Dive Rarotonga - 1st day

It was Wednesday September 30th. Blaise was sleeping in bed and I was up early and just itching to get going with my day. Why? I was going scuba diving in the Cook Islands today.

So I highly recommend Dive Rarotonga to anyone visiting the Cook Islands. They were recommended to me by Island Bay Divers here in Wellington. I thought why should I use them because they are on the opposite side of the island and there is a dive shop just down the road but let me tell you I am ecstatic that I used Dive Rarotonga. The owners came to get me in the morning and drove me to their shop. I had brought a lot of my own gear: wetsuit, fins, mask, snorkel, knife, etc. so all I really needed was the BC, tanks and regulators. The staff were friendly and showed me a cool way to package my gear for transport. We went down to the boat in the harbour where I expressed nervousness about a boat entry. I had done the practice on a pool edge; it seemed higher from the boat itself. After a thorough briefing we suited up and waded out to the boat. The water was sooooo warm. We zipped out the channel and were into the ocean proper, the dive spot was not far from the harbour exit and Jason, the guy who would stay on the boat helped me gear up, buddy checked me and walked me through the boat entry. After the initial feeling of panic as I was rolling backwards I realized that this was actually kind of cool and I love boat exiting now. I got a personal dive master, Charles, and another staff member, Henry who swam behind us. Turns out I came in a slow season so I got essentially private diving. These guys do the dives so often that the older fish know them; in particular the Triggerfish (named Tommy) came up, he was big. Seriously big, about ½ my size and he knows he gets fed. They cut a spikey urchin for him to eat and then there was a swarm of fish feeding and they’re so engrossed that I could put out my hand and touch them.

The water was warm, even 18 meters down I was warm in a 3-2 wetsuit. And visibility was 30m!! So clear and blue and full of fish…words cannot express the amount of fish species I saw. I will do a fishie sum up at the end of what I saw over the 2 dives.
We came back up and returned to the harbour to grab another tank and sit on the short for a SIT (Surface Interval Time) to release nitrogen from our bodies. They gave me hot chocolate and some cookies. I even got an added treat of seeing Blaise who was trying to find the police station to get his Cook Island drivers license. So I got to squeal to him for a while and bounce around like a fool explaining what I had seen so far. Back out to the ocean we went and went to another dive site where I saw even more fish, different corals and a …TURTLE!!!! I saw a Hawksbill turtle swimming through the water 15 meters down; anything I see after this is icing on the cake, I saw a turtle!

We returned to the shop where they had an excellent system set up for rinsing gear and setting stuff out to dry. Charles my dive master/buddy then proceeded to sit down with me with the fish charts and books and show me exactly what we saw, he put up with all my questions and kept going to get new books to show me the fish I was asking about. They suggested I leave all my gear with them for the rest of my stay so I wouldn’t have to bring it each time and that way it would dry thoroughly between dives. So nice of them and then they were going to drive me home but Blaise showed up on the scooter to take me home. So they said “We’ll pick you up Friday on the road, see you then.”
And I get to do this four more times, this is incredible.

A short list of what I saw (grey ones have pictures, click on the grey word):
Hawksbill turtle
Manta Ray (but only the back end as it swam away)
Moray Eel
Spikey Lion fish
Tommy the triggerfish
Pineapple sea cucumber
Multiple varieties of Butterfly fish
Multiple varieties of Wrasse
A lazy Spanish Dancer(it didn’t move but its supposed to flap around like a butterfly)
Ghost coral
Christmas tree worm
Trumpetfish
Peacock Grouper
Yellowfin Tuna

Day 1 - Tsunami, Scooters, Clear Blue Water

Around 10ish we were woken by a phone call from the property management cleaner who was on her way over, we got out of bed (Blaise cursing the roosters) and got dressed. The cleaner showed up and we headed out to explore the Muri area of Rarotonga. As we were walking out the cleaner received a phone call and told us casually that there was a Tsunami warning for the west side of the Island. Ooookay. At this point we didn’t know about the earthquake or how bad Samoa would be hit.

We walked quite a bit, there is only one main road on Rarotonga, did the east coast, was on the south coast and I was starting to get sore feet. We waited for a bus, turns out the word “island time” seemed to be appropriate, it seemed to take forever to get there. It was $4 per person one way (no on and off privileges) and while on the bus looping the island Blaise and I decided a scooter was going to be more economical over the long run. We rented one from Budget for the rest of the week.

