Private: 18th January
January 18th, 2007 - Posted in Blackball, NZ Search - by Brendhan|
***** NEWS FLASH *****
As mentioned things certainly have not settled down much! Our offer was accepted on the Camerons Rd Property on Tuesday and we signed the contract and paid the deposit yesterday. We now have an unconditional contract with a settlement date of the 14th of Feb.
As well as being Sarah’s birthday, Tuesday also saw the arrival of all of our boxes still intact.
Our boxes have arrived.
We immediately unpacked the important things…
Coffee and tea equipment (Brendhan was so excited he couldn’t even focus his camera).
Brendhan has spent the last couple of days tidying up the chook house in preperation for the arrival of six chickens which were due today but won’t be arriving until Sunday as their current owner had to rush her son to hospital with suspected appedicitis today. We had an unexpected arrival instead when half a dozen locals escaped and fled into our paddock.
Our new lodgers.
We promptly stuck up a fence so they couldn’t escape – with the assistance of their owner who was happy to get some free grazing.
Sarah has been busy unpacking boxes and digging the vege garden and today we planted our first veggies.
Veggie garden after day 3.
After the coffee machine the next most important item was delivered today…
Mac’s beginners home brewing kit.
Hopefully things will settle down a bit over the next few days and we will be able to get our heads around what happens next (and make some beer).
Private: 15th January 2007
January 15th, 2007 - Posted in NZ Search - by Brendhan|
We are finally catching our breath after a hectic, emotional rollercoaster of a new year. We left Gore on 3rd Jan and headed back to the West Coast to get back on the property trail. We?d decided that we should be seriously checking out rental properties as well because even if we bought one of our 2 short-listed properties it would be a few weeks before we could take possession and move on, mainly because of the track work required. We started back in Greymouth and then moved on up the valley to Reefton but with the new Gold mine just opened up there was nothing available to rent. Unfortunately the only place with rental properties available within really convenient distance of our short-list was Westport where we didn?t really want to live for any length of time.
While this was going on we had organised to go back to the Inangahua property to have a second look. We went, looked and decided that we would have to change a lot of the things that we really liked about it in order to get near a self-sufficient lifestyle. It would be a lovely place to build a cabin and just chill out but we would have had to clear a lot of beautiful trees in order to get enough pasture and shade-free spots for growing. This realisation left us with Tapawera and when it came to the crunch we decided it was just too treeless and bare. NZ Native trees tend to be slow growers so even if we spent the first 3 months there just planting saplings all over the place there wouldn?t be anything much over 2 metres in our lifetimes. As we now had a total of zero properties on our short list we started to scour the classifieds for rental properties.
That?s when we spotted a house in need of repair that was for sale for $65,000. We had discussed the possibility of getting a ?do-er up-er? to keep us busy if we couldn?t find the right property quickly so we decided to go and have a look. The house was in Blackball, 20 minutes up the Grey valley, home of workers rights and the birthplace of the NZ Labour Party. It was being sold by a lovely, completely spaced out couple from Golden Bay who had owned it for 10 years and apart from re-piling and re-roofing had never got around to doing it up. The owner before them had been a hermit who would leave his shopping order and some money outside the village shop in the middle of the night; they would deliver it to his doorstep but no-one ever saw him.
The Blackball house.
We thought it was pretty cool so we headed back to Greymouth to find a builder to inspect the damage and give us a list of what needed doing. At the same time we decided to enquire about a rental property we?d seen in Blackball that was being advertised via a Greymouth real estate agent. Even if we got the house it wouldn?t be liveable for a while and we would need access to a lot of our stuff that?s in storage in Christchurch.
So we went and made arrangements to visit the rental. On the way out of the real estate office we spotted a property in the window (Camerons Rd) that we had enquired about several weeks before. Back then we were told that it had been sold. by the agent who then went on to show us the Maori Creek Rd property – where he got the boundary completely wrong. This guy hadn?t recognised us when we were in the office again and when we went back in and asked one of the women on the front desk about Camerons they went and asked him and he just fobbed them off. The woman then went and asked another agent who came out and told us that it was under offer but he thought that the contract had expired as it was subject to the purchaser selling their house and that hadn?t happened yet. He gave us directions and we went out to have look.
Camerons Road driveway.
Camerons is about 15 minutes south of Greymouth and Camerons Rd leads inland in between the New River and the Turakamau River.
Camerons aerial view.
The driveway of no. 139 leads though native beech which covers most of the half hectare of elevated terrace. At the moment the track runs all the way along the terrace and then curves downhill to meet the paddock at the far end. The terrace overlooks the rest of the property which is 2 hectares of paddock, one corner of which bounds on the New River reserve.
The paddock from the potential building site clearing.
There is already a cleared potential building site on the terrace which you can see from the paddock.
The potential building site clearing from the paddock.
We liked what we saw a lot so we started making enquiries about putting an contract together (in NZ your offer is only considered serious if it?s in a contract). Then things started getting complicated. No-one really seemed to know what the actual situation was with the previous offer and finding out was complicated by the fact that only one of the solicitors in Greymouth was open again after the New Year (this on the 8th Jan!). From what we can make out, the vendor added an ?escape clause? to the previous contract because it was subject to the house sale. This means that they can give the purchaser 3 days to match any other offer or the contract becomes void and also meant that we would have to put in an unconditional offer.
We decided that this required some more research so spent the next couple of days looking through files at the council, talking to the owners of the neighbouring property and discussing the situation with our solicitor.
In the middle of all this we went ahead and rented the house in Blackball and told the couple from Golden Bay that we would get back to them if an offer on Camerons wasn?t successful.
Our new home is a massive 3 bedroom 2+ living room villa with 10 foot ceilings and about half an acre of land. We have permission to keep chickens as well as a goat or a couple of sheep to keep the grass down so look forward to pictures of our first livestock soon! It also has a one bedroom cottage with a spa bath that Brendhan has named ?The Love Shack? so we?re looking forward to seeing at least some of you as guests while we?re here. It?s unfurnished so we?re already making plans to build our own furniture – starting with a bed – although we splashed out $90 on a second hand table and four chairs. The aim is to only spend money on things that we will need when we get our own land and build our house so everything we do here should be a step in the right direction.
131 Main Rd, Blackball.
This view is the back of the house where most of the living gets done with The Love Shack on the left hand side. The house does have an impressive double bayed front but as we?ve not actually used it yet we thought that this view was more appropriate. The previous tenant left the garden untended for about 18 months so the rental agent is currently paying for a gardener to get the front gardens back into shape while the paddock area out the back is being left to us along with the chook house. There is also an old herb garden that we are going to use for veggies that we?ve already started work on.
The herb/veggie garden before and after day 1.
We have organised for our boxes to be delivered tomorrow (yippee!!) which is just about the best birthday present I could have asked for (assuming they are all present and intact). Once they?re in place we will be able to set up one of the bedrooms as a ?project room? and further develop our plans for our own land and anything major we decide to do while here.
How long that will be is uncertain at the moment as we have put in an offer on Camerons and the vendor has until Friday (19th Jan) to accept it.
So, a busy couple of weeks here and no sign of it letting up for a while as we get ourselves organised. If anyone fancies a holiday in Blackball just let us know (03 732 4112) or just turn up with your bedroll. Thanks to all those who sent us a New Year message and hope to hear from you all again soon.
