Tuesday; Feeling a bit one handed, I thought I would tackle cleaning the clawfoot bath up ready for painting. I started rust converting the feet then went on to the tub. As I attacked it with a wire brush and then started painting on the rust converter I noticed a label. Ooo fancy, this is a Royal Doulton bath, how cool. The lovely Leona comes around to chat about house layouts. I wanted to put an internal door into the toilet, making it an inside loo instead of outside. We ended up scrapping that idea. But now after another few weeks of feedback from everyone, looks like an exterior loo is not a good idea and we would be stupid not to change it. So we will add a toilet to the bathroom giving us two toilets. My poor Rowan has never dealt with extreme changes very well ends up a bit of a zombie for the rest of the day. He agrees it is for the best but it hits him like a ton of bricks. Cory is working on the shed fixing up any rotten bits and replacing them. Rowan is helping a bit. I also am a bit lost as what do we do next? Obviously plumbers and builders are now needed. I call around then end up sorting screws and tools out with my limited hand uses. That afternoon we contact the Otago Regional Council to see what we need to do for a resource consent for our earthworks. I point out that there are definitely homes in the area built close to the stormwater drain. Fingers crossed it isn’t as scary as our surveyor thinks it can be. The silliest thing is this is a pre application application, to determine if it is going to be easy or not. It will cost us for them to give us advice. The cheapest employee at the council is an admin at $150 per hour. It is a bit ridiculous, but it needs to be done. You may get a giggle out of our email subject line!

Wednesday; We are spending the day at Herbert and Cory is coming out. Cory has the task of clearing around the fence line which takes a long time. It probably hasn’t been done in a few decades. Rowan helps me take the door cards off the ute, so I can treat some rust. It didn’t come up in our last warrant but I noticed it. So it has been on my list for 6 months! I convert the rust do a small amount of bogging and then paint it all. I don’t get the last lot of clear coat on before the day ends. I also get a good start on the last three sides of the container. First up is rust converting them. There is quite a lot of rust in the door area, which I want done really well. I have a small amount of time to start painting. I get one coat on the rear. Rowan works on calling more plumbers and builders to help with Till. Everyone is so busy it really is hard to find tradies. We go up Mt Misery for the night and get a spectacular show! What a wonderful sunset.

Thursday; The sun rises and puts on another good show. We are off to Herbert today and we hope to hear back from the Otago Regional Council (ORC). I want to get the painting completed. But also my Camele is so dirty, I can’t see out of the windows. When we fill up water at the hall, I give her a good scrub. Much better! Rowan gets our two concrete troughs and puts them in place. When I get back down I put a clear coat on the ute. Rowan waits for it to dry before putting the door cards back on. We hear from ORC and it looks like the application should be pretty simple. No need to inform iwi, shouldn’t need lots of fancy expensive consultants. Yay for good news! While I paint the container Rowan gets the twin axel trailer and fixes the wiring so it can pass a WOF. Today is so hot, I am having to paint quickly. Rowan gets the wheel bearings off before I get a chance to finish the first coat on the doors. Off to town to get some new bearings and some lunch. In town I tell Rowan let’s take our time, then the heat of the day may pass before I continue to paint. We owe Jimmy a lot of beer, he has a brand new shower we can use for Till Street. We load up the back with eight cases. Once back I get as far as putting the second coat on two sides before I run out of steam. “I am over it,” I say, beer and done. The container looks a lot tidier all painted up.

Friday; A very special Nana is 93 today! Happy Birthday Nana! My Nan is amazing at 93, she drives (even long distances), she emails, she has good health, she loves independently, she has all her marbles, she is always there for everyone in the family. Nan you are one amazing Nana! Now I hear she is going to get on a plane to Australia which she hasn’t done in a long time.

On a mission to get started on the resource consent. We need to do a sediment plan, or do we get someone to make one? Questions for our surveyor. At Till Street, I get some washing on and water our plants. There is quite a few bits of paperwork I would like done today. Our neighbour comes in and checks we are still on to be support while she looks at a rental. She is going through a separation and needs a home for her and the three kids. We make plans to have lunch together before we go to the open home. Washing now on the line we head to Leona’s office to do some paperwork. We don’t get far with chatty Linda distracting us. Then off to lunch, we have subway down at the waterfront park. As we head off to the open home, we stop in at Leona’s and she has a friend who has a short term rental. The house is not suitable and she is feeling desperate. So I look into the short term for her and we do a drive by to check it out. It will be good for her to be able to get out and gives her time to shop around for a more suitable rental rather than just taking any old thing. I know the owner Maree and I chat on the phone and let her know the situation. I pass on their details to my neighbour so she can take it from there. Back at the office to get some work done, Rowan helps Leona with a spreadsheet. We need to be back at Till by 4pm for a plumber who is taking a look at the house. We do that and pack up to go home. We end up at our neighbours place chatting and have dinner with her and the kids. I decided we are not working tomorrow, tomorrow is a day off!

Saturday; Day off and I am in the container organising clothing. We both have so much clothing. More than necessary. I must have at least 20 items of merino alone. Today is not the day to get rid of it, I will just collate it and we will leave that mission for another time. We hadn’t planned food wise how we are having a day off so we jump on Rowan’s bike and head into town. We go to The Galley Cafe, which is on the waterfront. Haven’t been there before, being a Saturday it is pretty busy. From there we go to the supermarket for supplies for dinner. Tomorrow we will be getting stuck into paperwork. When we get back to Herbert I go for my ride and then we take Camele up Mt Misery. The container still needs more paint and eventually I would like to paint flowers on there, but let’s see if I can find the time. The rest of the day was exactly that, restful. I had a chance to hundreds and thousands Rowan’s feet!

Sunday; Paperwork day, three forms, one cover letter and a sediment and erosion plan. Luckily our surveyor gave us an example of a sediment plan. Talk about lost! We filled out as much as possible and asked him to check it out for us before we try finish it up and send it through to the regional council.

Monday; Dirk who we met in Paihia when we were hiking the Te Araroa sent me a message, he has his photos in the NZ Geographic. They are quite beautiful. We got into Leona’s office and did some more paperwork. Then headed to meet Cory at the house. The roses we cut right down are already starting to bloom again! A bit after 10am Laura came over and said she was ready to start moving. It must have been about 5 ute and trailer loads as well as her car. We are just putting it all in the garage and tomorrow when she has the keys we will bring stuff like beds. We had her friend Nina also helping, who sounds like has helped her move several times. Near 2pm we stopped to get some Subway for lunch. Then did one last load. Cory finished Sanding at 2pm. The day has gone so well set off to do paperwork at Leona’s. We finally completed our resource consent application and sent it off to be checked. We stopped to meet a builder and a plumber in the late afternoon before going back to the office. We ended up having pizza with Leona for dinner and didn’t get out of the office until 8pm. It is going to be a big week!

