This one lane driveway to our off the grid cabin was only 1.7 miles long! Never did “run into” anyone coming the other way from the only house at the end of the road. Believe it or not, this driveway was wider than some of the public roads in New Zealand.
We kind of figured it was off the grid when we pulled up to the house and found a large array of solar panels and a whole lot of firewood. Some spit already for next winter and some not.
Next we saw a very small but tall wind turbine spinning wildly. As there is an incredible amount of wind in New Zealand, these should become more popular. The spinning action of the blades made quite a bit of noise but nothing that annoyed us. Just white noise in the background after a while.
A tank for collection of rain water over the wet months. The wooden cabinet underneath housed 10 lithium ion batteries for storage of the solar and wind energy. The solar panels were over 20 years old and still kicking but the wind turbine was a bit newer. The owner is actually able to charge here electric vehicle with the energy the sun and wind provide. I asked her why not just run a line from the road? She said the neighbors, many of them, would have all had to agree to “add” her on at the end of the current line. She said it was easier to simply supply the electric herself!
The hot water heater is one of those “on-demand” gas fired units. We were not too impressed with it trying to keep up with our small demand but many of the homes we have stayed in here in NZ had similar, but newer and usually electric versions. We see one in our future back home.
Here is a picture of our 3 bed and 1 bath cottage. It also had great wifi supplied by the satellite dish shown here. The other house in the back is the owners. She was quite the character and enjoyed chatting with us and her granddaughter Esther.
Cool picture of the view from our back porch. We were up high enough to be able to see the Pacific Ocean on a clear day.
On our drive to the cabin in what folks call “Hunters Hills” we ran into our first glimpse of a pig farm. Neatly arranged with plenty of room to roam these pigs had it made, well, until they were the ones being “made”. Tons of sheep, cows and deer but not many chickens or pigs in New Zealand.
We were told by our previous hosts that we had to go a few Kilometers off the main drag to a nice small harbor town to try the blue cod fish fry at the “Fishwife” restaurant on the shore.
Once again, the blue cod did not disappoint! Wish we could get some of that back home in the States. This was our third round of fish and chips so far and it was also the best.
They did not have any seating inside but the view from the bench outside was very peaceful. Most of the boats here are used to go fishing for the elusive blue cod.