It was so special having Bill’s wife Lorna come to stay!
Having Ken’s daughters there, Hollie and Gemma, was also very special. Such neat people!
everyone
and Billy.
Billy did lots of drainage work too! What a legend.
a blessing for so many years.
This is
who came. Left to right: Eleanor, John, Lorna, me, Paul Balchin, Renee, Gemma, Hollie, Ken,
Bill Hotter and Eleanor. Eleanor has been such
The Gorgeous Tool Shed, 2022
This is 2012. Chris is standing about where the palm tree is, right foreground, in the picture on the previous page. The trees were touching the Lodge!
Notice all the bush has not been cleared. Nor the second shed. Nor the car park retaining wall nor the drive to the top.
The next big projects were installing a water tank below the retaining wall for irrigation and building a new deck
One of the great challenges we have at Oke Bay Lodge is to keep the plants all watered over summer. Most summers, it’s hot and dry for weeks on end. Sometimes we don’t get rain for two - three months or more. Given that I am planting about 100 natives every winter, all these needed watering during summer because in their first year or two in the ground, they are vulnerable. We can’t use the precious water in the tanks because it’s being used by guests in the house. So how do we capture water? Anytime it rains, surface water around the property is captured, and drains into a holding tank at the
base of the retaining wall. From there it is pumped to the top of the ridge up at Oke Bay where there are two 30,000 litre tanks. There is an electric pump at the base of these tanks which pumps water around the property. Timers set the irrigation off. It pretty much means we can water the plants all summer. This is why everything at Oke Bay Lodge looks so lush and healthy. The plants are getting water all year round!
The other thing we did was build a new deck. The old one was too small, and also it was looking a bit tatty. So we made a decision to build a new one. What a great
decision that was. The new one is fantastic! We even attached a hook underneath the shade cloth and made a light which can hook on to it. This means guests can have a meal at night and have proper lighting on their meals. Then we added fairy lights.
Ken also very kindly made a kayak rack for all our kayaks. Previously they had all been just stacked one on top of each other and exposed to the sun. Not good! Thanks Ken.
I bought this water tank off trade me.
Getting bits and pieces from Bunnings in Whangarei
These two always need supervising.
Billy and Ken playing the fool in Bunnings. Boys will by boys!
We bought the big umbrella at the back on Trade Me but a lot of bits were broken. Billy is trying to sort it out, with Ken in morning attire giving instructions
was
Don’t they look menacing!
This
Ken’s new wife Emily. It was her first trip to Oke Bay
Just look at Billy’s face!
Some of the Nikaus I transported from Kerikeri died and Bill and I had to cut them down. Very sad.
We replaced the original deck at the front and built a new bigger one. Ken cut the old one in half and we slid it on those timber tracks to where it is todayin two halves.
Billy emptying the compost bin. We must have been planting something.
We used Bill like a horse to pull the old deck. Ken is the slave master whipping Billy. As long as Bill has porridge, he performed very well.
All the timber arriving for the new deck.
The old deck has gone!
Bill did an amazing job repairing all the bottoms of all the chairs on the deck. Good work Billy!
In no time the string lines were set out
The fruit trees are now growing there nicely
Bill and I also cleared the bush in the picture to make way f or the fruit trees.
Meanwhile, Ken was working on the new deck.
The front lawn became a bomb site in no time at all!
The new deck! Billy is just hosing it down because it was muddy. Basically, the new deck doubled the size of the old one.
Emily was a real help by doing some cleaning!
Nice easy job, holding the hose. Billy’s expression tells all! ha ha
Ken, God bless him, made us a stand to put the kayaks on. It’s worked like a dream.
The place always looks such a mess when we are doing a project!
still hosing the deck.
You can see we moved one half of the old deck in front of our new shed. It was such a great idea.
Billy
Ken working away! Good job Ken! Oh so clever.
Now we are starting to build a stand for the water tank at the foot of the retaining wall. We used some of the old deck for this. Ken’s great idea!
Ken is using the chain saw to trim the platform!
Starting to look good!
Notice the way the tools are all neatly laid out. That’s Billy! So love that about him!
Looking really good!
A beautiful day!