Tuesday; We took our time packing up to drive back to Herbert. Our stay did not feel long enough in some ways but felt like it was in others. I definitely feel more relaxed. On our way out of town we lay down the wild flowers plus a lot of tiger lilies we got on the roadside on Leona’s family graves. Both graves were in good tidy condition, but it is nice to add some flowers for them. Looks like my flu was a quick 24hr one and now I just have a blocked nose. Our first stop at Gore op shops and then Balclutha. We arrived at Taieri Mouth around lunchtime. We had a few things to pick up from a trademe seller. We ended up with quite a few things. The main reason was I got a cool old butlers sink which I hope to use in the kitchen at Till Street. I got it for a whopping $100, what a bargain. Rowan also got a whole lot of building supplies from him and a sturdy stainless steel shelf for $40. I got a few decorative iron items for a song too. When we finally hit the road again it was pretty late. Herbert arrival around 6pm and still had to unpack. By the time we had dinner got organised we were pretty tuckered. Tomorrow Cory will be working and we plan to be at Till all day.

Wednesday; Off plan we go. Cory didn’t end up working as he had a few jobs he wanted to tick off first. I checked on my plants and watered them etc. At 11am Rowan and I had a meeting with James and Ryan from Survey Waitaki. First a quick stop at Placemakers to talk kitchens with Shannon. Our quote from them is cheaper than Mitre10 plus they are built for you. No fafing with flat pack is always a bonus. I still can’t believe we pay so much for kitchens when they are made out of crap that doesn’t last. Let’s take a moment to appreciate the old solid wood kitchens of the past.

We got a few questions answered by Ryan and James, they are helping us with the Otago Regional Council, seeing if we need any extra consents. Ryan is going to draw up a couple of quick 3D rendering to make it easier to explain. Rowan and I lost our stamina after that. It is pointless trying to work through as you won’t achieve anything. We ended up back at Herbert where we went for a motorbike ride and got more organised for tomorrow. I have been taking my bike for a spin each day. I still let the clutch out too fast. My brain can’t compute hand is clutch haha.

Thursday; I got a job done today I have wanted to do for weeks. I shined up the copper cistern, it was incredibly thick with patina and it took such a long time. My hands absolutely ached. It is full of dings and is in no way brand new, I didn’t want to get it all the way back just in case it looked stupid. I like it so far, once it is installed I may shine it further. Rowan tackled the toilet and put GIB up on the inside. We have decided to get the toilet done, wow a large room completed haha. But we shall see, it is a secondary job. Rowan also tackled the windows, we made the decision to not bother for the shed and just use polycarbonate. The studio and workshop also need a lot of window or glass replacement. Outside is more important right now. The weather has already gotten colder and who knows how many paint days are in our future. Cory attacked the outside with the paint stripper the whole south wall is now complete. The neighbour popped over to ask if they can put a sign on our lawn as they are selling their house. Well we have across the street, two doors down and now behind us for sale. Maybe we are scarring them off. The one down the hill sold in a matter of weeks so that is a good sign for our neighbours behind us and I hope they get a fast sale. They put an offer on another house subject to sale of their house. Now what to do with my garden, the weeds have taken over and I feel like they won’t stop. I have painted on some weed killer and tried to avoid my plants. I guess we will see how that goes.

Friday; huge achievement from Cory, he got the front completed. Our house looks like a naked baby animal. Rowan and I worked as a team today, we fixed the GIB in place (we had no screws yesterday). We found some old wood around the place and did the frame on the inside of the window. We haven’t got a clue what to put on the edge of the GIB as the door gets in the way but we will work it out. We installed the main bedroom lead light window. That has been a big job we have avoided. Rowan picked up some roof flashing new from Placemakers. It worked perfectly, together the roof is now looking flash. Ba dom domp. We finally dropped our washing machine off to get repaired, it has been a job we have needed to do for weeks now. All in all we got a good amount achieved. Our new goal each week is to spend at least two days at Till one day at Herbert and the rest of the week is a mix of a day off and paperwork. I am hoping this balances us out a bit better. Jim popped in at Till and wants to borrow our trailer to get his digger to Ngapara. Not a problem but there is a bunch of iron on it. Rowan gives him the key and he says he will get the iron off wherever we want. I think he is doing us a favour not the other way around.

Saturday; Our day is to be at Herbert and it started off quite well. We headed into the Hampden dump shop and got quite a bit of building materials. We got back and had another coffee when Gerry and Margaret arrived. I think they thought we were still in bed. Well I had jumped back into bed to read my book and drink my coffee. Also we are in the habit of taking off our dirty dungarees so we don’t make our house dirty haha. It was really nice to see them both. Margaret had some veges for a community swap at Maheno. Unfortunately the date was wrong, but also fortunately because we got the veges haha. I divided them up with Sylvia and Jim next door. Rowan found an awesome Catherine Holm preserving pot on Facebook but we will get it next week. Our neighbour Laura called me for a favour to pick up a bed for her. So we came into Ōamaru to help her out and ended up picking up the large pot too. Rowan said our day at Herbert hasn’t really happened so we should spend tomorrow there too. So I spent the rest of the day sorting jewellery and reading my book. It was wonderful haha. Rowan made us a table out of stuff we got for free! Perfect for us to use. The chairs were also free! Here is a funny for you. Rowan went to cook dinner and ended up with half frozen mince all over the bed. Luckily it was his side of the bed haha. It was so funny, I had just begun to chop the lovely beans Margaret had left us, and plonk! It was everywhere. I guess the sheets need changing. I don’t care if they are stained, it is not a big deal at all. Kind of annoying having to change the sheets though haha

Sunday; a slow and easy start today. Rowan definitely did more than me around the property yesterday so today I should pick my game up. I planted a whole heap of tiger lily bulbis and bulbs. Apparently they can take a few years to come out but hopefully they do. I really wanted to sort out Camele a bit more. I have dumped stuff in her that doesn’t belong so I got to taking all that out. Then I attacked the container. Now that we have those wardrobe shelves and drawers I may as well use them. I put all our extra woolies in there and then I methodically took all the crap we dumped and put it in its rightful place. It took some time but now we have heaps of room in the container. I hope to actually organise the shelves properly next day at Herbert. Rowan loaded up all the building materials into the trailer and he cleared a whole heap of space. Then he took it to the other side of the land where we want to keep it easy to access, but well out of the way. All packed for Monday, we headed off in Camele for a late lunch at Kiwiana Kai. We ate at the beach then headed up the hill to our favourite spot and stayed there the night. We sat and talked about tomorrow’s game plan and I wrote us a list. I am feeling all relaxed and ready for tomorrow.

Monday; Cory started on the back, two small walls and she is all stripped! He got that done and started on fixing up the garage walls. I started working on the bathroom, removing fixtures and I found that the hinges were all rusted out. As I looked through our stock pile I found someone used the bible or something like that to pack out their windows. I have heard of people using the bible for insulation. I got all organised and I went to plug in the orbital sander and it was turned on. It started falling and my instincts was to catch it. Ouch! Rowan came to my rescue pretty fast. It cut quite deep in between my pinky finger. Rowan said we should go to the hospital. So I quickly wrapped it up in the cleanest cloth I could find. The adrenaline ran through me and I struggled to breathe for a while and felt very light headed. I am surprised I didn’t lose my stomach. A nurse cleaned it all up and ended up giving me a tetanus shot. I can’t remember the last time I had one, maybe as a kid? Nearly two hours later we were out of there. What an idiot I am, I think Rowan doesn’t trust me with power tools anymore. Back at the house it is pack up and home time. We pick up some free ornate trim that a fella is giving away. Then I get a message from a carpet layer that he can come now. So we head back to the house to meet him. Then another guy says between 6pm and 6.30pm. I guess we are here for a bit longer. We fill in our time by going to Leona’s office to do paperwork. Instead we chat and redesign our bathroom and kitchen at Till Street. I think we need a plumber now. By the time we meet the next tradie who is late and have dinner in town we get home near 9pm. What a day! My hand aches a little bit it really isn’t too bad.

