Hi

Been a while since I posted anything – there has been progress the ‘lodge’ is nearly finished, and our solar farm is on its way. will update with more photos later.

November 22, we have finally got back to our place on Santo. The place looks good, though our builder has been pre occupied looking after Ambae refugees. The roof is on, some of the ceilings have been done – beautiful white wood timber. The plastering has been completed on all the block walls – inside and out. An incredibly smooth job, only he covered over some of Mark’s light switch box holes and wiring (also cut some of the wires???), luckily could still find where things were supposed to be.
Mark put some of the guttering up, so now at least we are collecting rainwater in our tanks. Plenty of rain happening – in fact every time i step into a water taxi it seems!
Where we stayed was lovely again, the local village people and children were once again down at the beach (and doing their washing at the well). School holidays for the kids, meant they were swimming and having fun. Their boat motor broke down, so many of the men were at the beach all trying to figure out how to fix it – much head scratching going on – they finally got it to work, thankfully, because the whole village relies on the boat to get them where they have to go.
I now have business registration and a licence ( to go with my VIPA approval), now to get my residency sorted – everything takes time here – and definitely business done face to face is far more effective. As much as I love the people here they rarely answer the phone or emails (often the mail boxes for both are full) – so you generally have to find the ‘right person’ to speak to, to achieve anything.
We now hope to at least be able to move in at the end of January, though it will be more like camping, with the bedrooms not completed, and the solar not installed – but should be fun anyway. It will give me a chance to get the glamping sites organised, the gardens planted, and complete the inside of the ‘lodge’.

Looking out from the kitchen through the lounge out to the channel

On our last day on the island we went for a quick and last trip to our place. We were just having a last look at the floor and building so far – when Mark said I should look up,  a whole city was quietly floating by. Cruise ships come in every so often, and apparently right past our front door.

We stayed with Nanette and Murray – two very amazing people. Go to Aore Island Coffee if you can (http://www.aoreislandcoffee.com/)

These are the views from their place.

It seemed like a real building when they started pouring the floor. They could only do the back and lounge as we were still waiting for some more posts in the front. The guys did everything manually – pulled the water from the well, mixed the concrete with the small mixers, men shovelled into the mixers and out, then it was put in wheel barrows and put onto the floor. Douglas supervised and aerated the concrete and finally levelling it – all done manually.

The dirt was all levelled out

The floor area was then covered in black plastic

Meanwhile Mark was still doing plumbing trenches to make sure we had drainage for all the bathrooms, laundry and kitchen.

The first wheelbarrows of concrete – a floor is forming

All done manually wheelbarrows of concrete – the guys were wearing jandals (safety gear not really an issue here).

The finished floor

The floor when the cement started to harden off.

Everyone fences their blocks here, probably because there are huge cows roaming everywhere on the island. We also had a great gate put in. Thanks to Tian’s team – especially Collie.

The side fence

Our front gate

Collie our fence builder for ever immortalised on our fence

This is what it looked like before Cyclone Cook really started.

The cyclone on the horizon

Large raindrops

The rain setting in

Those raindrops – they were jumping off the water

Incoming

Me again – I think we spent the entire time wet and in our togs.

This is me – what else do you do when a cyclone starts (swim of course!)

These are just some of the shots of fish and coral at our place – simply snorkeling!

Mark putting in the electric cable conduit and plumbing in the correct place. Have a look at how our workers cook lunch (which they catch on the way over from Santo), also our future platform tree. Our bikes that Mark had to fix but performed properly for our two weeks.

Our trusty steads

The house posts from the beach

Thinking ahead, the workers have planted corn, melons and more papaya

The Beach

Workers cooking lunch

The weather was looking a little less bright than yesterday. Mark made a start on putting his new pipework into the ground before the floor was poured. I went swimming.

Mark working – digging in the plumbing pipework (in the right place)

The coral outside our place

And more digging