From memory, I think we pushed the tank from the road up onto the platform.
The pipes going into the tank are taking run off water from up the top of the property.
Ken looks happy.... things must have been going well! ha ha
Ken is cutting a hole in the tank for overflow.
Uh ho.....Ken is now grumpy!
This was the gap through which we pushed the tank. It was a tight fit!
Looking good! Well done boyz!
The plantings below the wall are starting to grow!
The kayak rack is all done! Good work Ken!
From the top of the wall looking down. Mission accomplished!
The gap under the big pohutukawa tree!
The next big project was installing a 30,000 litre water tank at the top of the hill
I purchased a 30,000 litre plastic tank in Auckland (best price ever of course) and had it delivered to Oke Bay. Then I had to figure out how to get it to the top of the hill! In the end, I hired a little digger from Cowley’s in Whangarei. Ken and his boys came up for a week, and so did Billy. Ken could drive the digger. Once again, we couldn’t have done
it without him. Water from the tank at the bottom of the retaining wall is pumped by a submersible pump all the way to the top of the hill where it collects in the 30,000 litre tank. From there it’s pumped around the property via an electric pump. We had to lay a power cable underground from the house right up to the top of the hill. I hired Sam the digger driver from Russell
for the day to come and dig the trench. Really, I need a digger up there and a tree mulcher. First we need to build a shed to house them. Aaaagh! So many neat jobs to do but so little finance to do them! I can’t wait to see all these projects completed. It’s been such fun and so fulfilling but so frustrating at the same time because of financial constraints!
Ken unloading the digger off the trailer the night before we started.
We wrapped a massive strop around the tank and Ken gently pulled it up the hill.
The tank was dumped about where Joel, Caleb and Billy are standing. Ken has already started pulling it up the hill
Ken had to excavate out a pad on which the tank would sit.
Joel, Caleb, and Haley had to get sand from the beach. The sand was put on the pad to level it out. The young people were so good doing what they did! They were excellent slaves ha ha
Ken’s job was to level the pad!
Joel and Haley! Brother and sister supporting each other!
The sand is laid and the tank is ready to be put in place!
Joel and Caleb trying to look tough
This was Ken showing Joel how to look grumpy!
Holly doing what girls do best , which is painting their nails...ha ha
Ken enjoying a cup of tea!
While the tank was going up the hill, Greg McDuff the plumber was doing his thing down below on the front lawn of the lodge.
All the water off the shed is captured for irrigation
All the over flow from the main water tanks is taken via pipes to the tank at the foot of the retaining wall.
Billy was bored with the tank installation, he went off to watch paint dry
The tank when it was finally installed.
This is Kath our amazing cleaner with her dog Pearl! You are awesome Kath!
Caleb setting off for a kayak
Greg McDuff’s lovely daughter Azaria who came with Greg. She got on famously well with Ken’s kids. Phew!
Caleb is trying to sort out the irrigation timer
For a long long time, the carpark was just bare dirt. This was fine as long as the weather was fine, but when it wasn’t fine, you can guess what happened. Yep, mud! This meant the back deck was getting muddy, and ultimately it made it hard for guests not to get mud inside. We didn’t have the finances to concrete the
Putting shingle on the car park
parking area. Anyway, the retaining wall in the car park needed to be completed before concreting the car park. So a short term solution was to cover the car park in shingle.
Fortunately for us, the council had resealed some of the road not far from our place and we were able to go and
get the left over chip from the job they did. Really, it was great timing for us!
Dean Smith, who lives in Whangarei, and who came to one of our evangelism training courses at the Lodge, came and helped. Thanks Dean!
Dean Smith and I collected the shingle from a farmer down the road. The shingle was left over from road works
Dean was a great worker. That’s Dean’s trailer
It was fun spreading it around and seeing the carpark transformed.
And his car! Thanks so much Dean
Bill and Eleanor enjoying a laugh!
This page and the next features Eleanor Goodall. Wow, what an amazing lady she has been. I have known Eleanor for nearly 20 years. Not only does she handle many of the bookings at Oke Bay Lodge, but she was the one who made the curtains in the Lodge. For a long time we had guests complaining that there were no curtains, so one day Eleanor decided to fix the problem.