Tuesday; till first Timaru bricks and troughs write off

Rowan woke up feeling sick. He has a flu of some sort. We headed into Till Street to drop off a few items from Christchurch and I checked on plants. From there we took the double axel trailer up to Timaru and back to Bills place. We got a couple of concrete troughs that we will plant out in herbs at Herbert. We got some cool bricks and Rowan even got an old 60s scooter he wants to use as garden art haha. It took us longer than it should as we are both exhausted and Rowan had too many beers last night with Jim. When we got back to Herbert we were both struggling. The rest of the afternoon was spent pottering around but we really didn’t aim to achieve anything.

Wednesday; First thing meeting out in Windsor with Brenda from Apex Home Design. We came to her to talk about our house plans and she was very helpful. Between her and the surveyor I am now feeling confident. Cory is at Till today, carrying on the paint stripping the weatherboards. Rowan and I tidy up around the place. I sort all my plants out as we don’t plan to be here for a week. We end up setting a meeting with the surveyors in town for tomorrow morning so we will be back. When we get back to Herbert I do a quick rust convert on the back end of the container so I can paint it tomorrow.

Thursday; I get the container painted prior to heading in for our meeting it only takes me 5min as it is a small area. We head into town to get a few last minute jobs done before we head away. Rowan wants to go to Mitre10 for some parts for a shower he is building. Our meeting goes on for about an hour and a half. Looks like we need to rethink a few things and a roadblock we were hoping would not come has. But realistically we thought it was highly possible. Not to worry we just have to design slightly different. We need to measure a manhole and work out how deep a sewer is. A tomorrow morning problem at this point. We don’t get back to Herbert till mid afternoon. Rowan starts on his shower while I pack to go away. I stop to help him once but he manages the rest on his own. By the time I get all organised Rowan has completed his job. We now have a proper place to shower and we can park our camper in a much better location.

Friday; Packed up and ready to go. I decided it was worth a bit of a longer drive to get there via Queenstown. On our way through Palmerston we measured the sewer drain depth. This was easy to do as we could see the pipe from the nearby bridge. The surveyor was hoping for at least 800mm turns out we have more like 1.2m so the fall will be more than ample. Yay for good news. Inland we go, we reach Alexandra around 10am. We find a window repair place, on our way through road works a truck gave us a gift and a small crack has magically appeared. Rowan doesn’t want it to get worse. While that was being done we had some brunch. It was good but very rich, it felt like the owners are French. Ninety five dollars later we have a fixed window. Off to the three op shops, where we found little. Then off to Cromwell. There is only one op shop on Cromwell. When we reached Queenstown we did a super market shop. Not sure exactly what the cooking set up is but we know there is no supermarkets near by. We did the few Queenstown op shops and had a fergburger by the lake for lunch. There are still lots of people around. We headed out of town and had a swim in the lake. Rowan got fully in, I just half got in. It really cooled us down. We arrived in Ohai about 5pm. It is a cute tiny home that has been made out of recycled items. This is home for four nights.

Saturday; The bed was amazing, it will be hard to leave that mattress behind. Off exploring, we have been around this area a long time before but we haven’t seen all of it. We found a limestone cave, that we will definitely come back and do. The beautiful suspension bridge in Clifden. I made Rowan drive me all the way to Lake Hauroko which is one end of the Dusky Track. It was wet and wonderful, makes me want a boat. We almost went up to the big Tōtara forest but decided to leave it for another time. When we got to the sausage capital (Tuatapere) we had a late breakfast more lunch. Then off to Blue Cliffs and right to the end of the road Rowallan. We rock hounded on Gemstone Beach for a good hour or more. The weather changed so we got back in the car and headed back to Ohai. Rowan cooked a great meal. Annoyingly it is too warm for a fire, but we lit one anyway haha.

Sunday; Happy Birthday to Me! I got up and started making a cuppa then realised there is two huge bunches of flowers in the kitchen. I didn’t put my glasses on and walked straight past them haha. Rowan found me a heart shaped rock on the beach, he picked lots of wild flowers because the shop in Nightcaps don’t sell any flowers. He said their selection of chocolate and flowers wasn’t great but he did his best. I prefer the hand picked flowers to be honest. He got really shitty at me when he said he was getting “tomatoes” from the shops and I said I will come too. Gosh Kate let a man do a nice thing lol.

The weather is too nice to stay in and read a book all day. So we head off towards Te Anau. I don’t think we will make it all the way to Milford Sound. We take the recommended scenic route and end up at Lake Monowai. Another beautiful Fiordland lake, there is a fair bit of exploring we can do here too, looks like another on the list to come back to. We meet some Mangawhai motorcyclists on a 14 day journey at a lookout. We follow the to Lake Manapouri for breakfast. I haven’t been out here for well over 10 years. I thought I was 20 when I did Doubtful Sound but I think I was actually 16! That is a long time ago. We had a nice breakfast and then headed to Te Anau. The lakes were all beautiful. I can’t believe how busy and how many new homes there are in Te Anau. I really shouldn’t be surprised as it is so beautiful. I want to chill in Ohai so we head back and I eat some cake. Rowan cooks me an Argentinian meal. It was a prefect day. Thank you to everyone for your messages x

Monday; Another nice day. I was hoping for foul weather to stay in my cosy hut. No the weatherman thinks I should be out and about. We head in to Invercargill to op shop. We spend the day looking for goodies. We found a bit of gold and a few other cool items but nothing that exciting. It was really fun, we head back to reality tomorrow. I have started feeling sick, maybe the same thing Rowan has just had. Why couldn’t we have had it at the same time? Very annoying. Before heading back we do a quick supermarket shop. I have a nice long shower (the shower here is fantastic). I start packing up again. It has been really nice staying here but I really do think it is easier to take Camele. No unpacking and packing!

Tuesday; Sorry fans no exciting renovations happening this week.

Today we convoyed into Till, I took the ute and Rowan came in on the motorbike. We had a load of things to take back and I wanted to get some washing on before we headed out to Waimate. Rowan found a cheap helmet for me that had barely been used. The helmet the neighbour had lent me is unfortunately giving me a huge allergic reaction. It started on my forehead and then down the sides of my face. We drop in to the two op shops on our way in and on our way out we go to the Waimate Bakery. It is more like a fancy bakery come cafe, heaps of seating inside and out. They are finally doing some work to the old arcade in Waimate. I can’t wait to see it all done, I have had dreams of owning it. I think I want to collect cool buildings next instead of antiques haha. We had a few jobs in Ōamaru to do, by the time we went to do some work at Leona’s office it was the afternoon. We came in to work and ended up chatting for a few hours haha. With a bit more warmth left in the day we raced back to Herbert and I got up on the container to paint. Rowan finished the flashing. It was after 6pm when I finished up there.

