Day 328-330: Karamea, New Zealand

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Sunday, December 20th

We woke to another wet morning. Like we’ve mentioned before, it seems to rain mostly on the weekends. On a doccie we saw they said that it’s because of the way we humans pollute the air during the work week that causes rain on the weekends. Apparently the water molecules attach themselves to dust and pollutants and then fall as rain when they become heavy enough. Thus, the more dust or pollutants, the more easily it rains. Duhhhh…

Anyway, before we knew it the sun was out, then gone, then out again, and Ferdi decided to install the “reclining seats” in our van. It’s not as fancy as it sounds; the back two lids got some supports so that we can recline comfortably at roughly a 45 degree angle if we should choose to. The idea is that it would be very comfy for reading or watching movies on the laptop. When we tested it we found that the lids weren’t very stable with our heavy bodies leaning against it, so we might need to think of a solution. However, we didn’t test it with the mattress on top, so that might make a difference. We’ll just wait and see.

Nicol sent us an email to let us know that a Notification for Registration arrived for the Boesman’s and is overdue. It was news to us, but there was nothing we could do about it here. We’d have to make another trip into Westport, so for now we’ll just have to do without it. The registration expired only 10 days after we had gone to the Post Office to change ownership & registration. You’d think they would let you know that it’s coming up… apparently not. Another interesting fact is that the Boesman used to be gold! We find that hard to imagine.

Later we loaded all the useable pieces of left-over ply, the battens, and the saw-horses into our unlicensed vehicle and drove over to the holiday park where we stacked it with the rest of the pieces of canoe. Ferdi just wanted to start building the canoe, but “She Who Must Be Obeyed” would have nothing of it. Back home we spent the afternoon reading in bed and snoozing. The day felt like forever. Time crawled by. We don’t know what to do with ourselves when we have nothing to do.

After dinner we watched a Jeff Dunham DVD, read a bit more, then called it a night.

Today’s highlights:
1. Installing the reclining seats in the Boesman.
2. Reading the afternoon away.

Monday, December 21st

We were at the holiday park bright and early and continued working on the telephone booth. A simple paint job had turned into a mayor restoration project. We felt a little discouraged by the slow progress we were making. One of the problems is that we’ve got the canoe laying there, waiting to be built, and our hearts were there, not in the restoration. We tried hard and succeeded to some extent in getting ourselves excited about the booth. The important thing is to stand back every now and then and look at what you’re doing, because when you’re right in there focusing on the details it’s hard to see the big picture and the progress.

During afternoon tea Margaret served us Blackberries and ice-cream. It was delicious! By the end of the day we were ready to start patching all the holes and gaps with wood-filler, but that would be a project in and of itself and would have to wait for the following day. We must admit that telephone booth is starting to look good, and it doesn’t even have the paint on yet.

Today’s highlights:
1. Blackberries and ice-cream.

Tuesday, December 22nd

The telephone booth we’re so painstakingly restoring is more than 60 years old. The panels had started pushing apart, creating gaps, so instead of filling the gaps with wood-filler we got huge G-clamps, put glue in the gaps, and pulled the panels together. Talita painted KillRust on all the metal screws and nails and any rusty spots on the roof. It takes 24 hours to cure, so we could only fill them the next day. Ferdi used the smaller clamps and started gluing the window battens to the frame. We only had six clamps and the glue takes 3 hours to set so it will take a while to get everything glued in place. We‘ve picked up a lot of tips from John so far. He’s built a lot of things and painted even more things over the last 44 years, and we’re lucky enough to benefit from his experience.

By 3pm we couldn’t do anymore on the booth, so after a cup of tea and some more ice-cream and Blackberries we started sanding down the panels for our canoe. While Ferdi continued sanding Talita drove into town to do a spot of shopping. While there she stopped by to see if Dan, the local master carpenter, had any sawdust we could get. We need to put the sawdust in the resin so that the joints blend nicely with the rest of the panels. He was busy working on a beautiful chest and was very friendly. His workshop is covered in sawdust and he said we could take as much as we wanted. When Talita tried to leave the Boesman wouldn’t start. She asked a local guy for help and it turned out that the gear lever looked like it was in Park but it wasn’t clicked in properly. Luckily it wasn’t anything big!

Back at camp Ferdi was approached by three different people wanting to know what he was building. For some reason they assumed that he’d built a few boats in his time. It must be his dust-covered confidence ;-). Talita returned, got a bucket and went back to get the sawdust. She returned with enough sifted sawdust for the canoe just as Ferdi finished sanding the last of the panels. Now we’re ready to start the assembling process! We can’t wait, but we have to, so with a wave goodbye to John we headed home. We prepared Burrito’s and had a fantastic bottle of red wine while Ferdi prepared the blog and Talita prepared dough for Christmas koeksisters.

Today’s highlights:
1. More progress on the booth.
2. More progress on the canoe.
3. Excellent red wine.

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Photos

John's large & crazy shed
It is filled with everything that opens and closes

Comments

[esther]

Hi Ferdi and Tal, looks like you're having a great time! I wish you a happy merry glorious Christmas and good luck with the canoe!!!! I'll have turkey later and for dessert Mangosteen- Asia memories...I had such a great time and I'm very happy to have met you guys!!! Lots of Love, Esther