After a wild night of heavy rain and rocking wind I woke up feeling pretty good. Today we have no plans other than to catch up with Lisa and Shane. The accidental trail angels we met in February 2023. Lisa pulled her car over and told us to grab a coffee at her place. We were soaked to the bones. I remember feeling extremely uncomfortable in her dining room, smelling like wet dirty hippies. But she was so caring and made us feel very welcome in her whare. So welcome we stayed for a week haha.

They are extremely busy today. Rowan and I op shopped and just mooched around town until dinner time when we met at a local Chinese/Japanese place. It was like we had seen each other yesterday. We had a great catch up and ended up following them home in our camper. Stayed up to 1am talking about the Hikoi and what they as Māori people would like to see. It was great to hear from their experiences and perspective. Like Lisa’s Great, great grandfather gifted some land to the crown to build a school and part of their negotiations with her iwi means that land is supposed to be returned once it is no longer needed. The school has long gone and the land has never been returned to the tribe. Simple ideas like a Rāhui being enforceable. These can be put in place if the seafood has been over fished or there is a missing body in that area and they don’t want people eating fish that may be eating a body. I could go on and on but I won’t. It was very interesting to say the least. Unfortunately there is a lot of media out there making out that they want all the land back and some extreme requests. Lisa points out there are some who feel that way but 95% just want more say in what happens to certain areas of land and more consultation with local iwis.

I woke up feeling pretty good. The 1am bedtime will probably hit me tomorrow. Today we hang out with Shane and Lisa, they have one granddaughter over and we make t-shirts and hats together. Shane runs a printing business and has a lot of orders to get out. Wisey helps me plaster in the bathroom, we will make her an apprentice in no time. She also talks me into a moko kauae temporary tattoo. I tell her it is cultural appropriation and I will only put it on if it is easy to come off and I am not leaving the house with it on. She thought I was being strange haha. I do have a photo but I won’t post it as I don’t want to offend anyone.

Thursday, we are heading north. But first to finish the job. Unfortunately the weather is wet and made it near impossible to dry the plaster. I hang around trying to get it to dry. Rowan and I make the decision to do another layer of plaster and potentially come out on our way south to finish the job. Lisa assures me she can sand and paint it.

We head north west and the weather is not great for sight seeing. We decide to head to see the cuzys as we won’t see them all Christmas Day. We still take our time and see what we can along the way. The weather clears on the northern side of Mt Taranaki. We don’t get to Cambridge until after 7pm.

It is great catching up with all the family. I finally get to meet Kiwa, who is absolutely adorable. Two of the cousins are pregnant and due next year. Anita (Kiwas mum) is having twins, our first set in the family.

Saturday morning we head to Sandringham to Emma & Paul’s place. My niece Ellery is a big 5, we are having a low key morning tea as she had a big party with kids a week ago. Rowan and I stay on to help with the renovations. Mum goes to Nanas place with all the kids in tow. Keelan my brother in law is here helping too. He started a business, doing handyman jobs. Emma and Paul have a large to do list and it feels good to get a few jobs off the list. I help paint and do some organising in the kitchen. Rowan helps with some outside stairs and an attic staircase. We end up staying there until Monday morning before heading north to Whangaparāoa. The house is full and it’s times like this we all appreciate there being four toilets in the house. Thanks Nan for having such a well planned home.

We arrived on site and Murray was already there. Rowan tried to say hi, he refused and didn’t reply. Oh great what an awesome day we have shared of us. I had decided this is not my problem and I am not getting involved. I got him a spade when he asked but I stayed well away. I did some tax receipts in the car and just avoided the area. Rowan helped when asked said he said all of 10 sentences to him all morning. There was a lot of anger and swearing going on. I had no sympathy, he can only be angry at himself. It is not like it failed by a small margin, there needs to be 100mm all over for the concrete. The worst part was only 65mm, which would mean the plastic bar chairs that hold the mesh in the middle of the concrete would be above and sticking out.

He left in a huff, mumbling bye. Raced off with his van rear open. Rowan and I were surprised nothing fell out. The site was left a mess, none of the bar chairs were put back in and all the dirt on the edges would mean this will surely fail tomorrow’s inspection.

