Story of the crane.

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... ah yes, where were we. The story about the crane.

When we arrived up to Motueka, things got rather wet as it rained on and off for a good few days. This made the ground very mushy and not suitable for a truck plus container to go on. We had prepared a site for the container to sit, it was situated to the rear of the property where it would be hidden from public view. However getting it there (in lieu of the mushy conditions) meant either off-loading it from the main highway (which will add time and costs associated with traffic diversion control) or holding off on the delivery. The latter didn't appeal to us, nor the person keeping the container at port Nelson - he just wanted to get rid of it ASAP.


So one fine day, the truck with the container turned up and was wondering where to plop it down. As I mentioned previously - this was a mother of HIABs, however it was only capable of lifting the container and putting it down a short radius away from the truck. My sun hat goes off to the truck driver/crane operator - he floated the container off his truck narrowly missing bits of truck and live 3 phase electrical power above. Check out the pictures below:
The truck sets up the stabilisers ...

Check out that arm ...

The chains are fastened, we are go for launch ...

The container swings around, check out that clearance!

Oh yes ... and the other clearance ...!!!


It was about this point that the crane started making alarm noises, it is probably equipped with strain gauges to tell the operator that there is a potential for things to go wrong. He has to position it as close to the truck as possible.

Alas, this is where the container lives for now.

We live on a 45 km/hr bend on the Motueka Valley Highway, which is coincidentally the main entrance to Atamai. We joke sometimes that we should put large and bold words ATAMAI on the container to advertise the place - but that doesn't usually go down well :)

It turns out that another villager is about to start their build on a piece of land they have just settled. They have indicated interest in borrowing our container for a lockup storage on their site during the build - hence they will be taking it off our hands until we might need it later.

For now we have chosen to buy a large garden shed (which can be moved to our site later) to store the remaining stuff. When the container is empty, a local and smaller HIAB truck can lift it up easily and put it down where it needs to go.

Phew ...

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