Monday, rained off from site. Was hoping to get a day out of our builders but it’s a bit filthy. We head into town instead and hit the jackpot of delicious Porcini mushrooms. So many of them Rowan made them into a soup.

On Tuesday we have the Sparkys here doing the internal fit out. They haven’t finished and will need another day to connect the power and finish off. Rowan and I helped where needed but mostly worked outside starting the rails on the fence.

Wednesday we had Graham on site, it was just a focus on getting the deck done. I was inside painting while the boys worked on the deck. They literally kept going until there was no power left in the battery powered tools

On Thursday we had a grand plans with Lance our carpet man. It wasn’t until we hit Moeraki I had a brain wave and realised he needs power in order to do the carpet. Also ideally a warm room as it makes the carpet stretching a lot easier. Boy it has been frosty! We end up cancelling but Rowan and I continue to site as we have a bit to do. We finish off the fences (as far as we can get). Clean up the site from all the loose wood and rubbish. Put a load on our trailer to take to Alistair. Make sure the container is tightly packed ready to be moved and then head home.

Once we got home we got to packing and getting ready to head off. Tomorrow we start heading to the North Island to drop Camele off.

We have dinner with Laura, Alistair and the kids and get home exhausted.

Heading North, first stop is in Timaru. We help Jo out at the hospice for a few hours before continuing to Ashburton then Christchurch. We are staying with Rick and Liz. I finally remember that I have a plastering job to do there. I promised a long time ago I would fix up some GIB near the heatpump that was needed to replace their old model. I remembered my tools and got 90% done before we left on Saturday.

We left Christchurch around 2pm and headed to Picton. The drive was really lovely and the sunset around Kaikōura made it more special.