Rowan and I left Palmerston and headed for Herbert, we went into town and waited for Tama to get home so we could chat with him about moving forward from here. After our talk Murray is not to be the lead builder on site, Tama will send us one of the other guys in the new year. Murray is allowed to work on site but he is just to be assisting and not in charge. We don’t hold anything against him, I just don’t need someone who has cost us more money than necessary and not been guiding us in the right direction. He has had a “not my job, not my problem.” Attitude and this has caused more work and more money from us and other tradies.

Wednesday morning, Rowan and I go down early to clean up Murray’s mess. I am not happy about it, he shouldn’t have left yesterday until it was all done. The inspector comes at 10am and it is one who is a bit tougher, Gordon. Tama comes to help out and make sure it passes. There is concrete trucks (3), the pump guy Willy and the concrete placers all on hold until it is signed off. It took me a good hour to remove all the dirt around the ring of the foundation. It must be done in order to get the next load of concrete to stick.

We get signed off just as the concrete teams arrive and 20min later the first concrete truck is here. It all goes pretty smoothly after that. All these guys know what they are doing and they get the job done well. The concrete placers have to wait for the concrete to set hard enough to stand on and then they can use these hover machines to tighten it all up. We go as the start the first one. I want to be all organised so after we finish our job in the morning we can leave.

We are back to cut the concrete to avoid cracks in the slab. There are is four cuts to make, two on each house. Unfortunately the water isn’t working as our hose has an attachment with a release valve. we make a lot of noise and a lot of dust for an early hour of the morning. We get out of Palmerston after 9am. By the time we change vehicles, do our last minute errands, we leave Ōamaru near lunchtime.

It is dry the further north we go. They haven’t been getting the regular rain that we have been. There was a fire taking over a whole farm north or Dunsandel. They had to close the highway for a while but when we went through they were working on it further back from the road.

We made it to the Conway River just south of Kaikōura.

Off to Blenheim to meet Kate. We have a quick hello, and leave her to do her errands. We will meet back at her place in Picton later.

Rowan and I have a sniff around the op shops and get food for dinner tonight. It is prefect bbq weather. Trying to stay cool is the hardest part. I am living in dresses now to try stay cool.

It was a very chill weekend. We really didn’t do much, which is exactly what we needed to start our holiday. I helped out and fixed a damaged wall. It took a couple of layers of plaster and trying my best to match the colour. I think it was pretty bang on however the paint is older so matching it is never going to be perfect. We had a good catch up with Kate & James. had a swim to cool off. It is really warm at the moment. I hope my plants survive while we are away.

North Island here we come. We didn’t really think about how long the ferry takes and was pretty hungry when we arrived around lunchtime. Rowan and I spent the rest of the day attempting to get the camper a wheel alignment and see if our tyres are okay. They are quite bald on the inside at the front. Apparently towing heavy loads can make that happen. By the time we get to Whanganui, it is nearly 5pm and we rush around without any luck. It is hard to find a place because of the camper body makes it hard for the machines to attach to the wheels. We end up at Castlecliff in a freedom camping area for the night. It starts to bucket down, the rain is incredibly heavy. Last picture is my Christmas decoration from our neighbours Jim & Silvija. Isn’t it awesome!

This weeks mission is to get the slab ready to be poured. There is sand to level everything perfectly, this is called blinding. Then the polythene (black plastic) for a moisture barrier. Next polystyrene for insulation. Then metal mesh to be tied all together. Finally bar chairs (plastic props) to hold the mesh up at the right level for strength. The day is horrifically warm 32 degrees with a hot norwester wind. Rowan and I are really suffering. There is not enough sand so we head out to Skevingtons and they have a yard we can grab some from. Three trailer loads done by shovel and wheelbarrow we are spent! One day was not enough time to do both so Murray will be back tomorrow to finish the job off.

We get it all done and end up being able to finish early. The day is not as hot but at 26 and very windy we struggled to keep all the polystyrene from flying away. It just made the job a lot harder but we got it done!

On Friday we spent the day getting jobs done around Herbert. We are aiming to head away on Monday after the council inspection. Rowan built a cage for the trailer using IBC container cages he got for free. Chris came over in the afternoon and dug out the area for the Bedford to sit in and he positioned our rocks. We gave him some beer and cookies and I later get a text to say that is payment. I am chuffed! I think we have spent more than $50k with him this year.

We spent the weekend getting organised to head north. We took a little interlude to the famous Fishwife where you can get half a cray and chips for $33.

