Decided to break up the journey to Mangonui with an overnight stop at Whangerai. Whangerai hasn’t got s great reputation but actually the motel where we stayed was smart, clean and quiet; breakfast was sitting in the sun by the river-side, very picturesque.
We need to make lots of decisions for our build so that our builder can submit the plans and price the build, today’s stop off at KeriKeri is to look at bathroom items and tiles from four of the rooms. Everyone in New Zealand seems to have a fascinating story, the tiles saleslady is married to an Italian and used to live in Venice; we learn this and more after mentioning our olives and love of Italy.
We arrive at the land to be greeted by rain.
On Sunday the sun comes out and it is time to start raising the wires on the lines of trees. This means unlatching the wire tighteners and if we are lucky just raining the wire without detaching it, when we are unlucky it means having to rewind the wire on to teh tightener, not an easy task.
It is also time to loosen more of the ties that hold the trees to he wires, many of them are strangling the trees and constraining growth. Spring is coming so it will be good to loosen as many trees as we can as soon as possible.
Our earlier stop in Whangerai gave us the opportunity to buy some sturfy work boots, they even come with pink laces for the ladies.
