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Ok, so it looks like one of the butternut plants we bought might actually be a butternut.

Or at least it was a butternut plant, but I’m a bit suspicious that the fruit looks a bit green and stripy so far. In fact, it’s starting to remind me more than just a little bit of the pumpkin that definitely isn’t butternut shaped growing in the same plot… (After seeing something at the veg stall that looks close to what we’ve got we suspect it’s a “Buttercup” pumpkin)

Hmmm.

I suspect some form of cross-pollination has possibly occurred. I guess we’ll find out once it grows and ripens a bit. You never know, we might have struck gold with a never before seen veg.

I suspect not, however.

At least the zucchinis are looking like zucchinis! (Just hope they taste like them too…)

Well, it is to us, anyway! The ADRIAN MAERSK.

Why so important? It’s got all our stuff on it, of course!

Looking at the picture, I really hope our stuff is buried somewhere in the middle, and not in one of the containers dangling on the top edge.

The current vessel track is where I check most, but with over 600 ships around Antwerp it’s a bit slow. I’m guessing it will speed up a bit when it finally starts heading somewhere that’s useful to us, like the Pacific. Enough pootling around the Channel, OK?!

The tracking link the shipping guys sent us was so crap that I had to find an alternative site, and I’m now kinda addicted to that one. Although I am slightly worried that when I did a search before it didn’t come up with Lyttelton as a port. But when I zoomed in on New Zealand I did locate ships heading there, so I guess it does exist. I really hope so!

We cruised back up from Alexandra, taking the Inland Scenic Route today. And yes, it was a bit more scenic than the boring drive down the semi-coastal route. Lots more trees, and some little bridges and towns etc. All quite nice on a nice day like today. But it’s still a big long drive. Next time we really have to take more in the way of CDs and drinks.

But the main reason for taking that route is that it circles around and takes us more directly to the house where we could check that they had, indeed, started the Gibbing. And we weren’t disappointed. (Though we were disappointed in the photos we took, so you might have to wait a bit longer for some good ones…)

It certainly gives the place a different feel not being able to stare through the wall skeletons. And not being able to see the hidden bits of all the sliding doors so you really see the actual size of the doors and the walls help in seeing the real shape of things.

There’s still a lot of work to be done though. All the corners and finishing, a few holey bits here and there, and a few more wires to locate behind the walls and pull through (including all the lights)… We assume they have a list, but I think we’ll need to make one ourselves, or it’s going to be far too easy to forget one until a lot later once it’s all painted.

And I have to say after 5 hours of travelling the shower space is starting to look pretty good! Pity the hot water’s not on yet!

Oh, and the plants seem to have managed to survive our inattention for a bit, even though they’ve not grown all that much. We’ll see if we can get them back up to speed again.

…we spent a great deal of time digging out all of what we’re calling Lamb’s Ears from our plot!

We drove past this field just out of Clyde today and it suddenly made all the time that we’d spent pulling them out earlier seem like a very, very worthwhile use of time. Some might like to call them wild flowers, but I still think invasive pest might be a better description! They seem to have just taken over some fields around here.

(oh, and the piccies are larger if you click them, like some others have been in some earlier posts if you want a better view. I never really know which are interesting enough to include bigger versions. Let me know if you want a better view of something, and I’ll add a big ‘un for you.)

A trip from Dunedin to Alex, or vice versa just wouldn’t be the same without a stop at the little ole pie shop! On our last journey we travelled through on a Saturday and were quite disappointed when it wasn’t open. Calling it a little ole pie shop probably still works, but it’s actually a lot bigger than it used to be and they have a much wider range of pies. Yes that’s right pies, pies and more pies!

It’s well worth the stop for a taste of that flaky pastry and delicious filling that you choose. And it was obviously on the minds of the motorists travelling on either side of us, as when we all arrived in Roxburgh we all stopped at the ‘Jimmy’s’ shop. For those of you that have had a ‘Jimmy’s’ pie they are still as good as I remember! And for those of you that haven’t, well if you like pies you should add it to your must do list when you visit!

Jimmy’s pies = yummy!

(And no, we are not being paid for this advertisement!)

And a lovely walk on the beach it was too. Although it was a very long way to go to visit the beach. All the way down to Dunedin in fact! Another trip around visiting other bits of respective families seemed a bit overdue, so we loaded up the car and headed off the other day after taking the plastering pics. And have been having a great time so far.

We’d forgotten just how hard it is to walk on deep sand and dunes. I’m sure my toes all turned completely upright. Not a natural feeling at all. But I have to say I think the St Kilda lifeguards were being a bit lazy. The flag’s you’re meant to swim between were placed about 5 meters apart. Mind you, swimming at Dunedin beaches is really only for the super brave anyway. It’s a pity that the water’s not about 10 degrees warmer to make the most of all the beautiful sand!

But apparently now they’ve finally started to install the Gib. I guess we’ll see if that’s actually the case when we decide to return!

Have a bit of plastering action instead!

Yes, that’s right. Still no change to the internals, with no interior walls having magically appeared in the last few days. Grrrr. But I guess at least with the first coat of plaster going on there’s something happening.

A bit odd to arrive to find all the windows covered up and a team of guys crawling over the place trying to stay out of the way of the guys adding the last of the weatherboards. And a bit hard to remember what colour we’d picked for the outside, and if any of the plaster was dry enough to actually be that colour. We assume they got it right!

…that one’s butternut-squash are potentially not butternut-squash, but some other form of pumpkin thingee.

You can make up your own mind though.

The plants definitely had a butternut-squash label attached, so I guess either someone took great delight swapping labels around, or the plants and/or seeds somehow mistakenly got mixed up. Or there’s some really weird cross pollination happening with the radishes. But hey-ho. At least they’re growing!

Problem: 70-80 meters of 25mm irrigation pipe that may or may not need to have a bit of cable pulled though it at some stage. And not a lot of time left to sort something out before one end of the pipe gets covered by Gib.

Solution: Some fishing line, a borrowed vacuum cleaner, some insulation tape, the corner of a supermarket bag, and about 20 seconds!

I’d read about this method on the interwebs, but had my doubts. But in the end it worked amazingly well. Tape the vacuum cleaner hose over the end of the pipe, tie the chopped off corner of the bag on the end of the fishing line (tightly, of course!) and poke in the hole, take a deep breath and turn on the vacuum cleaner and stand well back!

I just had to hold the reel of line sideways and the line flew off amazingly quickly. Scarily quickly! I’m glad we borrowed the old crappy vacuum cleaner, and not the new more powerful model otherwise my fingers might have been at risk if anything went a bit awry.

After about 20 seconds of frantic activity the line stopped being dragged into the pipe, so we switched off the vacuum cleaner (through a predetermined series of arm waving manoeuvres), pulled off the vacuum hose and had a look. And there was the line. Magic!

I soooo wish I’d had a video camera handy! I’m almost tempted to do it again just to prove it works. I guess if the line breaks when we try to use it to pull some string or cable though it we’ll just have to!

Today we were out taking the latest lot of tourists to the ranch and arrived just as the council dude was out doing the pre-line inspection. This would give the go ahead for the gibbing guys to roll up their sleeves and start cracking on with that part of proceedings.

And we apparently passed. So we might start seeing movement again soon. About time! This slow break has got pretty boring!

So we’re still hopeful we’ll be in by March sometime…