Inspection day! We plan to head off as soon as we can. We make sure we are ready to go. Tony comes to do the inspection and he can’t pass it. The levels have been done too high on one of the houses. Which means the metal mesh would sit above the concrete. Once he pointed it out I could see how obvious it is. The other site passed just fine.

Now to have a conversation with Tama. We expressed our displeasure. Tony said it has been years since he didn’t pass one of these and Murray should have seen the issue. I am really pissed off. This just puts the whole thing out of sorts. Tama says he will send Murray tomorrow to fix it and we won’t be paying. That just means Tama will be paying for his stuff up.

Rowan and I decide to stay so we can be there tomorrow. Luckily we booked flexible ferry tickets!

On Tuesday we stopped a bit earlier so Chris and I could go up to the lime quarry in Dunback. We ended up getting two large rocks that weighted over 2 ton each. These are going out the front of Herbert. Chris unloaded them as carefully as he could. Because rocks this size could easily tip the truck. They now sit out front waiting for us to place them one day.

Dean came out on Thursday to test the compaction of the backfill. All my hard work of being on a compactor for four days has paid off. All well above what we needed them to be. One was even over 100%, I was chuffed when the first reading came back at 98.8%.

On Friday Dave came to lay his pipe work. We encounter a problem, we were supposed to fill a block of sand before pouring the blocks with cement. Rowan and I rush off to Ōamaru to pick up a tool from the hire shop to be able to get through, we also pick up Jim’s generator. Luckily Rowan thinks to call the sparky and same issue, Dave is kind enough to drill two extra holes and lay a pipe for the sparky later. This is a job that shouldn’t have been needed. Unfortunately we have no clue so we didn’t realise. Our builder should have told us. We quickly realise if it is not his problem he doesn’t care. Which sucks for us as it causes more time and money for us with other contractors.

After a hot long day we went for a swim to cool off on the way home. I say we, Rowan got in I paddled my feet.

Saturday is here and I have been keeping this truck out of the blog. Not really intentionally just forgot to write about it. We picked up this Bedford for $500, believe it or not it actually drives. Rowan considered driving it out to Herbert, but we ended up getting Skevingtons to pick it up for us. The dumped it at the hall a few days ago and we put a note up. Well today is the day we move it onto our land. It has no gas tank just a Jerry can taped under the hood. It takes a while to get started, which is strange as we had it going easily before. Looks like it just locked up in a funny way. Mike our neighbour from Till St turns up and lends a hand. I go to the top of the road to stop any traffic wanting to turn in. Rowan miraculously drives the old truck all the way into place. I did video it but it’s rather long!

An early morning of up and go! We head to Jim’s farm to get some firewood. A fantastic road sign in Maheno which gave us a laugh. After loading up Jim got us some large wood rings to use as chopping blocks. Do you like Rowan’s bucket ride? Rowan and I had breakfast at the Riverstone Kitchen, a place we have been meaning to try for a very long time. I can see why it is popular. We will need to try a sweet treat next time. The meals were too big to fit in anything else.

Cory is here today, he is helping load the firewood and trim up some more trees. Rowan puts more stakes in for the fruit trees and I faux bake. I don’t have an oven but at New World the bakery area makes these delicious cookies that taste like they are homemade rather than store bought. I made some royal icing and decorated them. It took me longer than I thought it would a good 2.5 hours later I was finally done. I couldn’t find the twine to wrap them up so I used orange builders string haha

Wahoo, I got my restricted! I have been riding as much as I can to get my confidence and skills up. Trevor couldn’t fit me in prior to Christmas so I went to Dunedin for my test. The lovely Debbie gave me an hour lesson and she taught me some new skills. I then did my test, I was super nervous and wasn’t sure if I passed when I finished. I had a complex intersection just before a rail crossing and my head was bobbing around doing all my checks. I was so focused on that when I got to the other side of the tracks I was only going 50km and didn’t see the 80km signs. Debbie had to tell me to go faster haha. I also lost her once which is a no no. She also got me to do this complicated intersection which is uphill with a very sharp turn. You have to check your mirrors and your blind spot. Then turn without getting on the white lines, no cutting corners here! Somehow I managed it!

I was so knackered by the time we got back to Herbert I didn’t really have it in me to do much else. Photos below of practice rides with Rowan

Thursday, we are heading to Christchurch. We are waiting for concrete to cure and I have been missing Liz and Rick. Every time we go up there is a million things to do, this time we just get to hang out. I have also been worrying that we won’t get a chance to see them pre Christmas as it is all play by ear we may be gunning it to the ferry in Picton.