And what a lovely job she did. I remember her and I going around the fabric shops in Auckland and Hamilton choosing the fabrics and getting them at the best price. Eleanor faithfully sewed them all and then transported them all the way from Hamilton.
I remember her working away in the room at the top of the stairs with her sewing machine making final touches to each set of curtains so that they fitted perfectly. Thank you so much Eleanor.
You have helped the cause up at Oke Bay in so many ways, not least of which is your lovely manner and gracious spirit! You have been such a blessing Eleanor!
Eleanor was nearly always part of the action!
Especially in the kitchen!
Eleanor Goodall
The lovely umbrella at the back
The next project was installing the big blue umbrella on the back deck
I purchased this big blue umbrella off Trade Me. It was used by a kindergarten and they didn’t need it anymore. In the end I did a contra deal, and the owners came up for a weekend in return for the umbrella. It worked well. However, it had lots of broken bits on it that could not be bought from a shop so I ended up having to take it to a friend called Tony Cranch who is the owner of Otahuhu engineering. He made the parts we needed out of aluminium which
was amazing. The originals were plastic, which was a design fault because they were always going to break. With aluminium they were never going to break or rust. Perfect, and thank you so much Tony! Bill and Ken disassembled the umbrella up at Oke and I took all the bits to Auckland where Tony designed and fitted them. Tony then brought all the parts up to Oke with his wife and put the whole umbrella together so that it looks like it looks today. It’s been a great blessing having this
on the back deck because in summer it gets frightfully hot. In fact, it was impossible in the heat of the day in summer to sit out there without shelter!
Tony also was responsible for fixing the shade cloth poles to the retaining wall at the front of the property. He also did an amazing job with these as well. They have not moved or broken and as a result of his excellent work, the front poles on the shade cloth are still dead vertical five years later!
Tony and his wife
Rachel installing the umbrella
Work is good to watch isn’t it Rach! ha ha
Tony did such a great job
The spindle at the top was the tricky bit
Screwing all the new bits that he’d made in Auckland onto the frame
Now just needed winding up!
Starting to take shape
Done! Well done Tony and Rachel and thank you so much!
A DRONE’S EYE VIEW
Building a room for the bait fridge & mattresses. Building a veranda over the back door. Installing shower domes on the showers. De-rusting the covers on the internal door handles. Installing a new parlor door in the dining room.
Fixing the power supply in the dining room.
Painting the old bench on the front deck.
This happened October 2022. There were eight of us there for this working bee. Rob, Aaron, and Dianne from Tauranga. They were friends of Ken. Many years ago, Rob used to work for Ken. It was great to meet them! What a fabulous family they are. Martin Piper
came for a while with his girlfriend Lisa. They knew Craig and Karen Horan too. And of course, Billy and Ken were there. It is now impossible to think of working up at Oke Bay without these guys. The weather was fine. Dianne did most of the cooking
along with Ken’s wife Emily. Emily specialised in doing the dishes. What a blessing these ladies were, releasing the guys to be able to work on their projects. We had such fun!
Martin Piper, Aaron, Ken, and Aaron’s dad
Rob
Martin brought a water blaster with which he cleaned the old bench on the front deck
Rob’s wife Dianne, and Ken’s wife Emily
The old bench repainted
We had to move the shed in order to build the lean-to and bait fridge room. So we had to take everything out of the shed first to lighten it.
The front of the deck had to be disassembled before moving it.
We had to put skids under the shed so it could be moved
Ken used his truck to tow the shed into place. Great engineering !
Just about ready to move it. We had to move it because there was not enough room at the back to build the lean to and bait fridge room.
The
Meanwhile, Rob and Aaron were building the new veranda over the back
framing for the floor of the lean-to and bait fridge room.
The boys resting after moving the shed.
door.
Progress with the back veranda. This structure and new addition helped us so much. No more wet shoes!
Billy and I painting the back veranda
The back veranda finished!
Billy, looking handsome as ever.
Ken tying the towing rope to his truck ready to tow the shed while Billy and Rob stand at the ready.
Rob and Dianne
Ken, Billy, Rob, Aaron
Mr Oke Bay, Aaron.