Rowan and I got a message from Shirley, our friend we met in Paihia. By the time we decided to have dinner with her and meet up it was past 7pm. I started looking for fish and chips, everywhere is closed of course haha. So we ask her where she is staying and I tell her not to set up for the night but to stay put we will come to her. We get to All Day Bay a freedom camping spot and it is packed! Which is a bit insane as you can freedom camp all along this coastline, but everyone stays packed in like sardines in this one spot! I give her a quick hug and tell her quietly to follow us, we don’t need everyone following. Our favourite spot is available. We park up have a drink or two. Rowan makes a pasta dish and we sit outside and eat while the sun goes down. It is about 11pm before we all go off to bed.

Wednesday; An early start to the day. We picked up the oven we couldn’t get last week Monday and decided it was worth an op shop around. I got a new hair trimmer thing, I haven’t had anyone cut my hair since my mum last did it. I have done it myself since then, I may need to get Rowan onto it soon. From there we did an op shop around but was done rather early. We wanted to hit the Waikouaiti and Palmerston Dumps. We were really early so we took the scenic back route to Waikouaiti. I found lots of picture frames which I have been on the hunt for. There is a bit of a special project in mind for Till. We caught up with our friend Liz and Palmerston. We meet her years ago when she was in Ōamaru. I ended up on the phone to another friend Robyn from around the same time who had a place in Hampden. From there we went to see our new neighbours Dianne and Trevor and exchange phone numbers. We haven’t had a chance to tell them our plans for the land yet. It is a really hot day and we got back to Herbert around 5pm. An early night tonight!

Thursday; A rather boring day to write about. Not much excitement to report. We did work on our house plans and spent a lot of time with Mitre10 talking about layouts.

Friday; More paperwork but we got some good progress, we have locked in our bathroom design and are at 80% for our kitchen design. Building a new house takes up a lot more mental space than renovations. We got on top of our tradies and tried to lockdown some more quotes. Jimmy came over with his big tractor and lifted up the trailer for me. Now I can paint the bottom of it with ease. Also an entertaining photo of some bad parking hehe

Saturday; Jim wants his tractor back this afternoon so I got onto rust converting and painting it. Rowan puts up a couple of yacht sails to give us more shelter. We make room in our container for another load from Christchurch. We want to pick up the large cabinets we used to have in our walk in wardrobe. I plant some Māori potatoes that Robin at the tip shop gave me to try.

Sunday; An early drive to Christchurch, we leave by 6am and first stop at a guys place who is giving away a bunch of stuff. He is doing up a hoarders house too. I feel much better about ours after I hear he has removed 29 large skip bins and still has more to go! From there we went to a market that happens once a month. I ended up with a few house plants and Rowan found a few trinkets. We took it easy coming up but arrived at lunchtime. We headed straight into Edgewater to pick up my second motorbike. I don’t like the first one he got me so I asked for another one haha. This one will be much much easier for me to learn on. First of all it is light, I can touch the ground and it is a moped so I can drive it on my car license. I will get my motorbike license though. I am much happier with this one. After we went to fill up all the leftover space from the storage unit. We got to Rick and Liz’s by 5pm. Liz cooked an awesome dinner per usual. It was really nice seeing them. It sounds like they had a nice holiday.

Monday; We got up early to head to where our gypsy truck is stored. I hoped to give Billy some money but he wasn’t there. We grabbed a few more things to make the baskets full. From there we headed out towards the airport to pick up Shirley, she is getting a WOF on her car. We had a lovely breakfast at the Raeward Cafe and Shirley was very kind to shout us. I came across a well carved whale tale with a koru in it. I thought of Shirley and gifted it to her. It is nice to have a wee souvenir. Next time we see her we will most likely be in Scotland! On our way back we op shopped in Ashburton but in Timaru we went back to the house with the free stuff and chatted to the owner. We wanted to make sure whatever we wanted he is okay with it going. We chatted to Bill for some time and plan to come back tomorrow as our load is pretty full already! Back at Herbert at a reasonable hour but with a lot to do. It doesn’t take us that long to unload it all. That will be our last load until we get more storage.

Tuesday; This week we are ignoring Till as much as possible. Herbie needs some attention and we have grand plans for what we want to do. But the land needs some attention in order to get there. The council berm has a lot of convovulous that is taking over our fences and growing happily nearly everywhere. I want to get it under control before planting. I spray all the areas I have to but I avoid spraying on our actual land as this stuff is designed to stay in the soil for months. Which means if I try to plant a fruit tree where I have sprayed I will most likely kill it. Rowan takes back all the macrocarpa hedging so we can park the camper close and we can build a little side shelter on the container. The rubber seal on the main door of Camele is coming off so we fix that in place and we fix the rear window brake light that has been swinging for quite some time. Jimmy and Sylvia tell me they are going to uncover their water main on the berm we can look at getting water to site. Jim then ends up mowing along the berm and mows our fields for us. Thanks Jim. We end the day with a few beers.

Wednesday; Today there is a list, a list we have been distracted from. This is getting Palmerston moving. Till has taken up so much head space and physical time that we have neglected some important jobs. I am not coping, I can barely string a sentence together, we are taking on too much at once. These are all self imposed deadlines and it is time to take a breath, get back on track but do it in a very achievable manner. Big on the list is seeing the council, we have a few questions about how does changes effect building consent and what causes major changes and delays. While we were there we chatted to the rates team about our rates, we can get quite a rebate as we now have 5 sets of rates in the Waitaki area. We also want to use to occupy and pay rates for a section next door and needed advice on how to do that. We had small errands to do like the pharmacy and picking up tool parts. We got in front of a few window manufacturers and asked them questions about costs and how to keep things to a minimum. Windows are quite an expense when building. After that we got chatting to the bathroom and kitchen team at Mitre10. We also looked at pole shed designs. While I was there I got some pumice and potting mix. Back at Till I planted some Microgreens and lots of herbs. I really have missed having plants and looking after a garden. At the local dump Rowan found a chair and a cupboard he wants for storage at Herbert. We will need to come back for the cupboard with the trailer.

