Kiwi bushblock life - look at my shiny deck

So if you managed to read through the entire thread so far from the link I posted above then good work! I hope you are still interested enough to look at this lot. I have copied and pasted this lot over from oldschool and it includes many before and after photos...



Wow. Crikey. Its been a while aint it. July was the last post. A few things have been done since then so I better get typing.

First off. Come February we will have owned the land for two years and it will be 14 months since we moved out to it. Its settled in nicely and we are getting a good feel for the seasons and all the little things that happen out here when they change. Starting to get to know the locals quite well and have had lots of work coming into the workshop from just word of mouth which is awesome. Hannah is working a summer season job down at the beach front and when thats over we will be doing a flyer drop around the valley and surrounding areas to put out to people that they can get many sorts of engineering/repairs/bike repairs/advice on cats/great coffee from us*

In the start of spring I spent a morning going about the land taking photos. I tried to compose them as close as I could to the original photos we took as we cleared the land.
Some are ever so slightly off. This was because things have changed so much that even I struggled to work out where the original photos were taken! I'm pretty happy with the resulting before and after collection so I'll put them right here. I have tried to list them from the drive way entrance and then heading down the drive to the north end of the property.

The driveway entrance..




heading up the drive..









The highest point of the driveway..









I like this one.. looking down the driveway. Such a difference.





Next up- one of the 5 old caravans that got taken away. This one was surrounded by lots of junk/scrap steel etc.



Now just trees and some sweet old gates we saved. The mountain bike track I started heads in just around there.



These next ones are looking out from about where the cabin veranda is..





Looking back towards where the cabin is now. Thats my brother duncan trying to locate where the Gravely mowers might be. We found them a few months later.



and now..



Hannah wondering WTF...





This next one is from the first night we stayed over to check the land out. We had pushed the driveway gorse down by throwing the van into 4wd and just driving over the top. Here down at the north end I was just laying back in the grass chilling and imagining what the area could be like.



There is now a bit more parking area..



The following morning of the first night Hannah chilling in the morning sun with a coffee. We didnt really know what this area was going to be like in two years time..



This is it. you can see we kept the little Kanuka to the left. Its thriving now!



The main yard was not much of a yard back then..



This is better !...



Our first morning..



two years later..















I'm really glad I took so many photos before we cleared it all. Its great to look back at.

Moving on to recent times. Not long before xmas this happened..



We had been wanting rid of that 70 plus year old curse word for ages and its so good to see it gone. Shane (sideways sickness) and Greg (64Valiant) came round and got to see some of it heading to earth. Then we had a nice BBQ. Big thanks goes out to Shep for chopping it down. No way would I be doing that job. For starters I don't have chainsaw with a metre long bar! Nor the skill or experience. It was great fun just helping out and watching. We have many more big pine trees to come down over the next couple of years but this one was the one I wanted gone now. The view afterwards is heaps better!!!. Plus we now have a sweet as 8 metre high trunk to build a cool viewing platform on one day :-)

Before..



After..



Then for the end of the year we thought we had better crack on and finish the bathroom before my brother came over to stay. We needed the shower going for him so we got stuck in and finished it just before xmas eve. It still has some little finshing touches like light switches, extra lights, better prettier shower head, hand rail up the steps etc but its pretty much done. It works really well however I reckon we'll get a new califont for winter as the old Palomar is a bit small on heating capacity. We'll see. The compost toilet is working really well and still doesn't smell. Ive not yet even wired in the fan. Happy with that. Its taking about 3-4 months to fill a bin. Will put in a third bin soon and then start a secondary outside composting area away up under the eucalyptes just to be safe.
The bathroom lights and shower pump are running off the cabin solar panel setup too and we have run wires to add a couple of outside lights to light up the pathway from the cabin to the bathroom. I just have to make some lights yet.

Anyway.. some photos of the new bathroom :-)...









We moved all the various piles of gorse and Kanuka into one place to chop too. Here you can get an idea of the amount of Gorse we cleared..



We have also started a vege garden and although a bit late its going well. The strawberries all going mental and its great to have 4 or 5 fresh strawberries on the cereal in the morning. Our fruit orchard trees are growing well and seem pretty happy. We'll plant heaps more this winter. The olive tree seems happy as so we'll plant more of them along the driveway.

Finally Hannah spotted an old picnic table offered for free down at someones holiday home so we grabbed that. It looks the part and is an ideal little spot to chill.

What the score with the amazing looking motorhome! More pics needed!!!

Tordon is the spray we use. It will take out other bushes, ferns and trees but wont touch the grass so you just have to be very careful. I would just keep the spray close to the ground and only spray on a still day. I have only been using it to kill new growth. Anything bigger I would scrub cut first.

Cheers!

We don't have any plans to build a house as such. The truck is doing fine for now but once we we have added a mezzanine floor to the workshop we are planning on selling the truck and building trailer house on wheels to suit the location ie windows and doors exactly where we want them, living room facing north, no spare bedroom, larger kitchen bench etc. It will just as we need and really make the most of where the sun arcs through the day. It wont be road legal but will be capable of being so if needed. No plans to move it ever though. Just on wheels for ease and keeping the councils sticky little beak out of our life :-)

Feel free to tell me it's non of my business but as you've mentioned selling the house truck, without getting into amounts, are you going to make anything on it?
Just thinking with your wood and metal working skills and your workshop to work in could you make an extra living building one a year when other work is quiet? It'd be a uniquely Kiwi business!

Just forgot to add (again) how much I like the bush block, if we ever manage to win the lottery I'll be looking for somewhere like it on the Banks Peninsula.

Wow. Just read the entire oldschool thread. Fabulous and I am very jealous of the life you are making for yourselves. Good luck to you both and I will bookmark this. Looking forward to your updates.

Alex, you and Hannah really have made me smile for years.

I love the progress on the property, and all the building etc you,have done.

Thanks for starting the thread here as well.

Hey Alex nice to see this thread up here. I've read the old school one but spend more time here. I found retro rides off jalopnik when they had your house truck build and haven't spent much time on jalopnik since:). New Zealand's always been a dream of mine to visit, looks beautiful an green. I'm in north central Washington State USA,9"' of moisture a year so irrigation is a must to grow anything but sagebrush.

Sure do,1993 Western Star, just a shade over a million miles I think the odometer reads 26,000. 3406b cat 425 hp 1450 ft lbs 15 speed overdrive, it runs like a top. Western Star is (was) a Canadian built truck, mine was built about 2.5 hours north of where I live. it's a farm truck has 24' bed so I can get my tractor and baler on. Western Washington is wet, we're in the rain shadow of the Cascade range. Airplanes (Boeing) from their side, apples an cows on ours