With Noodly out of action we take Camele. She is due a warrant which I totally forgot about so it made sense to book it in if we can. Lucky for us they have time with such short notice.

Rowan churns some raw cream from our milk supplier and makes some beautiful compound butter. He slow cooked garlic at Jimmys for 3 weeks and made a beautiful butter. First time making butter and it really needs to be the right temperature before it will churn. Rowan watched Liz open her hives. He only got one sting! Liz and I went to see Wicked at the movies. It was really good. I haven’t seen a movie since I last went with Liz.

We got a quick chance to catch up with Paul, who has set up his warehouse as a shop. Man the awesome stock he has in there. A lot from Australia. If you’re into records he is the man to see! Can’t wait to see it open.

Same day we also got to have a quick lunch with Michael. His garden is looking good. Lots of vegetables growing.

Rowan and I found some new residents in the house truck. We put some bait down so hopefully when it comes from Christchurch we don’t have new tenants.

Monday and straight to work. This week is focusing on back filling with AP and compacting it ready for the slab. The black plastic is a moisture barrier. I videoed Chris coming into the house it was pretty impressive! I will put it on here. Not sure if it will work! We didn’t quite get the first pad completed.

Mark got all the blocks finished really fast. Rowan and I cleaned up the sites and loaded in all the broken blocks and any spare ones that were not used. We took them into town to return them to Mitre10. Back in Herbert we went to Chris and Ferne’s place to learn all the feeding rituals of the animals. They are going away and asked us to house sit and pet mind. Chris let us borrow his concrete vibrator for the blocks. Last photo is of Rowan taking it on his motorbike haha.

Oh and there place is an awesome earth home that Chris almost built all on his own. He did a fantastic job. It has some really cool quirky features. Of course he dug out the hillside.

Ready for block fill! It all goes very smoothly and easily. Block fill is easy when you have paid for a pump to get it in the right place. We get it all done really easily. Rowan and I fill the trailer up with the last load of wood to take back to Tama. I also go spray all the broom and fence lines. I didn’t go near the neighbour as she has lots of plants in the fence line and last thing I need it to kill them!

On our way to Herbert we hear a hissing, quickly realising that it is the truck. We stop and a hose has come off. I think we stopped fast enough not to cook the engine but I am unsure. I end up calling AA while Rowan is under the hood. Now to wait. Luckily the tow guy is happy to attach our trailer to his tow bar and takes us to Herbert garage. I go get UM who hasn’t been run in months. She comes to life with ease! Back up car in place and now ordered a hose kit from Australia the Noodly is out of a job for a while.

We fill the rest of the week with small jobs and get a chance to go see the Victorian festival. Awesome seeing all the dressed up

Yes I missed a week. My Nana said “I am getting eye strain looking for your latest blog or even a tiny bit of news from the South.”

I thought I wouldn’t bore you with last week as there really isn’t anything to report. Unless you want to know about how many fingernails we chewed off or hair we pulled out in anticipation! Just kidding the waiting wasn’t annoying more than stressful.

Rowan and I did another ACC motorbike training day. Afterwards Rowan went for his restricted license and passed! Wahoo. Mine is booked for later in the month. I have been getting on the motorbike as much as possible to get as much practice as possible.

On Monday we got a call from Dean to say we have the results (looking good) but we must wait for James to advise from here. On Tuesday we get another call to say we can proceed but we are changing how we back fill the blocks. I quickly call the council to ask for an inspection for tomorrow if possible but more likely Monday. Lucky for us they have time to come check it out, wahoo.

Rowan and I meet Tony and he is happy with everything that has been done. He joked and asked if this is the garage and where is the house? I don’t think anyone in the area has ever built so compact before!

Friday we are able to organise builder, pump and concrete. It all goes pretty smoothly. Though we don’t have quite enough for the second site so the footings are at 250mm rather than 300mm. Not an issue at all as we only need to be 200mm.

On Saturday Cory, Rowan and I spend the day taking off the boxing and cleaning it. It took longer than I hoped for but we got it all done.

An early Monday. Rowan and I head off early into Ōamaru to drop Jimmys new Royal Enfield Guerrilla off at the mechanics. He has already put 500 on the clock so it needed to be seen. We two up on the way back. It is my first time riding with Rowan on the back. I did pretty good. Just a bit slower as it feels quite different to normal.