Thursday; I finally tried out our new espresso maker for Camele. This one is different to our large one and Rowan found it in Dunedin on Monday. I have a lot of Demitasse cups in storage which is no good to me, but these sweet Hornsea spice jars work. It took a bit of searching but these are called a Maggiolina Espresso Machine. I love it so much! Off into town, we haven’t had a breakfast at mcds in months and it was about time to just do it. I wanted to come in and get some dessert for this afternoon as we have been invited to Jim and Sylvia’s for a barbie. Sylvia has a few dietary restrictions so I wanted to make sure I got something that she can eat. We picked up our ladders at Till and our washing that is now dry. Then we went to the dump to pick up the cabinet before heading back to Till. Rowan dug three holes and put posts in. I used rust converter then painted the container. It looks much tidier, I can’t wait to do the whole thing. Before we knew it, three o’clock hit. Off to cut some trees for the neighbours and have a bbq. We ended up no doing any cutting and just ate a lot. Haha

Friday; I finally got the motivation by 8.30am to get out and paint. Gee today is cold and cloudy, this will be interesting. I get a third of the way through and a misty rain is upon me. I decide to carry on as it really doesn’t matter if it drips a bit. Delayed by gross weather we decide to do a little explore and head out to Hampden for brunch. We go down some back roads that I have wanted to explore for a while. When we get back to Herbert I have a message from neighbour Jim that the motorbike is here. Rowan wants it, I am dubious about learning on it. It appears to be a great bike but I can only just touch the ground. We take Jim up to Ngapara where he picked the bike up from. He has a new place up there which is a bit of a bolt hole and will be for all his family.

I am a bit worried about going on it in the wet. Rowan takes me for a small ride around the block. Some of it I enjoy the rest I was anxious haha. Jim says use it for the weekend and let him know if we want it. I am sure Rowan is sold. It easily handles both of us, which is great.

Saturday; The weather is better today, I get a quick second coat of paint on and Rowan starts making the shelter. I clear out Camele as there are lots of things we don’t need and plenty of annoying things getting in the way. I help Rowan with attaching the first bit to the container, the rest he does on his own. The convovulous is really dying down which is great, let’s hope I only have to hit it once or twice more. Once Rowan had the iron on the weather threatened more rain. We managed to get the heavy cupboard in and clear up before it really hit. The cupboard was awkward but we got it in okay. Some of the wood Rowan used for the iron to attach to is the bent stuff from Mitre10. It looks like I have taken a bad panorama. I took each of the three bicycles up to the Herbert Hall and washed them. Then I took them back down to the block and oiled them. I took all the stuff off my bike I wanted and put it on Joanne’s bike. Rowan has a school friend who has just moved to NZ so he can have my old bike.

Sunday; I got more fiddle jobs completed on the camper. The back lockers both had stuffed catches so those were replaced and the door one too. This random rubber jiblit that we found on a plane went over one of the old holes. Rowan attached the bike rack and put the bikes back on Camele. I rust converted the trailer base and gave it a coat of paint. I know this won’t hold for 20years but it means it will slow the pace down while we own it. Rowan attached a plywood base. We went into Ōamaru to put a battery on charge, power tools have run out. While that was charging we emptied and filled up Camele, had some lunch and got some more stuff from Mitre10. Of course we went to the dump shop and got some LPG too. My Microgreens are already starting to sprout! I checked on all the plants making sure they have enough water.

Monday; We came into town to get some paperwork done. The day ended up a bit of a miss. Our neighbour Laura came around so we invited her to have lunch with us. We had a lot of running around to do so we just went to the bakery. I washed Rowan’s dungarees as they are falling apart and handed them clean and dry to Laura and she said she will patch them up quick. We didn’t achieve as much as I hoped but that is fine. There is always tomorrow. When we got back to Herbert we went for a ride to chase a fire. One of the neighbours burning off their fields.

Tuesday; We come into Till after dropping off the trailer, oooh there is a new lock! Tama came yesterday and installed our pin code lock. Rowan quickly realises that the code part is not working. He pulls it apart and Tama element through the wires when he screwed it on 🤦‍♀️. It takes Rowan an hour to rewire it and get it working. Well hey we have a locked house. Now we can put the glass panel back in the back door and have a fully lockable home. We set off on a mission looking for Seal and Peel, it is a special paint on liquid masking tape. Designed to not stick to glass but stick on putty and wood. Meaning I can paint the windows, Rowan can spray the weatherboards and we don’t have to worry about the glass. It just peels off like a plastic wrap when you’re done. Our mission was a bit of a fail. I got some designed for walls but won’t work on windows. We end up ordering some from Christchurch. Cory cracked on with tidying the hedge up, not sure if we will fence down there or not. We can’t make our minds up. I attacked the living room cleaning and removing old wallpaper. I can’t wait till we start painting inside. Rowan pottered but he is pretty stuffed from yesterday’s drive. A day off on the horizon? So far no.

Wednesday; Our Peel and Seal arrived I got to cleaning the windows ready to apply. I got most of the way before our neighbour Laura from across the road invited for lunch. It was really nice, Laura got us sushi and she was celebrating having the kids back at school. We hung out for a few good hours. It is really nice getting to know all the neighbours around us. Back at work, I really want the prep to the glass done so I can prime the putty. This new putty I got only takes a few days before you can paint it. I think the neighbours thought I was crazy painting the windows. I even had a lady walking her dogs ask why I was. I told her nosy neighbours haha. Maybe we can grow some weed while I have all this protection on the glass. Now I can’t do this on the three lead light windows as the paint will stick on the lead, so I will have to cut in nicely and cover them up the old fashioned way when Rowan sprays. Tomorrow we head back to Christchurch to do the next 150 fence posts.

Thursday; Cory starts out on our planer tool. It works like a charm. I wish we had this tool when we did the weatherboards in Bluff and Herbert. Today we are heading up to Christchurch. The original plan was to go after work and arrive late. But for the sake of a half a day hire we can take our time heading up and to be frank we aren’t getting much done as we both need a day off. So we head out of Ōamaru at 11.30am! We op shop in Timaru and shop all the way up to Brooklands. We go straight to our container to load up some of our belongings and attempt to find our tools. Annoyingly we have buried them inside a cabinet behind a cabinet and below a cabinet haha. We load a small amount into the front so the fence posts are more central this time. Then we will load a bit behind the posts. We had a late dinner at Rick & Liz’s house. Unfortunately not much time to catch up.

Friday; We have three errands to do this morning before we end up meeting Marty at 9am. So we head into town at 7am ready to go to the Tool Shed. Cory has already gone through a set of blades so we need to order more. Then we go to my salon supplier for conditioner for Rowan and some treatment for me. As we are there we get a call to say he is early. So we have to head back to Brooklands pick up the trailer and meet him near the boat ramp in Brooklands. It doesn’t take us long to load up. We were on the next side and were nearly done with the front stack when the trailer tilted. I didn’t click what happened and Rowan asked if it is a tilt trailer. No, it isn’t. It has snapped right where the draw bar meets the trailer tray. Well there is no way to get this back to Kaikōura as it is. Luckily he has AA plus membership. Rowan talks him through it, he has used AA numerous times. Luckily he didn’t appear to phased about it. We left him to it but told him to call us if he needs to as we will be in the area loading up for the next few hours. We get back to Liz and have a cuppa with her. There is a bunch of stuff we left in the garage on the agreement that they are welcome to give it away, use it, basically do what they like with it. I checked that Liz was happy with us taking a bunch of it back. This really does save us a lot of money as it is stuff we would need to buy again. We load up the trailer and car from the storage place. We get to the tools and find the all important paint sprayer attachments. We get quite a lot in. Marty calls to tell us he is all sorted and we head out of Christchurch after lunch. We mooch our way back. After Timaru we hit the bad weather and we miss the rain, but the edge of the storm gets us. The wind slows us right down to 50km/60km. We arrive in Ōamaru around 5pm. Unload as much as we can at Till and then head to Herbert to get rid of the posts and the last bits. This is much more civilised, all done by 7pm. Definitely worth the extra cost. We will return the trailer tomorrow and we have left to posts in there so they can repair their fence.

