Moving

Finally back in Aotearoa.

A lot cooler than Cyprus and a bit of a shock to the system. While in Cyprus I had arranged to lease a place up in Parua, near Whangarai. The idea being that I could base myself and my cats there and do a bit of traveling up north of the island. Also it’s a bit warmer.

First Sunday back, Mel and the boys took me to see the place, more an exercise to get the lay of the land, so to speak. Still having stuff in storage meant I needed to ship everything 200 clicks north, so I hired a big van.(truck in this part of the world). Well the biggest one I could drive on my license. Storage is a funny thing. You bring all your stuff with you and coz it may come in handy then find you can live for a year without opening any of the boxes. When you do finally get round to moving in somewhere, you can’t remember what’s in which box or even whether you brought it at all.

Saturday morning 08:30 hours and pick up the van and a sack truck. The van had a tail-lift so the was going to be a great help. By the time the paper work was done I was at the storage by 9:30 and started loading. The crew that delivered the stuff back in February just unloaded their truck as quickly as possible with no sense of order, so I had a shed full of cardboard boxes all mixed together, some marked with the original rooms they had com out of, like kitchen, dinning room etc. but most just anonymous brown boxes. I tried as I loaded them to select the heavy ones for the bottom so I could lift the lighter ones and stack them, utilising as much van space as possible. By 11:45 we had a van full and set off on the 3 hour drive.

My idea was to try to unload the truck and what box I could identify I would put in to the relevant rooms in the new place. This of course would call for a bit of a judgment call as the house the stuff came from and the new house bear no relationship in size or layout but I thought I could at least get stuff in a general location.

Arrived and drove up the narrow steep gravel driveway and parked up outside my garage on a level hard standing. Only to be met by the landlord. “I’ll get another trolley and give you a hand”. This was fine and to be honest a great help time wise but that was the end of the ordered unloading in to relevant rooms. I now have one room full to bursting. So big drive back and stopped for Fush and Chups on the way home. Long hard day, not done that sort of physical work for a long time. More of the same tomorrow

Got an earlier start the next day and the stuff to load was a bit more, bitty so to speak. More odds and sods but still a full truck load. The books and the 5 sheets of marine ply wood were the most problematic. The books had all been packed in same size boxes and were just about liftable  but did not stack particularly well. The important thing, when loading a van, is not to get to you destination, with all the contents in a heap or falling out of the back when you open the door. So a little bit of thought had to go in to the process. The first load was not too bad as most of the voids where filled and the load was stable, the second load as I said was bitty, a couple of compressors tool boxes and ironing board don’t stack too well. I stood the ply wood up along the side of the van and used the books to hold them in place and then pack everything as tight as I could and set off. Bit more of a leisurely drive this time, I knew the way and I was a bit earlier so stopped for coffee. Nice little Italian bakery in the middle of nowhere. Never ceases to amaze me how the NZ economy works. There are café’s and boutiques and odd sort of shops up little country lanes or attached to farm buildings, no passing trade but they still seem to survive?? At the bakery the woman had been cleaning the front windows and a bird, a Goldfinch, had flown in to it a was laying stunned on the ground. Anyway I picked it up and it seemed to be alert enough but very confused so we put it in a quiet spot so it could hopefully recover. It was still there when I left. Hope its okay

This time I was on my own so unloading was hard especially when it came to the ply wood. But all good. Still got my boat and all the stuff that goes with that in storage so that’s another trip but the boat being 6.6 meters long is presenting a bit of a problem for the coming week, as I need to be out of the storage by end of the month.

A few pictures of the new place and the view from the kitchen window and down the drive to the beach.

DunK