The best cheese shop in the East

We have been south this week to complete our tour of possible new home locations. An early start on Monday was required for our 7.30am flight to Dunedin. On arrival we picked up our hire car (a blue Toyota Corolla with some whizzy technology) and drove into town for coffee with Claire. She had changed the colour of her hair again! We got to Oamaru early afternoon, enjoyed a late lunch of jacket spuds and then hit the estate agents. We had a sticky beak at two houses and two sections, popped into the Whitestone Cheese shop, and then raided the supermarket before having a quiet night in our accomodation as we were both quite jaded. The weather had been reasonable with some sun, but Oamaru was chilly.

It was cold when our day started on Tuesday. We drove to Gore via Balclutha (which we liked) and had a good chat with a lady in one of the Balclutha pharmacies. She told us that she lives in Kaka Point, about 15 minutes away on the coast. It’s the first time we have been south in the winter, and during our drive we really enjoyed the crisp clear weather and seeing snow on top of the mountains. 

We had afternoon tea in a Gore café with amusing toilet sign:

and found a pub called Thomas Greens doing Tuesday night specials - two steak dinners for $50. The steaks were really good, and served with a large portion of chips and two fried eggs. Over indulgence resulted. You can see why:

On our way back to our accomodation we noticed how smoky the air had become as people had lit their fires. We discovered that this is a big problem in the south in the winter, and even though steps are being taken to improve the air quality, it is going to be some years before the effect materialises.

Wednesday started wet. We went up to Tapanui (a nice wee rural township by the Blue Mountains) to have a look at a cheap ($19K) section before driving to Invercargill. We stopped in a couple of other places on the way but didn’t care for either of them. The weather improved in the afternoon and an estate agent took us to see a couple of properties. This gave us an opportunity to see other parts of Invercargill, along with a couple of houses in our price range. We stayed in our best accomodation of the trip, and had soup and salad sandwiches before tellyboxing.

Thursday was cold, crisp and clear again. After checking out of the motel we had a look at the Invercargill Rymans retirement village. It is one that we can afford! It was good but we are too young for them moment, so it was suggested that we put our names down when I turn 65 as the waiting list is a couple of years. 

We headed off to Balclutha to meet up with an agent to see 53 sections which the council are selling. They are in a great spot if can you get one of the more expensive ones. The cheaper ones won’t have such a good view once the development has finished, but having said that the best view is to the south. The same agent also gave us details of a couple of houses to look at, one of which was in Kaka Point, so off we went. It turned out to be a great wee spot, with beach and wonderful coastline. We spotted a TransBuild house while we we there - the company we went to see in South Auckland the other week. It looked terrific.

Time was getting on and we had to get back to Dunedin for our 7pm flight to Auckland. Claire and Ryan came out to the airport to see us off, and we had food and they drank beer. Our time with them was very short but it was good to see them all the same. The flight back was a little bumpy but we got home in one piece.

On Tuesday evening I thought I was having a bit of an allergic reaction to something in the motel room. It turned out to be a cold which I had picked up from somewhere. This developed during the week and was at it’s worst during Friday and Saturday. With me being generous, Nicky has now got it.

Friday was admin, shopping and lots of laundry once the fog had cleared. Nicky roasted a half leg of lamb for our dinner, and I had an early night in bed. Saturday was boiled eegs for breakfast, lovely warm sunshine, and BHB quilters for Nicky. Stella, Steve and Ros cam over for Scrabble, and most of the fruit bread which I had made in the afternoon was consumed. We finished it off for tea (it was rather good even though I say so myself). Today has been church and pottering at home as neither of us are 100%, but this hasn’t stopped Nicky making excellent French Onion Soup and fruit scones.

We now feel in a position to draw some conclusions from our travels. There are a number of places in Southland and Otago where we think we could happily settle, but we don’t prefer any of them to Whanganui. We have not yet seen a house that we can afford that is in good enough condition for us to live in and that we could afford to update to be suitable. We think our best way forward is to buy a section and build - probably with a transportable house that is made in a factory and then transported to site. The next step is to figure out the costs of building, to see if we can actually do it.

Take care, Rick