We wanted to get some local info from the surf shops on where Blaise could kite but no one seemed to open. In fact a lot of them looked boarded up and abandoned. Again later on we realized that people had prepped for a tsunami and shut up shop.


We bought some groceries, we had a plan to use our kitchen a lot and not eat out a lot, headed home, dropped off the groceries and headed back to one of the nice white beaches we had seen on our walk that morning. We set up towels, went for a walk/swim in the crystal clear blue lagoon water and were blown away by the number of fish that swam around us. Blaise was like a small child pointing out fish here and there…after his initial nervousness about them circling him. Some tanning, I headed back out to take photos of the fish, the water was so clear that some of them turned out! Have to come back here with snorkeling gear; have to get Blaise some snorkeling gear.

arriving in Cook Islands

We got in extremely early (12:05am), got through customs relatively quickly and were met as promised by a driver who took us to Muri Tamaariki Villa on the East coast. He unloaded our bags and went to get the key out of the bbq only to discover that the key wasn’t there. No worries, he used his cell phone and called someone to let them know the keys weren’t there. We settled down on the patio furniture, looked over the bay in front of us and commented on how warm and lovely it was. Half an hour passed, then an hour…then another half hour. Blaise and I walked around the house looking for an open window. We found on and did the "pop the wife up" to be thwarted by a bug screen. We walked down to the main road to see if we could flag down a car and Eddie, the property manager pulls up quite apologetic. The date switch confused the property management staff and they thought we were coming in after midnight the next evening.
We got in, settled in brushing aside Eddie’s apologies that it hadn’t been cleaned (it looked fine) and fell into bed. A few short hours later the roosters went off. Turns out there is a large wild chicken population including roosters, who go off when they hear another one. There was a lot of roosters.

Sometimes Plans Work....

And sometimes they really don't. I was trying to build some adventure and suspense for our hordes of readers and frankly, failed.

So the 3 special guests are:
Carly's brother J and his lovely G/F L. Those who know a little bit about J will know why this is such a special occasion by itself... and to be able to meet his significant other for the first time simply rocks. The weather has been flaky as ever (spring weather in Wellington has its manic moments) but good food, good company and good beer makes most things fun :)

The third special guest is a new, permanent addition to our household, KitKat. (I've been trying to catch a reasonable photo of her for the last 4 days, no dice so far). Carly's been working on the property management company and the owners of the house we're in for the last month and a half to get permission to get a cat. She didn't tell me so as not to get my hopes up (I've been feeling the lack of animal companionship quite keenly of late). We finally got said permission last week. In a classic case of serendipity, the next day, one of her students' mothers contacted her in a panic because the person that had signed up to take their cat as they moved across the world to the US had backed out at the last moment. With 5 days to sort a new home for the cat, things were getting tense. Seeing this as an opportunity to pay back Karma for finding us a new home for our Canadian Cats at the last minute, we gladly accepted the task.

And a task it's been :) She's a 3 year old tortoise-shell Persian/Siamese mix. Mostly an outdoor cat, she's been quite skittish the last few days, hiding under our bed or in our closet. Weirder, as soon as the lights go out, she's been meowing constantly until the morning. I know it's to be expected for such a major change, but I miss my sleep. We'll update as things get ironed out with her and I'll try and get some photos up asap.

Special Arrivals.

We're busy prepping for 3 new arrivals (No, Carly's not pregnant). We bought a fold out futon for the office (thank you trademe!), I'm fixing the light well in the office with a temporary wall so there can be a little more privacy and I'm looking at buying a spare door. Oh, and we're cleaning like mad.

The upside of all this is there will be exciting / cool /beautiful photos from our upcoming trips and adventures. The downside is I don't want to spoil the surprise so you'll need to keep reading for further explanations :)

For the Love of Technology.

Technology is a wonderful thing when it works. For example, these days I call my parents on my iPhone using Skype. This works about 90% of the time. But when you sit back and think of what's actually happening when I do that, it's quite incredible. Example: Me calling my mom with Skype on iPhone.

1. From my iPhone, The call goes through the wireless network here at work.
   
2. The traffic goes through the network, ending up in Japan (my work's outbound gateway)
3. The traffic then goes over the Internet, through one of the cables connecting North America to Japan
4. From there it's routed through to Skype's servers somewhere in the continental US.
   
