Bob the Builder

Sawing up bits of wood and banging in nails has always been part of the male physic, and so when offered the chance to try my hand at building a shed for some friends I jumped at the opportunity. Rosie and Steve have recently moved down to Te Anau and purchased a piece of land at Patience Bay. It is a great spot with spectacular views of the lake, the Murchison and Kepler mountains and of course the snow covered Darrens. Along with cutting of weeds, planting of natives, and clearing of waterways, building a shed on the section was on the to do list. The actual design was a moving target, with about the only fixed requirement being 10 square meters to avoid a building consent.

I enjoyed surfing the web, making various sketches on the backs of envelopes, and visiting a nearby building site to sort out how to put it all together. With no power on site we only had a hand saw and hammer, along with a tape measure and level to keep us going in the right direction.

Ash turned up for a few days to help which really put the project into fast forward and so after 10 days we had a floor, four walls and a few roof rafters. Rosie and Steve now hope to have some cladding (coloursteel) on the walls come the new year. My final couple of days staying down there were spent on the water with an amazing day fishing up north arm, and then a mind blowing dive trip to Milford Sound, crystal clear water, cliffs dropping into the deep, crayfish and back coral!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Judith's Cameroon Visit

Image
Christmas this year was spent in Yaounde with some friends putting on a great feed at their house on the other side of town. Elodie and I then headed to Kirbi, with its wonderful long deserted stretches of white sand and some quiet beach time. We hoped to track down some rare turtles laying their eggs on the beach under the cover of darkness, but after two nights out walking and sleeping on the beaches we will have to try again another day for that experience. My sister Judith arrrived in Cameroon to visit our African outpost just before the year ended. We headed with her for the hills and spent New Years Eve beside a beautiful lake at the top of the Mananguba Mountains, about half way between the coast and where I work in Belo. The 'guide' turned out to be a right pain, but we got there in the end and enjoyed a swim, fresh fish, and christmas pudding all the way from New Zealand. My mate Andy also joined us for this little camping trip. Cameroon has featured in the movies ...
Read more

Motorcycle Exploration

Image
I rode a motorbike a little as a teenage on a farm north of where I grew up. That little experience seems to have given me enough of the bug to do a bit more while here in Cameroon. Another volunteer Lance, only here for four weeks, turned out to be a motorbike mechanic, which was a huge opportunity for me to learn as much as I could. One weekend after work we headed off around part of what is known as the Ring Road, which circles the main range of mountains in this north west region, for a complete distance of 367km. Due to the rains and unreliable bikes we just did a small section, but this still included a lot of technical rough riding, a fairly serious river crossing, a fantastic waterfall, and a visit to the local chiefs palace. On the way we had various fuel leaks, my clutch not working for half a day, one flat tire, and a chain coming off three times. I only crashed once, we only got lost once (ended up in the middle of a farmers field after the river crossing somehow), and only...
Read more

Jebel Climbing

Image
The town of Mornei where I am now living is overlooked by a wonderful little mountain, or 'jebel' as they are known here. We climbed it on Friday (our day off here being a Muslim region) but did not get great views as it was quite cloudy. I'll have to try again next week. The jebel sits to the south of the town and rises abruptly from the otherwise flat sandy landscape. To the north and west are scrubby wastelands, and on the eastern side is the dry river bed or 'wadi'. In the village kids run and play and the place looks like a large healthy village. Of course looks can be deceiving, and this village is in fact a camp which grew from 5000 residents to 75,000 refugees (or internally displaced peoples (IDP's) as they are now known) during the major Darfur violence of 2003 and 2004. Most people therefore have had their homes and livelihoods destroyed, often loosing many members of their family in the process. Armed men still wander the streets, and rapes and looti...
Read more