Aaron and Rob cutting the shower domes to fit
Ken framing up the
Billy so expertly rust proofs the internal door handles and cover. We had trouble with them rusting. Billy is so so good at fiddly jobs. He brought them back like new.
mattress shed
Making good progress Ken!
Ken had to reconfigure all the drain pipes on top of the
Nice photo of Dianne and Emily
back veranda.
Aaron and Rob having fun with the veranda!
Martin Piper and Ken working away
Da boyz unloading the mulch!
Martin used his powerful Ute to get the mulch up the hill
Aaron and Rob working on the veranda
Our rubbish dump in the corner of the car park
The veranda pretty much completed! Well done boyz!
The veranda over the back door is completely finished!
Left to right around the table: Craig Horan, Martin Piper, Martin’s partner Lisa, Rob, Aaron, Billy, Dianne, Emily, Ken
Installing the green lead light door in the kitchen
A friend called Rob came and installed the door. The door came from Auckland and were in perfect condition. It came out of an old villa in Ponsonby. However, the door was not quite the right size so Rob had to fit a bit of wood on the bottom and shape it to fit the door way.
If you are in the kitchen, you’ll notice he also did some fancy things on the door step by the door. A perfect job!
We had to add some Kauri to the bottom of the door to make it fit.
It was Rob who also built the timber stacker on the other side of the tool shed.
Building the solar shower
Ken had the idea to build a solar shower, which was a good one. Guests use it a lot. He designed a solar heating structure using black irrigation pipe. This sits on the roof of the shed and the sun heats the water inside the pipes. This feeds into a hot water tank which is in the shed. Hot and cold water are mixed so that when people have an outdoor shower, the water will be warm, not cold, or boiling hot.
Bill is supervising!
Kevin Piper, Ken, and Bill.
Slowly coming together...the concrete is laid
I remember Ken making some fancy thing for the piping. All the water from the shower is recycled and goes to the tank at the foot of the big retaining wall at the front of the property where it’s pumped to the top of the property for irrigation.
Ken used an old stainless steel shower tray to capture the water. This was embedded into concrete and underneath is all the pipe. It was a great design.
Ken taking a well earned breather after all the concrete was laid.
helping
Kevin Piper did a great job
Next we had to get stones from the beach to pour into the shower tray. It was heavy work getting those from the beach, up the hill and carrying them all the way home. We wanted to keep the beach theme look.
The next thing we had to do was to put the corrugated iron on the walls.
In keeping with the rest of the Lodge, we found some perfect sized lead light windows in Auckland and brought them to Oke Bay and popped them into the shower. They look great!
It looks a lot different now as a lot of the plants have grown up all around.
The legs on our bench saw were rusting away so Ken cut the rust out, and replaced it with wooden ones. Clever!
Building the retaining wall around the car park
This is how the car park was in 2014. When we first arrived in 2008, this bank was thick tea tree. By this time, we had cleared the trees and tried to plant some Nikau Palms but most of them died - no irrigation! This is one of the lessons I learnt. We should have installed irrigation at the very start.
The car park 2022.
The boys unload the digger off the truck
Rubber tracks on the digger so that they didn’t rip up our new driveway.
The guys who did the job were great!
This is what the car park looked like when the boys arrived. We had excavated out this area in 2015 when we installed the big retaining wall at the front of the property.
The digger arrives in the car park... Exciting!
Getting organised to begin!
The first thing we did was scrape all the shingle off the car park into a pile so that we could redistribute it around at the end.
The big pile of soil in the foreground was the soil which came out of the retaining wall pole holes.
A lot of skill was required to get the holes the right depth and angle.
The ground was very solid
The retaining wall poles and timber had been delivered, as you can see.
The poles are in, but not yet concreted
Things are looking good!
Getting organised to begin!
A lot of dirt came out of those holes!
This was the truck which delivered the concrete. Notice how big the pile of dirt is
The poles have been concreted in! Yes!
Bill and Ken goofing around...as usual! ha ha
Just finished washing out the barrow!
Ken had lined all the poles up perfectly!
I love the way Bill is supervising!
Looking good, except for the huge pile of dirt!
I can’t remember what the machine in the picture was / is!!!!