I continue riding to Palmerston, Rowan takes the truck to meet Mark on site. He is our block layer. He makes it look easy. It will take him two days to do both sites. We ended up finishing off early and will pick up again tomorrow.

Also our frame and trusses arrived. Annoyingly we won’t need them until much later. So we will cover them up and keep them as protected as possible. The builder suggested we put them up on the other section of land so they are high and dry. Wouldn’t want another flood and to have them floating down stream!

Tuesday; we tried to keep our minds off the builds and got some jobs done. Look at our hot tub, it is coming along nicely! Finally got the IBC on the roof of the container and hooked up the bath properly. It took me a while to get the fire roaring but once I did it didn’t take long to heat up. Look at all the rust from the inside of the fire. I got a tan while I bathed haha. Our awesome neighbour Andy gave us a heap of blue cod. Fresh out of the ocean today, man it was delicious and it lasted us two meals. We have great neighbours here, now that we have gotten compost and fish from Andy and Kathy I better think of a koha for them.

At last we heard from Dean, looks like lab results won’t be here until next week. Which probably means Tuesday since Monday is a public holiday.

When there is nothing to do but wait you may as well go away. We never made it to Queenstown last trip so let’s go now. On Wednesday we made it to Lake Dunstan. Do you like my oversized glitter rubber ducky I got in Alex? It is a perfect bath toy!

Thursday was absolutely deliciously miserable, the rain was not giving in. That did not dampen our spirits. We headed out to the Routeburn and ended up here two nights. Look at the little South Island Robin. Handsome fellow.

Friday the weather cleared. Rowan wanted to jump into the river to look at rocks (can’t take them home just look lol). I thought I may do a warmer activity. I did a scenic loop from the Routeburn Track with my camera. I captured a few birds. Lots of people out and about doing the same thing so it was hard at times to capture as they scared them away. However I had a lovely walk, which took me a bit of time because I kept stopping haha.

Saturday; we are not sure if we will go all the way back today or we will stop part way. On our way out of Queenstown just before the Kawarau Gorge the snow started hitting us, Rowan and I got very excited. You could see it settling above us on the mountains. As we got further and further it was everywhere. We stopped for photos and I had the silly idea to throw a snowball. I should have known better. Rowan got me right in my ear. I was not impressed! He couldn’t just aim for the torso like a normal person. Talk about turn some fun into me annoyed. As you know I don’t hold a grudge. I nearly lost my phone in the snow. Luckily Rowan noticed it. I had my glasses off so couldn’t see a thing haha. So off we set and it really was a winter wonderland. It wasn’t snowing in Cromwell but Alexandra was and most of the way home. Rowan and I have been meaning to stop into the Blue Lake and Saint Bathans for a long time. The snow was heavy there and it was fantastic. We did get home in the end. I am so glad we got to experience the snow this year. I thought we had run out of time.

Sunday and Monday we got jobs done around Herbert. The list appears to grow even though we are ticking things off. I had an amazing hot bath in the rain it was a great sensation. Hopefully get some news tomorrow about our lab results. Fingers crossed!

Foundations, here we go again. It doesn’t feel that long ago we were putting the profiles up, but it was a couple of months ago now. We are finally ready to start the footings. The profiles need to be exact and the first few steps perfect. Can’t wait to have a base to build on. The footings are coming up 300mm and then one house gets two rows of blocks and the other one gets three rows. This will ensure both houses are high and dry.

Murray gets the Brough street house ready for inspection from council and we move on to Stromness St on Friday. We have booked in the concrete, the concrete pump man, the block layer, digger man, plumber and sparky. Everyone is lined up.

On Sunday, we went up to Jimmy’s farm and did a trailer load of firewood. This is his way of thanking us for the help for the trees. Well we are more than happy with that. It needs to dry out but that will keep us going for a long time! We ran around the rest of the day getting jobs done. By the time it was hopping into bed I was exhausted.

Monday; Rowan is getting sick so he is not much help today, but a lot more than I would probably be! So I am head lacky assisting Murray. We get the rebar in and ready for council. There is more bracing and small things to be done before the concrete is poured but at least the main bit is done. Rowan had a haltering afternoon and didn’t tell us until we finished. He thought we may as well continue as he won’t know the outcome for a while.

