The indian summer we’ve been enjoying in New Zealand has come crashing to earth in the last couple of days with relentless rain and storms. MT went off to the badlands of Auckland yesterday and packed overnight requirements in case the gales forecast were too bad to return home. Luckily the storms blew through Wellington [...]

It was quite an adventure to visit the build site today to see how the ground works have been started. After I had got over the initial shock it was easy to feel excited that at last things were underway. We’ll keep readers updated each week with progress as we make our weekly pilgrimage to [...]

I don’t think you can ever prepare yourself for when builders start on site. But so far they’ve put their sign on the gate and after 2 days turned our beautiful green paddocks into a mass of earth. To say it was a shock is a bit of an understatement! Yes, its official we have [...]

To achieve the amount of change on site, there’s plenty of heavyweight machinery. You can guess who wanted to have a go don’t you! Luckily the excavators took the keys away with them The big digger that looks to be doing the most work. The little roller that is for compacting the earth Previous view [...]

You’ll remember the former residents.. And where they used to graze. No more grass for them to feed on now! View where cottage will eventually sit When they’ve transformed this!

View up the future drivewayView from the bottom of the garden through the area for orchard Neat piles of top soil ready for the gardening

Since there are only so many times that you can hang around a gate it made sense for us to take to the lanes and enjoy the country around Kaitoke. We are surrounded by Regional Council forestry and recreational parks so there is no shortage of places to trek to. Here’s a the views from [...]