A Base

When we're on the road full time our house will be rented out, so we won't have a home base to return to. We've discussed this several times and wondered what we'd do when we felt like spending longer in a spot or staying in a place where we can let the dogs have somewhere to roam more freely.
Buying land in Nelson would be ideal - but out of our budget. We'd end up having to work full time to pay the mortgage and the reason we're choosing a new lifestyle is so we aren't tied to a job.
When looking around, land on the West Coast was the cheapest. After lots of searching on Trademe we found two possibilities.
One: Five acres at Kumara. Most of it is bush and the land backs onto the Wilderness Trial. Plus it's just off the main highway to Arthurs Pass (meaning no gravel roads and the opportunity for other motorhomers to use).
Two: Two acres in Awatuna, Hokitika. This block of land has a bush clad creek and it has full day sun. Again it has access off a tar seal road and would be suitable for others wanting to stay while visiting the area.

On Sunday we traveled to the Coast to check out these two blocks.

Lots of greenery and ferns.

Buller River.

The first block of land in Kumara seemed ideal. It had a solid pad of gravel at the front which we could park the rig on immediately without having to do any work to the land. We waited for Deedee the real estate lady to meet us to show us the boundaries. 

When Deedee arrived she explained to us that the information she had emailed to us had been misleading and that this flat land was the neighbours property. The actual land for sale was beside it. We were disappointed and even more disheartened when we walked over the other piece to discover it was covered in scrub and would need a lot of work and money to make it accessible to park the rig.

We continued on to the next block, which was twenty minutes away in Hokitika. Isn't it amazing how property can be photographed to make it look so different to what it is in real life?

The dreamy bush clad stream turned out to be a potential flood risk, surrounded in the poisonous plant 'tutu'. The land was very boggy and would need to be cleared and covered in gravel to make it usable for us. Another disappointment.

So we drove home feeling disappointed but not beaten! The next day we searched the internet and found another two properties worth a look.

One just out of Hokitika (2 acres of flat farm land) and the other in Frans Josef ( 2 acres of flat land near Lake Mapourika). 

Now we have to find some time to take a trip down there to check them out.