5. Skype's servers route the traffic internally to a server that's local to my mom's Long Island area code
6. That server makes a phone call to my mom's home line, connecting us.
   

So using 3 different connection technologies (wireless, wired and phone) over at LEAST 2 major fiber cables undersea, through the entirety of the US to the New York phone system so that I can chat with mom. And somehow they manage to deal with all the variability built into each of those networks, to give us a conversation with less delay than I remember having the first time I called my mom out of country.

Of course, occasionally this wonderful world of technology stuffs up, like today when I was trying to wish Bruce a happy birthday, but generally, it's pretty fantastic.

Oh and all this essentially free, riding on existing services I already pay for.

On Working with one's Hands.

I started my new evening class this week: Beginner's woodworking. Just like my welding class, I figured I needed to learn the proper way to work with wood, from picking the materials, proper joining, how to make something square and the like. I made my pilgrimage down to Wellington High School for my first class, and, as I sat down at a bench, looked around. Of the 12 pupils, only 4 of them were guys. 8 women who had all manner of reasons for signing up. One wanted to build the furniture she'd been looking for but couldn't find anywhere in Welly. A few had specific pieces they wanted to build or restore. There was an upholsterer who decided she wanted to expand her knowledge. One woman, whose partner had been to numerous of the Intermediate Woodworking sessions (basically a structured way to use the tools while working on whatever project you want) decided she was tired of waiting on him to finish the projects he wanted done, so signed up herself. The woman sitting next to me decided she needed woodworking to advance her career; she worked in the film industry but because of recent cuts to big movies being made in Wellington, needed more skills to be more versatile in the tighter job market.

We went through the shop basics, safety, a walk through of the tools. It's incredible how much I learned just on that walkthrough. Little questions I'd asked myself about the finer points of making tables and the like, for example how did you join a bunch of pieces of timber and yet get it all nice and flat? Table sander. What was the difference between a C and F clamp? What's the proper way to hold a chisel? I'm sure many of these seemingly obvious things bring out holy wars in the woodworking circles, but for someone who's new at it all, having someone experienced tell you at least one side is a life saver!

I thought back to my schooling and how the one thing Lycee didn't have was any sort of hands on shop class. I picked up some here and there, with family resources close at hand for the most part. Simple things that I took for granted during my basic projects, like how to properly cut using a hand saw, became obvious once someone showed me how.

As I was chiseling out my first housing joint, I looked down and felt really happy that I was finally learning to use some of the tools my grandfather had left me. Every time I figure out a new tool, I think back to him smiling as I was putting the wheels on one of my first model airplanes using proper washers and nuts. It really feels like I'm following if not in his footsteps then at least in his interests.

so 7 more weeks of beginner's woodworking, of which 3 will be building a basic tool tote as a "first guided project" before we move on to projects that interest us. I will be building a set of 4 rolling drawers for under our bed, which, hopefully, I'll be able to integrate into some underskirts to make for a nice finished look. I'm already signing up for the Intermediate's class :)

All Quiet On the Southern Front

Our 10 month anniversary of moving to NZ came and went. No fan fare, not really even noticed to be honest. I think this is a good thing. I won't speak for Carly, though I think it's a pretty safe bet we agree, but I certainly don't feel like an outsider anymore. Our act of immigration, which once defined who we were within New Zealand has become an interesting fact. We know where everything is, we know the local geography, heck, people ask me for directions!

I look at people with backpacks, maps and confused faces and smile now. I'm excited to share the cooler parts of the country with friends and family, looking up things to do and new places to explore.

The regular day-to-day however, is as it ever was. We go to work, we come home I cook (sometimes) exciting meals, Carly makes tasty baked treats. Wes has added some great flavour to our little domestic lifestyle, but overall, life has settled into a very happy, comfortable groove. It's not a rut though, things are still changing up often enough that I'm on my toes.

Most of the things we missed about Canada are now fond memories that we've either come to live without or found local replacements. A few of them we've had to make ourselves (Chicken wings. I bought a fryer just so I could make my own :) ) but mostly with the help of family and friends back home we're well taken care of.

I guess the point of this post is just to say that things are going well, we're happy and we are in the right place :)

How to Start Kitesurfing.

A friend of mine recently asked me for my opinions on how to start kiting. I figured it might be good to have my thoughts on a website that's indexed by google so more people can get my opinion. Most of the stuff you'll find here is an accumulation of good information from the locals here so it may have some wellington specific content.