Turns out our engineer is not happy with the testing of the ground. Dean (the tester) is adamant it is good and that James is using old readings. It is all a bit confusing, basically the engineer isn’t happy and we now have to wait to see what is next.

Best case scenario: James accepts Deans testing and newer readings that are different from what he uses.

Medium case scenario: Dean takes a sample from the quarry and gets it lab tested and we have now pleased the engineer.

Worse case scenario: the test comes back not to James’s liking and we have to take down all of work we have done for the past week. I assume dig out some of the gravel or all of the gravel and start again.

Welcome to our nightmare!

Wow what a week. First of all let’s get the Aurora in first! Exactly 5 months later we get an epic display, it was quite different from May. The colours were harder to see (thanks to the moon) but the amazing dance show was spectacular. We put on some classic music and just stared in awe!

Our week got changed as it went along. The builder did his back in so we won’t be starting until till next week now. This did mean we could get a lot done in Herbert and go away for a trip south.

We got all the citrus trees in the ground. We also got all of the walnuts on the other side. Cory was a major help getting the walnuts in! We will have a lot of delicious fruit in our future. I finished sealing the bar leaner and school bench. Painted the IBC tank. Rowan fixed the awning on Camele and did a lot of other jobs. It feels really good to be getting all this done.

On Thursday we headed south. We had quite a day. We had a meeting with Brenda our house designer. A few other small jobs in Ōamaru before we got back to Herbert and packed up Camele to go. On our way south we stopped at a few places we have wanted to visit for months. It is the usual scenario “next time, we have a lot to do today.” First stop was Otago Fresh Milk. Absolutely delicious milk and we got to pay the lambs and the calves. Next stop was Evansdale cheese and Matanka meats. Our final visit to a business was the famous Bowling Club in Dunedin. They do $4 main meals, $3 desserts. Everything is vegan or vegetarian. Extremely tasty, great for the community. They give away hundreds of meals to those in need in the area. We were well impressed. It was fairly early when we got there and the line was long. I am sure it gets longer at dinner time. I can’t recommend the place more, if you’re in Dunedin get your butt there. Cheap meal, pay double and pay it forward. We had our dinner in Waihola and stayed down at the Toko Mouth Domain. You can see the damage from the flooding everywhere!

Friday, we stayed as close to the coast as we could from Toko and decided to go inland to Balclutha to cross the river and then head out to the sea again. We did not make it all the way as a lovely farmer told us the road ahead would not be passable with our camper. Unfortunately that means we can’t quite get the Clutha river mouth, but we get pretty close. In Balclutha we get some breakfast and fill our tanks with water. We head to Kaka Point from there. We haven’t done this part of the area before, we get out to the Nugget Point Lighthouse and walk out to check it out. Absolutely stunning day and the walk was a good stretch of the legs. We needed up stopping at Tunnel Hill and Barrs Falls too. The day disappeared so we thought we better get ourselves to Waipapa Point. There is supposed to be a spectacular display of the Aurora tonight. It did not let us down. Wow it was an incredible sight! The movement was fantastic, I couldn’t keep up with how fast it was changing. A fantastic end to a fantastic day.

On Saturday, we didn’t go far. We went out to Curio Bay. Rowan went to the beach I went into the forest walk. By the time I finished Rowan was coming back. I planned on meeting him down at the beach. He said he was mobbed by sandflies and it wasn’t pleasant. So we headed to Slop Point. We didn’t bother walking all the way out, we have been at the southern point before. We headed out further and considered staying the night there but decided to go back to Weir Beach where it should be a good spot to stay. The weather was uninspiring, the decision was made to have an easy afternoon camped up.

Sunday is a day of rest. Rowan and I lazed about until the afternoon. It was wet and pretty gross out there. I invented a German lady in but she politely declined. She is travelling NZ in her car. By the afternoon we hadn’t heard from the builder so we took off to Piano Flat. This is a hidden gem I had heard about a while ago and wanted to explore. It is a well kept secret or something like that! Beautiful forests and a lovely river. All DOC owned and well maintained. We found a quiet spot to camp up and it felt like we were in the river. Tomorrow we will head to Queenstown and hang out there a few days.

Way out of Piano Flat I get signal and a message. Builder is coming tomorrow. Bugger, we make the decision to head home. We head back to Gore and make our way north. We arrive in Blueskin just after 3pm to pick up two walnut trees. By the time we get back to Herbert I don’t have the energy to put them in the ground. A