Moving house

In NZ not only New Year’s Day is a bank holiday, January 2 is one as well. That extra free day came in really handy this time, because on January 3 we would receive the keys to the new house, so we have spent the day before packing. We only had to pack up one single room, but boy oh boy, it is just amazing how many stuff you are able to stuff in there if you want to ;-)

January 3 we used to clean up the new house and to receive the Telecom and electricity technicians to connect the wiring. Before connecting anything the electrician asked me if had put any boxes on top of the stove. Of course I hadn’t, silly! Well, he said, you would be surprised how many people do this, and forget to check whether the stove is off, too! As soon as the electricity is turned on, the house fills up with a bit of a strange smell…. ;-)

After the house was in order, the time had come to pick up all the stuff that had been waiting patiently in Ashburton. January 4 at 5 PM I rented a truck of 22 m3 / 29 yrd3 / 775 ft3. At the rental company they asked me whether or not I had ever driven such a thing before. They told me extensively how much money every dent would cost me. Apparently they didn’t trust me very much ;-) I didn’t foresee too much problems, as I had already driven a small truck before. It still took me a while to get used to the thing though… especially the gearbox was pretty cumbersome to use.

From the parking lot of the rental company I drove to Ashburton while Emma stayed behind in Christchurch to do some extra cleaning in the new house. Thursday evening and Friday morning I loaded up the truck together with my father and Martha. That turned out to be quite a job with only three people. Not even everything fitted inside. We made sure all the big stuff was loaded in the truck so we can pick up the rest bit by bit every time we visit Ashburton.

On the way back I had the feeling the truck was pretty heavily loaded. It was swaying very slowly from left to right (unlike the day before, when the movements were much more sudden). At times I was afraid it would topple over in the road bends, so I drove very cautiously through those. Oh well, I have made it in one piece, and so did the contents of the truck ;-) That was a big relief, because some parts of the road were really nasty. For example the Rakaia bridge, a narrow 2-lane bridge of 2km/1.3mi length, where the lanes were barely wider than the truck itself. As other trucks started to approach me from the opposite side cold sweat started to drip down my neck :-)

In ChCh our Hungarian flatmate helped us unload, together with a Dutch fellow migrant we had already met in NL through a Dutch New Zealand forum.

The last box...

At 5 PM, just in time, we were ready to return the truck. All the way I had driven without any damage, however, it ain’t over until the fat lady sings, because on the parking lot of the rental company…. everything went OK too. Without even the smallest scratch I returned the truck and received back the complete bond.

Picked up the last stuff from our old room, made the bed (well, bed... the mattress on the floor) in our new bedroom, crashed down on the bed and dozed off. The first night in our new rustic housey on the riverside.