Ok, first off, find yourself an IKO certified instructor and get yourself signed up for the basic lessons. Usually it'll be 2 days worth, one using a trainer kite of some sort and one on the water.

I personally bought myself a trainer kite before the lessons so that I knew the basics of flying a foil kite. I bought a Peter Lynn land kite, but they have since put out an EXCELLENT trainer kite called the Impulse, it's what all the instructors here use.

http://www.peterlynnproducts.com/

Once you're comfortable flying a kite, get the lessons and find out what kind of kites are appropriate for your area. There are three types of kites, C-Kite, Bow Kite and Hybrid, with radically different characteristics.

C kites have more power but don't handle gusts very well, so it's easy to get in trouble with them. Bows have a wide variety of power so they are better for inconsistent conditions. Hybrids try to do both, though they tend to be more complicated than most.

I have a 14 sqm hybrid and a 10m bow, if i'd known better when I was starting I would have stuck to 1 type.

Boards are a lot easier to pick. Get a big one to start, as it'll be easier to get on the plane quickly and it's a more forgiving board. My first one was a 142cmx42cm board and I was up and running quicker than the other beginners that started with me. Your snowboarding skills will come in very handy, though I hope you like riding switch, because that's what you'll be doing 50% of the time ! :)

So now for costs. You need:

• 1 or 2 kites (most people start with 1 but it's frustrating because you have to wait for the "perfect" wind for that kite. having 2 different sizes lets you get out more often and get better faster) (make sure they come with lines!!)
• 1 board
• 1 seat harness
• 1 leash
• wetsuit (depending on temperature)
• safety gear (impact vest / helmet, optional but highly recommended. I ride with a vest but no helmet yet because I can't find one that fits)

Optional gear:

• Booties
• gloves
• trainer kite

In Kiwi dollars (currently around 0.75$ CDN to a kiwi dollar)

• I got both my kites for 1050$ each used, in good nick (with lines)
• my first board was 400$ (lost it) my second was 600$
• harness i bought new (don't trust used harnesses) 189
• leash was 40$
• wetsuit depends on local climate (i have 2, paid 250 for the summer one and 500 for the winter one)
• impact vest 189 new
• booties 70
• gloves 60
• trainer kite 200

And yes, Carly knows about all these expenses :)


So total expenses when I started was about 2000$ kiwi, but i started with 1 kite (it took me about 2 months before i got fed up and bought my second one) I'm now completely sorted and it's cost me closer to 3200 before the wetsuits that i use for all other watersports

Now, things I learned:

When you are just starting out, stick with the major brands, you'll have an easier time of it. Get one of the brands that's most popular in your region, likely there will be a good rep for that brand for maintenance issues.

If you're going to buy 2 kites, buy the same brand and if possible model. I have a lot of trouble still switching from one to the other because they fly completely differently

Boards are the least important piece of the puzzle when you are learning, pretty much any big one will do.

Buying used is good, but make sure you can look over the kites. if there's damage, make sure it's professionally repaired. If it's got a lot of damage (say more than 2 repairs requiring sowing, or 1 full length of kite repair) walk away.

be patient, practice flying the trainer, and listen to the other kiters at the beach. You'll very quickly figure out who to listen to and who's an idiot. When in doubt, either rig the smaller kite or tune your kite for LESS power, not more.

You're going to get in trouble, know your safeties. make sure you do a dry run or two of the safeties in good conditions before you need to use them when you're in trouble.

Wait for the right conditions. Too light or too strong for your kite will be frustrating. bow kites have a good range of conditions, but keep in mind that gusts can be as much as 15knots over the average)

One of Those Facts They Don't Tell You About Immigration...

Your immune sickness stays in your country of origin. Really. I've been sick more often in New Zealand in the last 9 months than I had been in the last 3 years of Canadian living. Thinking of it logically, it makes sense. The germs that we have in NZ are different strains from the North American ones, our bodies aren't used to the new climate, there's different pollens etc. in the air. It doesn't help that we have a drafty, potentially moldy house, but really, I believe it's the lack of immunity that's been doing me in...

I think Carly has a definite advantage as she's exposed to a seething petri dish of illness. Ahhh elementary school, it's definitely got its ups and downs :) She's probably contracted and recovered from more colds without noticing than I can remember having in my life.