Saturday; Trailer dropped off and I spend the day organising stuff we dumped last night. There is a lot to go through but I quite enjoy pottering. Rowan gets a couple of annoying jobs done so he is happy. Our neighbour directly opposite is selling her house. We go be nosy neighbours and attend the open home. It is the first one and the place is rather busy. Apparently the market is heating up, which is a good sign if you’re wanting to sell. Cory is working, he works on tidying up around the outside and strengthening the garage.

Sunday; As we head into Till we get a message to say Cory won’t be working today. Bugger, we would have planned our day a bit different. Oh well. I get making some to do lists and Rowan puts away some of the tools I have sorted. We don’t bother hanging around long, we wait for our washing to be done and head in to town. We load up the car with tools for Tuesday as we want to spend a day in Herbert getting some jobs done. We go to Mitre10 to pick up some wood and head to Herbert. The plan is to get started now but it is incredibly hot. I get one job done and I just can’t do anymore. I go through my jewellery I got out of storage as it is way more fun haha.

Monday; We have an oven to pick up in Dunedin. Annoyingly she can’t do it. So we go in for a large mirror and then see some friends. On our way in we drop off sheep netting that we found amongst the crap in Till Street. A neighbour down there has a use for it so we promised we would drop it off next time we were coming past. After our mirror pick up we headed to pick up our friends. Mairi & Daniel are from Scotland and we became friends when we stayed in Haast on our journey nearly a year ago. We went out for breakfast and had a great catch up. They are incredibly lovely and are easy going. Hopefully we will get a chance to see each other in a few weeks. They are going to the Caitlins, I am sure they will love it. We used up the rest of the day op shopping around Dunedin. It was really good just having a day off no real goals and it was quite relaxing.

Tuesday; Cory arrived with Presley in tow. First job on his list is removing the rotten kitchen floor. I was completely astonished to see hard wood flooring underneath it all. We got him to remove all the damaged bits so we can strengthen and replace it. From there he got stuck into the garden. It was a very interrupted day so I felt like I didn’t achieve much. I stopped and started the same job all day, getting the rest of the plants into the bank. We had a lady come get a table and chairs off us, the modern one we got for staging last year thinking we will use it in Palmy. I thought it may be too big, well it is. He has been getting rid of all the extra stuff so we don’t clutter up the space. I can’t remember exactly what Rowan did today apart from removal of tree stumps. We are both slowing down and need a day off, but we have help and there is too much to do.

When we saw the council yesterday we mentioned we had a leaking water toby and South Roads turned up and fixed it in no time. The water was just pouring out, no wonder we had a wet garage.

I find an old fireplace hearth in the garden!

Wednesday; A busy start to the day, our neighbour Ian came over to putty our windows. He is retired now but was a painter. Not long after we arrived we headed out to a meeting with South Roads. They are council approved contractors to do the driveways and all the services for Palmerston. While there we ran into Shane the contractor who fixed our water toby. He told us to tell Luke to give us a good price, say Shane said so. We got back to the house and then Cory arrived with Presley. They were sorting out the backyard and came across a blanket and a fairly shallow hole. I told them to cover it back up as I am sure it is a fairly recent pet grave. I think I will plant a tree on top of it so I know not to dig there again. Ian did 4 hours of putty and he will be back tomorrow to do more. Presley and Cory began deconstruction of the weird lean to, storage thing on the garage. Rowan worked on the bathroom floor and added sister joists to strengthen and worked on the replacing it with plywood. I will seal the edges of ply before he screws it down tomorrow. I uncovered more paths and planted a free grass plant that a lady gave me on Facebook. It is a lot bigger than I expected, but I love it. Hopefully it lives!

We have an epic sunset, see the photos! The sun is actually setting directly behind us, but the clouds are making incredible patterns.

Thursday; Today we get better indoor outdoor flow, Rowan pulls off the rotten wall to the toilet. He starts muddling his way through framing it and gets thoroughly stuck. I call Tama and beg him to come give us some guidance. He turns up after work and gives Rowan a run down on how to do it. Thank you Tama! A box of beer later we have him coming back to put in a door lock for the front door on Monday. We have been bolting the front door lock and keeping the key in the back door and reaching through the broken window pane to lock and unlock the house.

Friday; Cory gets the fun job of getting the cladding off the garage. As you can see most of the weird lean thing is now gone, the pretty sure it’s illegal and quite dangerous. The roof hasn’t come up yet, it may be able to be replaced or added to. I spent most of Thursday continuing the putty on the windows that Ian started. I finally finished the job today. Over 1kg of putty and I am sure I will use the second kilo or more doing the studio/shed and the garage. Now that Rowan has guidance he works on the toilet wall, I have had to tell everyone every time I want to mimi (urinate), so I am looking forward to a wall and door going back on. However when I don’t have to announce my business it is quite nice peeing so freely. I hope none of the neighbours mind.

Saturday; With a plan of attack today nothing can go wrong. Well by the time we got rid of our metal at the Hampden Dump and got back to Herbert loaded the trailer with corrugated iron and got into Till Street it was already 10.30am. We unpacked the car and headed off to Mitre10 for supplies. We need more 2×4 and building paper among other things. Just after 12pm we were finally ready to do some work. I sprayed all around the house with that stuff for bugs. The flies here are ridiculous, we have either disturbed them or it is just because this house has had a feast in its yard for so many years. Those little automatic sprayers is not keeping up. I feel like we have achieved nothing today. Exhausted and needing a break. However we will push through, tomorrow is a new day and we have a list to get through.

Sunday; The list is really working, we are getting lots of little jobs off the list. The most important on the list is doing a bit more of a tidy, the place has stuff everywhere. There is more rubbish and lots of bones to pick up. I start by giving Camele a vacuum or should I say luxing this far south? We have some candelabras to pick up and we need Camele to do it in so I can easily hold them all the way to Till St. I work on bog and filler any bits Rowan used the epoxy in the other day. Rowan got lots of annoying small jobs completed, the barge board replaced, fixing exterior window frames, finishing off the toilet wall. We hung the toilet door. I put out the garden sprinklers and put them on a timer. Now I don’t need to worry about them. Lots of annoying jobs that just needed to be done.

