Hukatere: December 2009

Summer is well on the way, and Neil can't wait to get his "pool" up! He got a nice paddle pool on TradeMe for just $50, which is amazing! It is quite large (2.5m diameter), and even has an external filter. But, of course, we need a proper space to put it on. Well, what do we have TradeMe for, haha? I looked there, and we got decking timber for just $7.50. When we picked it up, I wanted to give the lady $10, but she said it's just fine. So we got it for free! We then went to Mitre 10 Mega and asked if we could buy four of the transport palettes, and the nice guy there said "we need those, but outside on the car park there are a few old ones - help yourself!" Wow! So we loaded as many as we could fit into our car, and this way had a free base for the deck as well!
Up in Hukatere, we started right away: First we had to pull all the nails of the old decking wood. It was in many different lengths, so we started with the longest ones first. Well, Neil did most of the pulling of nails, while I started cutting them all to size with the mitre saw...

Pulling old nails...

...and after cutting them to size, we nailed them into the "palette base".

We got the gazebo at Mitre 10 Mega, so that you won't sit in the pool in the scorching sun!

When we were done, we put down a few square foam play mats, and then the pool came out. Rob was in Northland for a few days, and came to visit us for a night on the way back :)

The we had to blow it up, and fill it with water. The water tank was finally fuller, and since the pool was to take only 950 liters, we could easily afford that out of our 2100l tank. Well, we put the hose in th epool and waited. It was a slow flow, but gradually it filled up. Well, almost! After about 3/4 the water stopped flowing, and the tank was empty! I had a look at the box of the pool, and found that the tank actually takes 1400 liters, and since the tank was not as full as we had thought, we ran out of water - ouch! But hey - there was enough in the pool for a plunge, and we have a small 20l tank that we always used for drinking water anyway. We just need to have more rain in the near future ;-)

The beauty (and Neil's favourite toy)

proud owner...

We spent most of the Christmas break up on the land, with only Christmas Day in Orewa with Neil's family, and a couple days home to take care of the cats. We went back up a few days before New Year's. Rob, Janice and Nat came up for New Year's Eve for a nice night with BBQ and some drinks...