So yes, I'm sick. I'm at home right now recovering from another very minor cold. Official rules at work state that if you are displaying symptoms that might be attributed to Swine Flu (I won't go down that rat hole... ) so I worked from home yesterday but today wasn't able to get any work done.

The Kitemare.

Being in the Southern Hemisphere has it's perks but the close proximity to Antarctica isn't really one of them. You see New Zealand is about as close to it as you can get and Antarctica is a windy place that likes to share its breezes with us. So whenever wind coming from there (e.g. from the south) comes to Wellington, the temperature drops by 5-8 degrees, the wind picks up speed and generally makes it pretty unpleasant.

SO! What better weather to go kitesurfing in! To be quite honest, after 3 weeks of unnaturally calm weather, I had a jones on for some kiting, regardless of the conditions.

The conditions were looking good, at least as good as winter Southerlies get. Forecast was for approx. 20 knots of wind, bitter cold and some light rain. Throwing all my gear in the car (including new gloves, my booties a thick, full body wetsuit and my oh-so-sexy neoprene cap-with-ear-flaps) I headed out to pick up T and M and off we went for our first ever kite at Petone.

Petone's not a great beach it turns out. Despite having a nice football field to setup our kites, the beach itself is mostly shells (can cut a kite to shreds), there's tons of logs and other debris and a tree line about 10-15 meters up from the waterline.

The wind started off very light. In fact, we sat around debating if it was even worth rigging up. In the end, having the biggest kite (thus having the lowest wind requirements) I decided to rig and launch. Out on the water, with about 14knots of wind, I was having a good time of it. The water wasn't too cold (probably 10-12 deg) and the waves were reasonable.

Then Trouble started. The wind started building very quickly gusting strongly as it came over the hills. Within 15 minutes it went from 14 to 20-25 knots. Gusts were pulling kiters off the water.

I managed to get back to the beach, but once there things got worse. The wind was so strong that no matter what I did, I was getting dragged. Fighting a losing battle, I was pulled through (and over at times!) the debris, my kite getting snagged on an old stump. Dislodging it sent the kite in a mad kite loop (basically, the kite will start spinning rapidly, creating TONS of power) and quickly cleared the tree line.

I'd had enough, I pulled the safety on my kite, the bar flew out of my hands and the kite crashed down behind the trees, into, it turns out, a model railway layout. Luckily my friend T had seen it all happen and was rushing to grab the kite and make sure I was ok. I was uninjured, I had no idea about the kite, my lines were caught in trees. Suddenly, another kiter signaled to me that he was in trouble. Like me, he'd been tricked into rigging too big a kite and was about to replicate my experience. Unclipping from the safety line, I ran to his rescue while T dealth with my kite.

We got him landed more or less safely (I got some rope burns on my ankle from his lines) and we both headed to where my kite was to assess damage. Surprisingly, there's very very little. A few pinholes in the canopy (easily fixed) was all my big kite sustained.

It felt like i'd been fighting the kite for 20 minutes, but really it was more like 5. It's incredible, when you're in trouble, how much time slows down. At no point did I feel like I was out of control. I knew what to do, how to do it and what would happen when I did. I have my instructor, Kavae from ONU Kitboarding School to thank for that.

I learnt a couple of very important things however:

1. when in doubt, rig the smaller kite first. If you need more power, THEN go to the big kite.
   
2. Kitebuddies are your lifeline. At the end of the day, we all look out for each other and will do what it takes to be safe.

The day ended well, however. After deciding Petone wasn't for us, M and I raced up the coast so that I could get "back on the horse" as it were. We ended up at Raumati beach, which was STUNNING. Gorgeous sand, no obstacles for miles and lots of other kiters out on the water. A reasonable session later, any fears I had were erased and my love of this sport confirmed.

What I Woke Up To This Morning.

Click the image or here for a larger version

Quite literally Smoke on the Water. Now to do something about the lack of Fire in the Sky.

Easy Go Easy ... Come?

People who have known me a while will know that I've always been very self concious about my weight and that in the period before moving to NZ I've been working on getting down to what I considered an appropriate weight for someone my frame and height.

