Private: 21st October 2006
October 21st, 2006 - Posted in NZ Search - by Sarah|
Well, the laptop finally arrived and we headed off South via Wellington, where we stayed with Nathan and Lisa for a couple of nights. While there we managed to fit in a visit to BATS Theatre to see a gothic romance about Jack the Ripper. New Zealand is still definitely in the Gothic phase that the UK went through in the 80’s – further evidenced by the Zombie Parade the previous day through central Wellington. After watching the blustery gales for two days we made our way to the ferry port with trepidation but had a very calm crossing, arriving in Picton around 10pm, just in time to get to our campsite cabin before they closed for the night.
Waiting to board the ferry.
The next day dawned clear and sunny and we headed off through Blenheim in high spirits. At Cheviot, where we stopped for lunch and to pay our respects to the garage where the Capri spent Xmas last time we were here, we were trapped inside the cafe by torrential rain and hail. That’s when we decided that maybe it wasn’t going to be a good night to get our tiny summer 2 man tent out for the first time this year.
We made it to Christchurch despite the weather and the next day we got our business with Transworld (the company shipping our stuff over) sorted out in time to catch a movie – Brick, highly recommended. We also took the opportunity of another sunny afternoon to drive over the Summit Road on the Port Hills and take in the views of Sea, Plains and Snow-capped Mountains. We also almost lost the Capri when Sarah wanted to trade it in on a 5 litre V8 Mustang but good taste prevailed in the end. Lots fewer old cars about than last time we were here, to the extent that we exchange waves with drivers of Triumph Heralds and 1940’s classics when we pass them on the road. (Where we are now on the West Coast of course you wave at everyone just to relieve the tedium of the empty roads.)
Christchurch from the port hills.
From Christchurch we headed over Arthurs Pass and North up the Grey Valley past Lake Brunner and through Reefton before heading through Inangahua and down the Buller Gorge to Westport. All this area looks ideal for the type of land we’re looking for (when you can see it through the clouds and rain that is). Westport is really humming these days – it even has a 200 seat cinema where we watched a movie with 2 other people (Tsotsi – another recommendation).
Lake Brunner
We went to explore a few pieces of land just North of Westport which were a bit flat and boring and in amongst loads of small lifestyle blocks. It was a good start though and a good test of our wet weather gear. After making contact with a couple of Karamea agents we headed up towards the end of the road and are staying at Rongo’s (Click Here) for the weekend. We spent yesterday afternoon (Glorious sunshine again) on a tour with one of the local agents and saw some fabulous blocks that are out of our league (on the hill in the photo below) that we are trying hard to think of down sides to!
South Terrace Karamea
We also found some smaller blocks that look alright although some are a bit exposed as the section below is. We have some more to look at tomorrow and a couple lined up around the North Coast (near Collingwood!) for next week. Loads more to see nearer Greymouth after that and then we’ll see…
Oparara Road Karamea
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Private: 9th October 2006
October 9th, 2006 - Posted in NZ Search - by Sarah|
Well, we’ve been keeping busy since arriving in NZ and it feels like we’ve been here for ages already. When we first arrived we drove our rental car as far as Hamilton where we stayed in a motel and caught up with one of Brendhan’s old mates (Quin) and his family. Then we resisted the temptation to go visiting the glow-worm caves at Waitomo and headed down to Wanganui via the National Park road. Ruapehu and Ngarahoe were both in cloud though so it was possible to pretend that they were just mountains rather than huge volcanoes (Ruapehu had a minor volcanic event a couple of days ago)!
We arrived at Jim (Brendhan’s father) and Sharon’s house in Wanganui and spent the next few days acclimatising and investigating the state of Brendhan’s car. On finding out how much it was going to cost to get it road worthy we spent a couple of days recovering from the shock and looking at new(-ish) cars before deciding to go ahead and get it fixed up anyway. [A couple of days of just contemplating getting rid of it had made Brendhan act like a sad puppy so I surrendered - Sarah.] Once we knew it was going to be a couple of weeks before it would be ready we decided to head off and do some land searching in the North Island in Jim & Sharon’s second car.
The North Island is generally more expensive than where we’re aiming to look in the South but we have seen some beautiful places. The first was half an hour up (…and up) a side road that turned to gravel half way along and got steadily rougher until we were a bit concerned about not having 4 wheel drive. If we could happily survive on wild deer and wild pig it would have been a possibility. As you can see from the picture below it’s a bit steep for horticulture. Yes, that’s the house (hut?) in the middle.
We found a couple of similar properties up in North Taranaki on an afternoon’s excursion with Agent Lynley (an entertaining rural real estate agent who would have fit into Twin Peaks very nicely). It bucketed down with rain all afternoon and Sarah managed to fall on her bum in the mud just about here…
We also met some real Kiwi blokes on the way who were “out there and doin’ it”, according to Agent Lynley, despite the foul weather. We also saw a couple of flat pastureland properties that were outside out price range including an organic certified block of about 5.6 ha. It was open to offers but will likely go for way more than we’re prepared to spend ($250,000+). It also had sweeping sea views in one direction and a classic mountain view in the other [it's NOT a mountain it's another HUGE volcano!!! - Sarah.].
We had a lovely lunch at the Eden Cafe in Bell Block run by another of Brendhan’s old mates (Tim). We caught up with Tim and his family and some Hawera gossip. We then drove across to Gisbourne in the hope of catching some surf as well as looking at more property. We camped in a lovely spot right on the sea front (about 30 metres from the beach) and were kept awake all night by the gale force winds and incessant rain which carried on into the next day too. There wasn’t really any property that met our requirements so we resisted the local agent trying to persuade us to buy a saw mill(!?) and headed down the East coast as far as Woodville – calling in at Real Estate agents all the way. Once there we decided it made sense to hop across to Wanganui as we discovered that The Car (see below) was going to be ready the next day.
In the meantime we had also ordered a new laptop which is due to arrive by next Monday. As we had a few more days to kill before we could head off South we decided to PIMP OUR RIDE! Or maybe, given that we have been removing black fake fur panels, de-pimping would be more accurate. We now have a classic tan vinyl interior that is in surprisingly good nick even to the fake chrome strips. Brendhan has added a manual choke, stripped and re-painted the back bumper and the next couple of days will be spent digging out rust patches, filling and re-painting before a final cut and polish. The next problem will be how we fit all our stuff into the tiny boot and tiny back seat when we head South.