Monday; Today we head to Christchurch. First we pick up trailer locally, we are on the road by 7am. We are meeting Marty, a guy we got half round 2.4m posts off trademe. They are $4 each and for the extra $1 he will deliver them from Blenheim. We got 300! However this trip is just for 150, we will need to come up again. The furniture trailer we hired so we can load up with extras from our storage. We get the posts first, who knows how much room we will have until we load up first. It takes the two of us 45min to load them. We then head to Rick and Liz’s place to pick up a couple of wire baskets. Finally off to our storage, as we pull in Rowan realised we don’t have the key. It is in Camele at Herbert. Shit, we borrow some bolt cutters and consider using them. We come to the conclusion we don’t want in that bad, let’s go back and load more baskets. On Facebook marketplace there are $1 sinks and they are just down the road. We end up with 13 sinks for $12. What a bargain! We load up with them and finally leave Christchurch after 5pm. A slow trip back to Herbert. The baskets come off quickly. Once in a rhythm it takes us 30min to unload the posts. It is nearly full dark when we finish. Absolutely shattered we go home for a beer. A late night and an early start to drop the trailer off tomorrow.

Tuesday; Back to work we go. Today is pretty busy. Not long after we sit down with our surveyor to talk about our land in Palmerston. The pegs show the neighbours fence is not right. It is out by quite a lot at one spot. We are not worried, we will most likely leave it where it is unless we need to build some new fences. We get some supplies from mitre10 and say hello to Leona. Then we have the sparky come take a look and give us an idea on cost to put a new switchboard in. The rest of the afternoon is spent taking a load to the dump and other various tidying.

Wednesday; with our load of stuff to drop off at the Hampden Tip we head there first. A cheap $40 mower in Moeraki will do the trick at Till. I return 3 of the fans and loads of other goodies too good to put in the skip. We pick up lots of glass. It costs a good couple of hundred to get someone to cut you glass to size. It was something Rowan really got good at when we renovated in Bluff.

At Tilly I focus on a top to toe in the smaller bedroom to turn it into our break room. I will continue this throughout the house. We just need the next few days to really get organised and make a place for everything so we know where it all belongs and where to get it from when we need it! At 1pm Tama our builder pays a visit. He will help with jobs we just can’t be bothered with. Weatherboards, flooring etc. We also have a roofer turn up to take a look at the place. Sounds like it is in good knick and we shouldn’t do anything to it.

Thursday; Rowan and I attempted to get the Clawfoot cast iron bath sorted. Unfortunately it only has three legs. I will have to start looking for another one or a complete different set. We are soaking the old bolts in some WD40, it is now a tomorrow problem. We have two more sparkys come to look at the house. I think we finally have our man. We will probably use him for Palmerston too. I have tried to use paint stripper to help prepare the windows but it really is taking way too long. Not to mention it is expensive. So we go out to the tool shed and acquire a specialised tool. It is designed for weatherboards. Basically it is a plane and it cuts out a small amount as you run it along. Hopefully this is a clever next move. Note to self watch a video before trying. We get to knock off a little early today, we are heading to Glenavy to see Kelvin, Paula and the girls. They have just been south so we headed up to them and had fish and chips for dinner. It was great catching up with them.

Friday; Rowan started his glass cutting and I followed behind with some putty. I got some putty I have never tried before. Not the usual linseed based one. I made a mess at the start as I went to knead it but with this stuff you make a mess doing that. It is best to not work it. Also it has the benefit of a few days to set before painting rather than weeks. Rowan is doing really well with his cutting of the glass. I am up the ladder when I hear a “Katie.” I find his attempting to move the bath on his own. I am going to paint this bath. I am just not sure what colour yet. I really need to choose colours soon. As the day comes near an end I find a lot of shattered glass on the ground. Ah yes, of course some of this glass is safety glass. Haha thanks tip shop. I make the decision to leave that as Cory’s first job and put it in the too hard pile. We head off and see an amazing sunset tonight. The way the clouds are formed gives us an amazing effect.

Saturday; We had a few morning errands but we busied ourselves while waiting for Cory to arrive. Eventually I send Rowan off as he is now late to see Dave (Leona’s husband) to see if he has any potential claw feet for us. We also have a lunch date with our neighbours. However that gets a rain check. I potter in the house and busy myself easily. Finally I give up and message Cory. Whoops we have communicated wrong and he isn’t coming today he is coming tomorrow. Oh well. When Rowan gets back we head up the road to get some free native grasses and thyme. The lovely Lyn tells me I can come back for more if I like. So I pull out a lot of them and when we get back I put them in water as I won’t have time to plant them yet. We then go to Resene, I am after some wallpaper. Well deary me it is expensive! Nope it is way more costly than paint. I am gutted as I really want to go for wallpaper. I am going to have to come up with a new idea. We also get a few other jobs done while we are out. Today is near 30 degrees it is just too hot. We also would have taken the day off if we knew we weren’t obligated anywhere. So we make the great decision to go back to Herbert and relax the rest of the day.

Sunday; I spent all day in the garden. It wasn’t as hot as yesterday. I aimed to get the free plants into the ground. This task won’t take long… well it took all day. I found three walls that I rebuilt. There were dog bones and litter throughout. Plus a few piles of ashes to remove, one was full of nails. There were loads of sticks and grassy bits to remove. finally once I did all that I could plant all the lovely grasses and thyme. Rowan had the task of hardening the wood. There is a special two pack epoxy designed for boats that hardens rotten wood. It is quite a process with you need to remove most of the rot first. That preoccupied Rowan for the day. We had our man Cory back, he was straight onto cleaning up the safety glass. Then he pulled the cardboard down out of the studio and cleared up the crap in the corner. After that we had him removing stumps. This was good for me as it was the last job before I could plant. Rowan and Cory took out the old dog house out. I wanted to list it for free but as soon as they started to move it, it fell apart. Cory dismantled it for his last job of the day.

Monday; Today I woke up super early 3.30am and couldn’t sleep. Rowan also woke up early 5.30am so we were at till by 7am. We picked up some more plants from lovely Lyn and I got another carex from another lady on Facebook. So I spent the morning planting more of the same area. We had a Dave and a Harry come over. Dave looked at the building stuff and Harry got his chainsaw out and chopped up the macrocarpa more. Rowan is a little annoyed as he broke a window and Rowan said to be careful. Argh another job on the list. We also have wee Presley here helping out. Cory gets the trailer loaded with rubbish to take to the tip. It is mostly the stuff inside the small tool shed and other crap from the garden. We get some more stumps removed today and finally get the one next to the house gone. Rowan works on replacing a window in the main bedroom. We also take the time to see the building team at the council about Palmerston. The PIM (pre building consent), came back and we just had one question. All looks pretty good. Yay, first step done, now to finalise plans then apply for consent. I also noted water in our garage that hasn’t disappeared all week, if anything has gotten worse. I thought it must have rained while we are away. Alas the water Toby needs fixing. Rowan let the council know, which they will fix in the next few days.

We sold a washing machine which was doing the ticket but we upgraded at the tip shop. Twenty bucks and it is a front loader. We sold the old $10 washer for $30. I didn’t get as much done as I wanted today. There was a lot of interruptions, however tomorrow is a new day!

A sneaky preview of some online shopping!

Tuesday we get up really early and drive straight down to Invercargill with the ute and the trailer. Our mission today is to pick up a load of Axminster carpet. I got this lot off trademe which is more than enough to carpet Tilly. The weather looks good we have no rain on the horizon. Once we have loaded it up and begin to strap it down it spits. Typical! Oh well it isn’t enough to really matter. We do a bit of op shopping and we op shop all the way back to Herbert. We get in around 7pm, we are incredibly tired. We check the forecast, a chance of a few showers in the morning. Sweet, let’s sleep and worry about unloading tomorrow.

