the birds, too. They are also popular pets.

Half-grown chicks–I think this was the batch in the incubator in the earlier picture.

One Saturday just before Christmas, the boys went on an overnight kayak trip on the Ahaura River. They started in the Haupiri, which flows into the Ahaura, and ended at Jim’s Hut. James met them there with their food and camping gear (he couldn’t go on the water because of a badly-cut hand), and they all spent the night. They had planned to kayak the rest of the way to Ahaura on Sunday morning, but decided instead to load up and come out for church, which decision I was quite happy with. Mr. Imagination found this beetle at the hut.

The river just below Jim’s Hut.

Tramp to Cone Creek

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A couple of years ago, our boys heard a rumor that a hut they had tramped to twice had burned down. They were rather unhappy with this news, since it was a pretty nice hut. Elijah decided he wanted to know for sure whether it had burned or was still standing, and planned a tramp awhile back to find out. Other things came up and the tramp had to be canceled; this happened at least once, if not a couple of times. Finally, sometime in December, he and his two younger brothers were able to go up there and find out. They did just an overnight tramp, leaving late one morning and returning the next afternoon. This first one is a fungus on a tree next to the creek–I’ve never seen such a thing!

A creek partway up the track.

A blue duck, an endangered native species. Both of the pair are in the second picture.

The hut is still standing!

The track to the Lake Morgan hut is up the scree slope in the middle of this picture.

The blue ducks again, this time when the boys were on the way out.

The younger boys made these signs from scraps they found at the hut and posted them at the junction of two tracks.

Returning to the main track from the hot pools, which were across the river.

November 2026 Photos

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I have not been keeping up with posting photos of our life very well! I guess this will just be a photo dump from November. Can you guess who took the first one? Yes, the cat lover–Miss Joy!

I’m guessing one of the girls took this picture, too, of a snail on the lemon tree.

Little Miss climbed the tall tree in our garden one day and took a lot of pictures. Our parking area was almost empty that day! The pink house is ours.

I took this picture one day while we were preparing the garden for planting. It sure looks different now! It’s a jungle today.

We were pulling up self-sown parsnips in this area.

We had visitors one day and I grabbed a picture of the water-gun fight to send to the friend who gave them the water guns.

When the children came inside a little while later they were cold, so Miss Joy got a pan of warm water for herself, and shared it with her three friends!

The greenhouse blew apart in the big storm the end of October, so the boys spent a couple of Saturdays rebuilding it. It is very nice now, except that the end wall still needs covered.

Towards evening, we heard the ice cream truck come through our village. A couple of the boys ran out to buy ice creams for everyone–think they enjoyed their treat?

Elijah saw the Southern Lights on the way home from work one night, and was able to capture them with his phone.

I think these two pictures should actually have been in the October post. We had a big truckload of compost delivered, and it had to be dumped on the edge of the street, so we spent an entire afternoon working hard and fast to move half of it in order to clear off the tarseal. We were glad, a few days later, that we had done that when the ambulance came to pick up the lady who lives in that house beside our garden. (This is the end of the street–it just stops there.)

Another cat-lover’s picture?

Sighting in the slingshot rifle he built. He actually killed a starling with it!