For those of you knew to me, At my worst, I weighed 245lb. 111.13kg. This was right after Carly and I had moved into our first apartment, after years of eating terribly and not doing a whole lot of exercise in University. Through the next 4 years I tried a variety of diets, including low carb, protein power and a variety of exercise programs. They all worked to a certain extent (the low carb thing worked well until I started putting carbs back into my diet, then it exploded) but none of them really got me beyond my first plateau of 220. Still, 25 lb is nothing to snease at. Anyway, the thing they all taught me was that a) I'm a boredom and stress eater and b) the act of tracking what I ate was doing me more good than the fad diets.

So, fueled by a desire to loose some more weight to be more competitive in climbing. I found some links relating to the "hacker diet" which claimed to apply the princples of engineering to dieting. Really it boils down to looking at what goes in, the effect it has on the system and how much leaves through daily activity.

Long story short, before we moved to New Zealand I was down to 205lb, feeling pretty good about myself and had developed a whole batch of new eating habits and methods of cooking.

When we first moved, we didn't have a car, we lived fairly centrally and I had a job where I could take long walks after I'd finished my tasks for the day. I ate as I had in Canada (e.g. keeping me at 205lb reliably) but the marked increase in exercise meant I dropped down to a record low of 193lb. I liked how I looked and felt there and figured that was my ideal weight (Carly would get upset if I lost much more)

Now things have changed. I no longer have much time to walk, I have a high stress job and I'm no longer cooking or shopping for just Carly and I. Shopping for 3, with Wes having radically different eating habits to Carly and I has allowed me to sink into a lot of bad old habits. I snack more, I don't watch the portions like I used to (because I'm cooking in larger quantities etc...) mean that I'm now back at 202 :(

SO! Today I start documenting what I eat again, with emphasis on reducing my calorie intake and thinking about food again. Hopefully that plus starting a new climbing regimen will get my back in to the low 190s before my trip to the Cook Islands (damn you swimsuit season :P )

What a rough month.

Well, it's over, so now we can look back and try and salvage some good out of what has probably been our hardest month since moving to New Zealand, if not ever. As many of you know, Carly and I had to make an emergency flight to Canada, something we're still recovering from. On top of that, we had the house flood, which STILL isn't fixed, we had a 3200$ mistake on our income tax, our car needed fixing and we came home to some of the worst weather Wellington's seen.

But through it all a couple of things made me smile.

While we were in Canada, as the most emotional times were starting to wind down, Carly turned to me and said: "I'm ready to go home". I asked where she meant, and she said: "Back to Wellington".

When we arrived, after 24 hours of straight flying, landing in windy and rainy conditions in Wellington airport, despite it all, seeing the ocean and the mountains released a ton of tension from my shoulders.

In fact, every time I have a rough day of work, or things don't quite work out or we get another "surprise" I look out the window, check out the ocean, the waves and sigh. It's good to be here.

This Old House.

We've been discussing purchasing the house we are currently renting with various friends and family. The location, the style (open concept, "modern") and the relative cost were all things that were quite appealing. We knew a bit of the history of the house (it had been on the market, but the owners decided to rent it instead) and we knew it had a few problems (the flood).

However, while working from home a few days ago, I took a break to clean my kite. It was a nice day, not too much wind so I took it out to the driveway to brush off and fold. While out there, one of our neighbors happened to notice what I was doing. Her son, it turns out, owns a kitesurfing shop in Perth Australia and we started chatting.

After a little bit, things turned to real-estate (as they always do) and I asked if she knew anything about the house we're currently in. Turns out there had been an offer on the house that was pulled... after the builders inspection.

It would appear that the house we're currently in is what the kiwis call a "Leaky House". In the late 80s early 90s there was a rash of builders and developers that put up new housing with several major design flaws. The one that's causing our problem is that the roof doesn't have any kind of overhang, it's basically a direct connection between the outside wall and the roof. The house has rain gutters, but when they overflow, the water goes DIRECTLY DOWN THE INSIDE OF THE WALL. You can just imagine what kind of mold and damage 20 years of that does to a house. Gladly, we haven't really seen any of the effects we're supposed to look for (respiratory issues, funky smells etc) so whatever is happening isn't leaking into the living area.

This was found when they put moisture meters around all the windows. Law suits have been happening all over the country for issues like these.

Long and the short of it was that this was the last nail in our dream of buying this house. We're still planning on buying property in NZ eventually, just not this place. I'm still holding on to my dream of building our own place on a section somewhere in Island Bay, sadly land is pretty hard to find around here and it gets snatched up fast :)