Now we had to wait for the concrete to dry
That pile of dirt was much bigger than it looks in the photo!
Deuteronomy 7:22 says, “And the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you little by little”
“Little By Little, Great Gain Is Made”
From memory, I think we barrowed all the concrete from the truck into the holes
Ken and Andrea! Andrea had come to help for the week
The retaining wall team, led by Ken
We put heavy plastic on the soil side of the wall so that it should last forever!
The sock at the foot of the retaining wall
We put thick black plastic behind the entire wall so that the soil could not rot the timber on the wall
In this photo, the horizontal timber boards needed to be perfectly parallel. Special care was taken to make sure the bottom boards were ‘right on” so that all the other boards we screwed on would also be perfectly parallel and level. Otherwise, when we got to the top, there would be a real mess!
Each of the boards was screwed on with 150mm screws ...onto the poles. It was a long hard job.
The big challenge was to get the boards on and the dirt back behind the wall.
Here we started shoveling dirt back over the wall as fill.
Job pretty much done!
All the shingle had been re-instated
Sam and Mary from the USA doing a great job helping!
It was Sam, a builder, who fitted all the top plates onto the wall.
You couldn’t meet nicer people!
This shows the top plate nicely
All the soil was back behind the wall
Notice all the mulch! And now the top plate is done, thanks to Sam and Mary from America! This couple were such a blessing!
This shows the top plate nicely
Job done! It was a huge job!
One of the great mistakes we made was not putting in a commercial irrigation system at the very start of the project.
I used to water everything by hand, and get locals to water it by hand, but we literally could not keep up and we lost a lot of plants. It was sad to spend so much time planting them only to see them die for lack of water.
Installing the Irrigation
So we saved up and got cracking to get a good system installed. It ended up costing about $30,000 if we included pumps and computers and two water tanks and labour. Literally kilometers of pipe have been laid all over the property and now every single plant has it’s own dripper.
At 11pm each night, all the plants are watered which takes 7 hours, sometimes longer. It’s a great system.
I can manipulate the watering times and days and durations from an app on my phone.
We have a bore too, which was installed in 2010, from which we draw water all summer for irrigation. Summers are so hot and dry at Oke. If we didn’t have everything ‘set for summer’ literally everything other than very large and established trees would die. Guaranteed.
These are all the valve that turn off and on to control the irrigation.
Lance on the job!
Lance and Patrick, the guys who installed the irrigation
Virtually every plant on the property has a dripper like this
having a rest!
Inside the box is the controller or computer for the irrigation
on the job!
Patrick
Patrick
Just about finished. It was hard building something on a slope!
Making progress!
Top - the box finished.
Bill building the door
Bill Ryan, my dear builder friend
Bill also installed the fire place in the lounge.
The shade cloth had an excellent design.
The shade cloth was huge!
During 2019, Bill and I traveled up and down from Auckland on the same day to build this shade cloth. I had purchased a whole lot of non sun hardened Nikau which would die in summer if they were not shaded. So we built this huge shade house. In hind sight, I should have put all the money which went into the shade cloth into buying mature sun hardened Nikau. It would have been much better. Hindsight is a wonderful thing! One great thing I have learned with the project is that it’s better to have a go and fail, than not have a go. Even better is to truly think things through with others, brainstorming, before having a go!
Clearing the land took about 4 months in 2022. It was slow, hard work.
The next project was Sanding all the floors in the lodge
This was a another big project, and for this one Keith and Margaret Jenkin from Christchurch came and helped Bill and Ken and I. We had such a fun time, but a lot of hard work.
We hired a floor sander from Cowley’s in Whangarei and got stuck in. There was a lot of little holes and dips to fill in with putty, and nails to punch, and small pieces of kauri to be stitched into the floor where the holes and splits were too big for putty.
Margaret did all the cooking, which was such a HUGE help. They were such a lovely couple to work with. We also removed the chimney shaft which was located between the lounge and the dining room. This created a lot more room in both rooms!
All the furniture from the rooms was stored on the veranda
Emily (Ken’s wife) and Margaret (Keith’s wife)
Morning tea time!
The floors came up beautifully thanks to Keith
Keith, Bill, and Ken. Nice photo boyz!
