And, so it begins ...

It was an early start on Saturday morning - we left Nelson before sunrise to drive to Kumara. We were keen to see the start of our block being cleared. We'd heard the driveway had been cleared and bush in the centre of the section had started to be cleared.

There were a couple of reasons for the early start. One, it's a 4 hour drive to Kumara from Nelson and when the dogs come, it takes a bit longer as we stop every hour or so to give them a stretch. And secondly, we also planned to head over Arthurs Pass to Kaiapoi to look at a 7m Toyota Coaster for sale.

We stopped at the top of the Spooners Range to let the dogs have a walk around. Although the sun hadn't come up it was just light enough to follow a little bush track. The birdsong was AMAZING!

Further down the road we ran into fog and it stayed with us until just before Greymouth.

Half an hour from Kumara, Bernie got a phone call from he owner of the Toyota Coaster to say the bus had failed its C.O.F that morning (due to two worn ball joints). They managed to find one ball joint in Christchurch but the other had to be couriered down from Aukland, which meant we weren't able to pick it up later that day. That shortened our day of driving by about 5 hours.

We continued onto Kumara and were pleased to see the driveway had already been put in. The drive curves to the right making the area we'll build private from the road.

The rest of the section had started to be cleared. A big mound of bush, moss and mud lay in the centre, which will be trucked away during the week. 

There must have been half a dozen fantails flitting about.

Bill's son Connor put a drone up over the property so we could get a look from above how much bush was around the boundary. There's still heaps left, so we're pulling more out to make the clearing even bigger (one of the covenants of the subdivision is to keep at least 5 metres of bush along the boundary).

The photo below is looking back down the drive towards the road.

After an hour looking around we had a walk along the beach and then headed home. We drove to Lake Brunner from Kumara which was just stunning. I'd recommend taking that detour if you're ever passing. It's about 24kms and most of the road is unsealed but it's in excellent condition and the native trees bordering the sides of the road are breath-taking.
I was looking forward in seeing a camping area at Iveagh Bay (part of Lake Brunner), it's on my list of places to camp and it didn't disappoint. It's a flat, gravel area right beside the lake shore with spectacular views. I imagine it would be a popular place during summer.

Even though it's winter Oakly spent most of the time wading in the water.