A DRIVE INTO THE COUNTRY.

 We heard this week that Doug's primary school friend, Stan, had lost his daughter to cancer so decided to go and visit him yesterday .  He lives 60kms away near Tangiteroria on a farm owned by his nephew.  The last 20 kms was a metal road (unsealed).

We had a lovely day for the trip and enjoyed the countryside.  The first photo is the entrance and Doug's daughter who does the mail run there suggested we park at the road and walk up although it wasn't as bad as Doug thought and we could have driven up easily.  Stan has the same vehicle as us.

When we arrived we had a bit of a catch up and then Stan said he would take us to the old house next door which his nephew is doing up and planning to move into.

The old house has been empty for three years and has  just been re-roofed.   There is a local builder in his 70's who is working on the house, the deck of the verandah has just been replaced with lovely clean timber.

]It is hard to see but this is the remains of a pond with a small bridge over it.

I don't recognise this grey haired lady

The inside of the house was all match lining.  Houses of this period (we estimate about  a hundred years) were either match lining  (tongue and groove timber) or scrim with wallpaper or just plain newspaper)

This was the walk in wardrobe

Two lounges with a folding door between them.

The house had three bedrooms and two bathrooms.  One bathroom had a huge walk in shower and the other a very large spa bath.  There was another large room which could be made into a fourth bedroom although Stan said it was the laundry.  The farm is 6,000 acres (I think he bought a 3,000 acre farm and then the neighbour asked if he would like to buy his as well).  We went for a walk along the race.

Across the road is the old northland railway (which is supposed to be re-instated) there was a station nearby and the building below was the goods shed.

We then went back to Stan's house and had the lunch we had brought with us.  He then showed us this broad axe.  He found the head somewhere and then bought the old handle on the West Coast.  Doug tells me they were used to cut the logs into a square shape prior to shipping so that more fitted on the ship.

We had a really enjoyable day out.