Margaret and Keith Jenkin from Christchurch
Putting name tags on all the sheets And making the wood box
In the Lodge we have lots of sheets of all different sizes. Maree from Wellington came up with Ken in 2022 to put labels / tags on all the sheets so that when we go to make up beds we can get the right
size sheet for the bed we are making quickly and easily. Maree did such a great job! She also put little tags on all the hand towels so that they could hang nicely in each bathroom. Wow! What a blessing!
On this visit we also made a wood box to house all the wood. It had gas struts! Very sophisticated! And we put it in a place in the garden where it could not be seen, yet very accessible.
Maree, and Ken’s wife Emily, working away.
Best friends!
Ken made a path to the wood box
Ken looking very focused!
This is what it looked like before it was painted.
Installing the new drive way
Getting a concrete driveway to the top of the ridge over looking Oke Bay had always been on our hearts, but finance to do it was an issue.
One day, one of my long time supporters in ministry, Bev, visited the property.
One day Bev said “Julian, you really ought to get this driveway concreted.” I said “It’s always been on our hearts to do it, but we just haven’t had the dosh to do it. Other things have been a priority.” To which Bev said “How much would it cost to do it?” I said “I don’t know. I guess about $20,000”.
Bev said “That’s OK. I’d like to pay for that.” Another answer to prayer. We got quotes from various contractors and sure enough, the cost was about $20,000, so we went ahead.
We wanted to take the drive right to the boundary but Heritage NZ wouldn’t let us, claiming that there might be Maori artifacts in the last two metres of the driveway. Absolute nonsense. Truly, NZ has become an insane country to live in with red tape and government control, Maori interference, the cost of compliance.
To prove them otherwise, we were going to have to get an archaeologist out at a cost of $4000 to dig around a two metre square to see if there was anything there.
So we said ‘No’. The cost of compliance in New Zealand is nothing short of outrageous. Truly, only the super rich can afford to develop their properties now.
This is Bev on the next page in the big Pohutukawa tree at the end of Oke Bay.
Preparing the driveway - a big job!
We extended the drainage pipe at the foot of the carpark retaining wall so that it would drain away nicely into the garden
We had to install posts into the middle of the drive. Through these posts rods were thread which were then tied into the car park retaining wall. This meant that the car park wall would hold up under strain from trucks or whatever going up the drive.
All the dirt dug out was used to landscape the land all around
Wooden divides were installed every few meters up the drive so that the new driveway was in keeping with the old one.
The boys who laid the concrete
Starting to look good!
Installing the drain at the bottom!
Getting there!
Really, it was a major job!
The concrete was pumped up from the carpark to the top.
Halfway!
The concrete was at least 20mm thick about here in the drive
I took the whole team through the gospel at the end so you can see in their hands is the little booklet “how to be sure of going to heaven when we die”
The truck which pumped the concrete
The finished job. So amazing!
Wow! Doesn’t it look great!
Building the new gym
There was a space in the garden and it was untidy and unkempt so we decided to do something about it. I was thinking of some raised vege gardens but Ken wanted a shed. I am glad we went with the shed idea. It was tricky to build as two sides of it were located hard up against a bank so the sides had to be pre-built and lifted into place. No sweat for Ken!
When it was finished, lock-down came, the others went home and it was left to me to paint it. After
painting, I decided to install a gym. I have been a gym person all my life so the thought of being at Oke Bay for months without a gym was too much.
Long story short, I found a fantastic second hand gym on Trade Me which fitted the space perfectly. I went to Auckland, picked it up, drove home, installed it, and started using it straight away! It was an amazing decision. To walk out the back door and go to the gym (at the beach) seemed a bit surreal!
It’s a gym made in the USA, so really good quality. I can do every exercise imaginable in a very small space.
Bill and I, during lock-down, built a mezzanine floor in the top which we are using for storage.
Power was hooked up during lock-down in 2021.
This is how the walls nearest the bank went up. Pre-made.
Two of the four walls had to be pre-made before being lifted into place
It rained a lot so we had to set up a shelter over the entrance
Because two sides were hard up against the bank, we had to pre-build these two sides and push them up into place. Tricky.
