Esther Filbrun

Here’s the next installment of our family trip posts, from the 11-day trip we took in late December 2020 and early January 2021. If you need to catch up, here are the previous posts: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4.

Our fifth day was New Year’s Day, so we had a very relaxed morning and enjoyed talking and playing games with the friends we were staying with. Just before lunch, we finally took off, and headed for Dunedin, our next stop!

The area around Twizel, the Mackenzie Basin, is so dry. I loved seeing the contrasts there with the mountains in the background!

But despite being dry, there are a number of rivers and creeks that flow through the area—coming from the Southern Alps. Some of these have been diverted into canals, and after driving for a while, we came across a lake and dam, so we stopped to have a look.

The dam was impressive—one of the largest ones I’ve seen in person, I think. There were only two turbines going—we must not need as much electricity in the summer?

The part I found most interesting was the fish race, and the artificial 1 km-long creek they’ve created for trout to spawn in. That was something I don’t remember seeing before. Unfortunately, it looks like I didn’t manage to get a picture of that specifically. The concrete structure that some of my brothers are climbing on, below, is one of the entrances to the race.

Then we went on, out through mountainous country, heading down to Dunedin. Again, a beautiful drive, full of contrasts as we got out of the drier middle part of the island and back closer to the east coast where they get more rain and things are green.

We got to the coast, and had to drive along there for a while, but we did make one stop—the Moeraki Boulders. The tide was coming in, and it was raining, but they were still fascinating to see! Something I’d love to stop to see again, if we happen to be going past with fine weather and a low tide.

I found the lines in the rocks where they are joined together especially interesting. It was also interesting to see the ones that had broken apart!

We arrived in Dunedin Friday evening, and stayed with friends there until Sunday afternoon. I didn’t get any pictures those two days, because it rained (more like bucketed down!) nearly the entire time, and we just enjoyed time together, playing games and talking.

I did get one picture—of my sisters and me in the matching dresses I was able to finish just before we left on the trip. What fun! I’m so thankful God chose to give me sisters, after many years thinking His answer was “no”!

After we left on Sunday, we headed south to the Catlins, where some other friends of ours live. We hadn’t ever visited them at their home, despite almost getting there one other time and knowing each other for years. On the way, we hit a cloudburst and nearly had to stop driving for a few minutes—it was really coming down! The river next to us was full and then overflowing, but thankfully the water level didn’t make it up to the road.

Here’s a video I took of the flooding.

Stay tuned. More pictures coming up soon (hopefully!). 🙂

Well, the last major thing on my to-do list for today is to get a blog post up. I have this on my list every week, several days each week, and generally it doesn’t happen—my time fills up with other things before I get there. But perhaps today I can cross it off; we’ll see!

Our fourth day started a little slow, but soon we were on the road to Mount Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand. We’d been up there as a family two other times, but since we were in the area again, everyone was keen to have another look around.

I love the views of Mount Cook as you drive up the valley toward the Mount Cook Village!

At one of the places we stopped to get a picture of the mountain, we also were able to get a family picture—one goal of our trip crossed off the list!

We drove around to Tasman Glacier first, had lunch, and headed up to the Tasman Glacier lookout. It’s a beautiful climb through tussock land. This time, there weren’t as many icebergs on the glacial lake as we’ve seen other times; apparently, the other times had extraordinarily large amounts, so I wasn’t too sad about that. As always, what little we could see of the glacier was impressive, although I think my favorite time of the year to see it is in winter, when snow covers the gravel on top of the glacier.

Little sister and I got a picture together. I was really starting to feel the effects of two days in the sunshine, but that didn’t dim the enjoyment of the day. 🙂

Looking down the valley toward lake Pukaki, I’ve always been impressed by the greens and browns and purples. Just gorgeous!

After enjoying our time at the Tasman Glacier, we went around to Hooker Valley, which is probably my favorite walk up in the Mount Cook area (seeing as I’ve only ever done the two!). It’s a beautiful cross-country tramp, about an hour or hour and a half long if you take it at a leisurely pace, and you see two different glacial lakes on the way.

First is the lake from the Mueller Glacier, which I didn’t realize until this trip is actually fed by the glacier—I saw the upper reaches of the glacier on the walk back this time. The lake flows into a river, which joins the Hooker River, and you cross it via a swingbridge—always a highlight to my brothers, of course.

The day was not super hot, but it was mostly sunny. A perfect tramping day!

The mountain views were just gorgeous. This is Mount Cook presiding over the Hooker River.

I stayed with my brothers all the way up there, and generally was just a few steps behind. They walk faster than I’m used to, but I was still able to enjoy the scenery! It’s all rocks, bushes, water in all forms of presentation (frozen, waterfalls, rivers, creeks, etc), and mountains. Lots of mountains. The walk is supposed to be three hours round trip, but we were in a bit of a hurry and made it in two.

The lake itself isn’t quite as gorgeous as some of the other water around—the sedimentation in the water gives it a murky color, but off in the distance, we could see the Hooker Glacier and a few small icebergs, and with the mountains behind it was just gorgeous!

And the sunshine on the peaks as we were going back…now that was something worth soaking in! Goodbye, Mount Cook:

In all, that was probably the second most spectacular scenery we saw on the trip. The most spectacular came much later on, which, hopefully, I can share with you soon. We’ll see!