New House!

Home sweet home

I get home from skitrip at 4pm, rush to view property at 5pm, its going to auction the following morning at 12, decide instantly that we should buy it, call Nick to tell him, he's says ok (he's happily on a mountain skiing so very agreeable and trusting), we have 3 hours the following morning to organise money around the world, take Mathilda to her first day of nursery, work out what our highest bid should be and look over contracts etc... and by lunchtime we own the house! It was quite a shock. It happens to be a property I've always wanted, having driven past it every day most of my life, the site is gorgeous and it overlooks my favourite hills. I'd told Nick the week before when we drove past it together (before it came on the market) that I'd always wanted to live there. So I knew we had to have it. But there was people crawling all over it and I never thought we'd have a chance. There were 45 people at the auction, and not one of them bid. Just little ole me. So we got the house for much less than we were prepared to pay for it. Then we had an agonising week waiting for the vendor (the bank) to agree all the terms - it was a mortgagee sale and there were two mortgagees so it was complicated. Anyway today it went unconditional and we have been up there measuring up for the renovations. Its amazing!!! 3 acres of gorgeous sunny hillside, sea views, 3 dwellings (2 dodgy 1 bed cottages and 1 dodgy 3 bed house), and 5 free range chickens. We still plan to live in Melbourne, just maybe a bit later... If anyone wants a holiday in NZ we now have a spare cottage.

The cottage

The other cottage

The view - that is the sea way out there

The beautiful moutere hills (and our driveway)

The gorgeous NZ mountains

We got straight on to making the most of doting grandparents in the same country - leaving the kids behind we drove down to the mid-south, to ski Mount Hutt, Mt Cheeseman, and Porters Heights.



Was amazing, beautiful days and great snow 2 out of 3 days. Nick then continued further south to Wanaka on his own to do some heliskiing. In typical form he got the best weather for heliskiing they'd had all season on his one day there.

Nicks Heliski insert:


It takes some bottle to get into a tiny copter and fly over windswept peaks with turbulence that throws us around like a paper boat in a raging torent.

the first sight of the powder field and you know its going to be worth it

the landing site at the top of the ridge is a flat area the size of a london bathroom.. all respect to the pilot.

wide open and fresh tracks from top of the ridge all the way to the snowline [a 600m vertical drop].

Then the heli picks you up and you go somewhere else and do it all over again. We managed a respectable 5 drops before the weather [and our legs] drew the day to a close.

To say it was a spiritual experience would be to understate the day. If you like powder, there is nothing else. Daves, Rob, Rog - get over here.

Meanwhile I got home to discover there was a house on the market perfect for us, going to auction the next morning...