Waking up to rain, proper rain at 2am, serves us right for being lazy! Well our Wednesday just got more interesting. We head to the Hampden Tip, let’s buy all the fans we can. We score 8 fans, 1 dehumidifier for $25. They give them super cheap as we promise them they will be coming back as soon as we are done. We unload these long heavy rolls into the house. We spread them out and turn everything on. They take up three rooms.

We take off to the Ōamaru tip to look for building materials and perhaps some more fans. I come across this amazing shelf, it hasn’t been priced so I ask how much? $45. Sold! instead of recessing it in I am going to paint the edge behind and add led lights! Our Wednesday looking up, we head back to Herbert and start organising.

I get a call from the principal of the school next to our blocks. Oh the fence we have planned actually goes through your property. Is it okay if I give your number to the project manager? Absolutely, no worries I am sure we will work something out.

Thursday, oh wow really hot. 36 degrees! Not a great day to be inside a hot container and trying to re organise it. When we came back from Christchurch we just put everything in there no order whatsoever. Today is the day to change that. I have to take several breaks and drink a lot of water. In the end we gave up, got in the camper and waited for it to get shady enough that we could carry on. It all finally got done.

Friday morning, we are hitting the road. First let’s check on our carpet. The fans and dehumidifier are doing a good job, we empty it and leave it all on. From there we head south to Palmerston. First to sort the Camele’s tanks then we go to look at the new survey pegs. Eek, it looks like one goes quite far onto the neighbours property. Oh well worry about that later. From Palmerston we head to Lake Dunstan. We stop many times along the way, Ranfurly, Alexander etc.

Saturday morning we carry on towards Queenstown and go out to Glenorchy. Not without a mandatory stop at Fergburger and the op shops. We try to make it all the way out to Chinamans Bluff, but the fords get the better of us. Camele is not a 4wd so let’s not push it! We come back and check out the start of the Routeburn track. On the last ford which was the deepest we found a couple who had taken off a lot of the plastic underside of their rental car. Oops. The ford was quite murky now and they didn’t know there was a huge rock in the middle of it. Which of course we had seen and avoided both ways. In the end we stay that night on the banks at the Rees River.

Sunday, we head back in towards the Routeburn but head past to the Greenstone and Caples Track. First we reach Kinloch then we are back on small track roads. There are three fords to cross and it is raining. We decide we won’t hang around long just in case they get deeper! We make it to the end of the road. Looks like a good walk, we will come back and do it sometime! Tonight we wait for Wānaka. Heading back in to Queenstown the weather gets a lot better. We go up over the Crown Range and end up finding a freedom camping spot at the top. That’s it we shall stay here. Well Queenstown has a lack of spaces you can stay. 22 other campers were up there too. We found a spot high up which meant we really didn’t have neighbours.

Monday, time to head home. We op shop in Wānaka before heading to Ōmarama. At Ōmarama we take a quick detour to the salmon shop near Twizel. Yumm real wasabi and a load of fish later that is our lunch. However we don’t stop and actually eat till way after 3pm. In Duntroon we go down to the domain and find a shady spot to eat. On the way to Ōamaru we stop at Maerewhenua rock drawing site. This one we missed on our alps to ocean cycle as we were on a fenced part of the ride. We climbed the stairs to take a look. Before heading back, we stopped in Elderslie to see Pete & Bev. Pete was home but not Bev. Finally at 6pm we were back in Herbert. It felt like a long day but I am glad we had a chance to go away before cracking on.

Before we can even think about or know exactly what needs to be done to the house we need to clear it. The property is a jungle of weeds, plants and rubbish!

Wednesday; the plan is to get rid of those smelly freezers and remove the oven and washing machine. We barely get started and the lid opens slightly which makes Rowan sick in the garden. I suggest we get Cory for two hours to help. While we wait we finish clearing around the side and back so the heap of rubbish at the back door can be removed easily. Tomorrow we have a much needed 7.5m3 skip coming.

We strap the lid down before attempting to move the freezer again. Unfortunately it has to go up on its end to get through the narrow passage. Only a small about of mucky juice comes out. I bleach it and water it down to help remove the smell. We get all of the gross stuff into the trailer and ute. I have a go at cleaning the sink so we can fill water bottles. It is encrusted with rat shit and cardboard food boxes. I try not to think too hard about what it all is. I then get onto the toilet, which is not too bad. It is really dusty and dirty but I am focusing on the actual toilet for now. Cory focuses on bagging up all the crap left in the house ready for the skip, around 15 black sacks. We also get the two beds onto the trailer. When time is up for Cory I ask if he is coming back tomorrow? Yes he says (phew). Rowan and I head out to the dump to get rid of the stuff. It weighs more than we expected. To get the large freezer off we had to flip the bin and run. Super gross!

We have a lovely visit from Gerry and Margaret our ex neighbours at Herbert.

Thursday; Yay skip day is here!

I load up all of the bagged stuff from yesterday and give the dining room a quick sweep before Cory arrives. Cory gets straight into the huge pile of rubbish at the back door. One pile is about 5 feet high. You can’t even see outside the dining window!

Pete & Bev come visit to see if our apple tree is able to be saved. It was covered in convolvulus. Looks like we can save it after all!

It nearly fills the skip, by lunchtime Cory has it filled and I am asking for another bigger skip. Gee I hope we don’t need more than two! Cory also rips up the carpet adds that into the skip and the small amount of scrim which is just in the wardrobe. Pretty lucky we don’t have more.

Friday; new day, new skip.

Cory attacks the garage rubbish. The pit of despair nearly fills the 9m3 skip. It is so much deeper than I expected. There is a lawnmower in there.

Rowan works of clearing more of the garden and I attempt to clean the bathroom.

Saturday; today we plan to burn a load of green waste. We have been taking loads to Herbert at the end of every day. There is already a large pile that needs to be burned made from the neighbours. Cory works on clearing the studio and the tool shed. Rowan continues in the garden and I help hold ladders and load up the green waste.

Sunday; more the same!

We keep clearing the land, Cory keeps finding more rubbish for the skip. I have a bumblebee nest in the shed I have to deal with because both of these two are too chicken. We have extra hands today. Lucy, who is our local postie. She is here to clean for today and tomorrow. It takes her all day but she gets the kitchen to a more reasonable standard.

For such a small section of land we sure get a lot of biomass out of it.

Monday; final day with extra help.

Lucy cleans the bathroom. Then onto the windows. It doesn’t sound like much but it makes a difference. Cory gets water blasting but our machine isn’t cutting the mustard. It probably needs a full service after years of no use. Rowan and I race down to TK hire and grab there one with the paint stripping nozel. We need time for the house to dry out and it makes sense to do it now.

When Cory has to leave, I get on the water blaster and do all the fence and a bit of the pathways. We will need another hire of this as we only did a half day! Looks like our wee house was yellow once.

Not quite a week but here are some drone pictures! Not a bad week at all. We are absolutely stuffed!