Haydens new home: 33 Hereweka Street, Portobello, Dunedin

In September Peter took a journey back down to Dunedin that has changed our lives. During rehearsal of the Fortune Theatre's production of "Time Stands Still" he discovered a dream property and by the final performance of the play we had sold our Broad Bay harbour side property to our tenants and purchased a house and 22 hectares at Portobello.

We have also agreed to adopt the two sheep, a cat, a dog and five hens who call the property home.

As you can imagine, this is going to be a major change for us.  From urban Auckland for the past three years to caretakers of a large tract of land, much of it regenerating bush.

What follows is a brief overview of the village, the land, and the house to give you a preview (before you visit us in person) of our new Portobello home. We will be moving in after 14th December 2015.

These photos have all been taken from our first weekend walking the property with owners Gemma and Simon on 19-20 September and on subsequent visits until 30th September (spring 2015).

This view is from the top of the land.  In the left frame, half way down, you can see the red roof of the house.  It's located down a north facing valley, so it is sheltered and private.

The red roof at the end of the road is our new house on 33 Hereweka Street

For those of you who don't know Portobello, it's a small settlement on the Otago Peninsula and is the gateway to a lot of the wildlife tourism spots, and is approx. 25 minutes drive from the centre of Dunedin.  This is certainly not Ponsonby, but the village has a pub, two cafes, ice-cream parlour in summer, fish and chip shop, gallery and an amazingly well stocked local store, all less than half a kilometre walk from our house.

Top: as you come into the bay into the village, our street is on the right.
Below: the bay is tidal, but off to the left are a couple of great little swimming and picnicing beaches.

The house faces north and the red roofed area is the original footprint of the 1940's cottage.  The larger grey roof area on the left is a double carport with a workshop and a good sized studio that will be great accommodation for visitors.

The house is on the flat with our land climbing up behind. The whole property faces north.

On the right of the photo, the main bedroom is identified by its grey roof. This is a modern addition with french doors opening out to a lawn and woodland garden. 

The main bedroom has lovely views of the east side of the garden and hill beyond, on which over 50 deciduous trees have been planted. The pipe in the foreground is the chimney of an outside bath with fire pit underneath.

The bones of the house are 1940's, but it has undergone much renovation.  The ceiling is lowish, and though I prefer a higher ceiling, the house will be easier to heat.  With a Fisher wood burner and a Rayburn wood stove, new carpeting  and double glazing on all windows we should be cosy.  The living space has been opened up from three small rooms into one large living space with doors and large windows out to the front garden.  

The entrance to the house has a large covered verandah and opens directly into the kitchen (the heart of the house). To the left (where the cabbage trees are) are two bedrooms, plus a recently renovated simple, timeless bathroom. 

At the front of the house there is a large area of concrete and decking facing north and according to Gemma it's a real sheltered sun trap.  This will be important for our first summer back in the South as we have become 'softies' from three years of balmy Northern weather.    

The morning sun flooding in the kitchen windows made this photo quite dark.

The kitchen is large - Gemma wanted the bench to be camping hut style so there is one long thick macrocarpa slab bench with a large sink.  Storage is mainly in a walk in pantry.  The flooring is red natural linoleum and water can be heated via wetback on the Rayburn cooker. There's a standard gas hob and electric oven as well.  

I'm really excited about having a Rayburn wood stove. 

Another farm house feature is direct access from the outside to the laundry with a second toilet, shower and handbasin for cleaning up after working outside. 

From the kitchen sink we look out into the kitchen garden.  Gemma has worked this soil for three years adding Bio Dynamic preps, manure and compost, converting the heavy clay to friable dark soil. And how lucky am I? There's a double glass house nearby and a great old cox's orange apple tree that Gemma rates highly.

Our land runs up onto the flanks of the local landmark, Harbour Cone. Our side of the slope to the left has a covering of
regenerating bush. On the other side it is still being grazed and is owned by the City of Dunedin. 

Peter and I had agreed if we found the right land, the house would be a secondary consideration. I feel we are really lucky to have a tasteful, comfortable, warm cottage with good entertainment areas. We have renovated three houses and now want to focus on working with soil, trees and animals.  And what a playground we have.....

This is the sloping plateau above the house that has a view right down to the head of the Otago Harbour.

In front and to the right of the house is a fenced paddock that borders a small camping ground and is grazed by our two sheep, Marmite and Jack. Simon has planted trees everywhere, these in this paddock are Black Locust.

Above this area is a macrocarpa woodlot. Up through here, we will eventually make an access track to the plateau area above, which has a great view out over the harbour to the Otago Harbour entrance.

Behind the house and sheds is a hen house and above that a coppiced gum tree woodlot. To the left of the woodlot is a lovely north sloping paddock that could be grazed or planted in a tree crop.

The best of the arable land we think will be in a valley that is sheltered from wind and faces north.  That's where I would like to plant a Permaculture orchard.

The valley floor is quite wet as the water from the surrounding hills gathers here. There are places where watercress grows...yum!  Peter wants to put in a pond and a winding stream down the valley with raised areas for orchard trees.  I have even found a spot that should be able to grow citrus.

At the top of this valley is a giant macrocarpa with a pretty scary but fantastic swing.

My sister Kerry enjoying the swing hanging from the giant old Macrocarpa tree.

Simon has planted over a thousand trees and we came across a magnolia in flower amongst the native vegetation.

 Very few of the trees he has planted were in leaf and we look forward to making lots of discoveries over this summer and autumn. 

The track is to the right of the 100 year old Hawthorne hedge.  To the left is
one of the paddocks.

 Access to the top of our land is via a paper road that is now a popular local walking track.

We estimate approx 60% of the land is already under QEII Covenant with another section under consideration.  

At the top we get a view to the south and the other side of the Peninsula looking over to Hoopers Inlet and out to the Pacific Ocean.

The view to the north east.

The view down to the house and across to Portobello Peninsula and Port Chalmers container port.

Simon showed me the postcard he was given when he purchased the property 18 years ago. We haven't lined up an exact comparison shot as yet but by following the shape of the background hills you can see how the left hand side of the valley has changed incredibly over a relatively short time from farmland to trees. 

The property in 1997.

This land is an exciting next step for us, but taking up this opportunity sadly means little Beau and Tansy will not be an everyday part of our lives. Tansy is keen that Beau's school holidays will include trips to Portobello and we are counting on that. Beau at five can experience a country life, just like his Poppa Pete experienced in Hawkes Bay at the same age. Peter's early experience with country life has fuelled a passion for working on the land and it's never too late to live your dream.