My first job

Last week, I had an interview to work as a 'care giver' at 'The Wood Retirement Village'. 
Yay!!!! I was offered the job...Now I can celebrate my first job on our new journey.
However, it was a bit of a shock to learn that the hourly rate was only $16.75 (including holiday pay), but then, this is all part of our adventure...experiencing new things, new jobs, learning new skills and trying new things.

First Drive

Today we took 'our new home' for a drive. The very first drive for us! 
Bernie said it drove well. 
We were hoping to pay for it and take it away today, but when we were being shown how various things worked, the 'pop outs' were sluggish. Pete (the current owner) couldn't understand why this was happening (Murphy's Law!)...so he rang his friend to ask if he could fix it. Hopefully the problem will be fixed quickly so we can pick it up tomorrow. 
We are so eager to get it and get all organised so we can take off and begin this new adventure!

First garage sale

This morning, I woke to the delicious sound of rain pounding on the roof. I should have been pleased...after all, it was the weekend (And I adore lying in bed knowing I don't have to get up to go to work), plus the garden really needed the rain! But...and here's the but...we had advertised to have our garage sale today.
Luckily, Becs and I managed to put the stuff out underneath the carport, and by 8am the rain stopped, and the sun came out.
Number 1 garage sale done! We're off to the 'Sunday market' tomorrow morning to try and sell more stuff. On a major mission to "de-clutter".

Quote Time

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream another dream. (CS Lewis)

Resigning

After heaps of procrastinating I finally emailed my resignation letter. I've been waiting for the 'right' time to send it...but when is the right time?
Last night, we got an email from 'Mike & Jackie' (who we've never met), ... we came across an ad written by them in the 'Motor Caravanner' magazine. They were living permanently in their mobile home and working casually around the South Island. I sent them email saying we were planning to do the same thing. I asked  how they went about finding casual work etc. They emailed back with lots of positive advice...they had sold their roofing business and left a career in real estate to live on the road for a year, and now 4 years later they are still doing it. They only need to work for 5 months of the year! That inspired me... If they can do it...so can we. So, I sent off my resignation. I feel excited but really nervous as well. As Steve in Little Wanganui said last week, what we are doing is 'scary cool'!

Storage

We were wondering how we were going to get around storing various things we would need while in the truck. Thankfully our friend, Trevor, suggested getting a trailer built to meet our needs. Today Bernie rang Briford trailers in Christchurch and ordered a 3 metre, covered in, twin axle trailer. It'll  take five weeks to make so the timing seems perfect.

We've chosen the blue trailer with double doors at the back instead of the ramp.

Getting Closer

We are now one step closer to life on the road. The bach has sold and the new owners take over in a couple of days.Yesterday we drove to Little Wanganui and packed up our personal belongings...now there's even more stuff to store or to get rid of!

Lots of great memories were made here :-)

Inside Our House Truck

Looking into the lounge from the kitchen. the bamboo stairs on the left go up to a loft where there are two single beds.

A cosy fire in the lounge for those cooler evenings.

The kitchen (Bernie's area)

This is where we will eat our meals

Another view of the kitchen

Main bedroom

Lots to choose from...

Nights and nights were spent scrolling through Trademe ads searching for the perfect motorhome. We looked at caravans, motorhomes, buses and house trucks. One evening we marveled over an ad selling an incredible looking house truck over at Kina. Although it was well over the price range we had been looking at, we were so intrigued  we rang up and enquired about it. The owners Pete and Pam invited us to have a look through it. So the next weekend, we drove to Ruby Bay to check it out. It was even better in real life, we were captivated by it. Pam told us another couple were coming from the Coast to see it that same afternoon. We left knowing we couldn't afford it, nevertheless we were transfixed with it.
Our search continued... There was an immaculate looking bus in Richmond that had slide outs that interested us. It looked smart with its new paintwork, but it had bubbles of rust appearing which put us off. We noticed the Kina house truck's ad had been removed from Trademe so we assumed the couple from the Coast had bought it. 
From thereon, everything we looked at didn't measure up to the Kina house truck ... nothing came even slightly close to matching it. Often, we mentioned how lucky the couple were to have bought it.
One Saturday morning, while looking online, we were surprised to see the Kina house truck was back for sale. We rang Pete and Pam and learnt the sale had fallen through due to the couple not being able to sell their house in Westport.
Yipee! It was back on the market. We didn't hesitate to make another time to look at it. If it was at all possible, it was even better looking through it for the second time. We didn't need any further convincing. We both loved it. It was the perfect house on wheels to live in permanently. So we agreed to buy it!

Our New Home

Our Dream

We dreamt that the perfect lifestyle for us would be to live in a bus or house truck and only work casually. Like a lot of people ...we were tired of working hard, paying bills and having little time to enjoy life. We felt that there must be something else.
It's a hard decision to leave two well paying, permanent jobs. However,  Bernie was made redundant, so it seemed the ideal time to leave Westport and move to Nelson to find work. Luckily we  found jobs, but unfortunately we both didn't enjoy our jobs. Which led us to decide that maybe this was the right time to look for a bus or house truck and begin our dream early. So we started searching through Trademe for the perfect motorhome.