James & Charlotte's Travel Blog: Wwoofing in Queenstown

Sunday 24th July

Valerie had told us not to worry about getting up too early, so we enjoyed a bit of a lie in and got up about 9 o'clock. Our main 2 jobs during our time here was to feed her 3 horses in the morning and the evening and look after Rodney. After breakfast, Valerie took us to the shed and showed us the concoction we'd need to make every morning for the horses breakfast. It consisted of a scoop of chaff each, a small scoop of livamol powder, a sprinkle of garlic powder, a sprinkle of hoofgrow, a pinch of salt, a big scoop of nuts and a drizzle of oil. Charlotte was at the front of the queue so she was the one who memorised the recipe. To get the 3 horses to eat out of the correct buckets, as they were slightly different, we had to let the smallest one, Lily, through in to a different paddock that contained her bucket. Whilst feeding the horses, we met one of Valerie's other animals, Groaty the Goat, who tried to sneak in and steal the horses food when they weren't looking. When the horses saw him though, they'd give him a stamp of their hooves and he moved on to terrorise a different one. After the horses were sorted, we moved on to clearing various piles of leaves that the previous wwoofer had left lying around the gardens. Next up, we shifted some mud off a trailer in order to make room for the large amount of horse manure that we had to scoop up from a paddock down the road. To get the trailer down to the paddock, we had to fire up the John Deere tractor and drive down. I know, it's a hard job but someone has to do it! I tried not to look too pleased with myself on the tractor in the photo Charlotte took of me, but I just couldn't help myself. After scooping some poo, I drove the tractor and trailer back to Valerie's garden and fought with which way to turn the wheel while reversing a vehicle with a trailer on it. After a 10 minute battle that caused shouting and hilarity between Charlotte and me, it was in place and we started a pile that would later end up as part of Valerie's vegetable garden. Apart from feeding the horses (and Groaty) their half bale of hay in the evening, that was our workload done for the day, which was handy because the weather was just taking a turn for the worse.

Monday 25th July

We weren't sure how long we'd be staying with Valerie for, so rather than get all the jobs done over our first few days, we decided to head into Queenstown to have a look around. It was a pretty grim day and our main intention was to visit a Queenstown institution. On our drive up to Queenstown on the Saturday, we had read in Lonely Plannet that there was a well established, popular burger place in town, called Fergburger. Within minutes of arriving at Valerie's on the Saturday afternoon, she had told us that we had to visit Fergburger. On that advice, it was the first things we did in Queenstown. After a quick look around town, we arrived at Fergburger at about half 11, which may seem quite early to tuck in to a huge burger. Fergburger is infamous for its longs queue that stretches out the front door, so rather than turn up at peak lunch time, we got there a little bit earlier. The queue was still out the door but it was moving fairly swiftly. They also make life a bit easier by taking the order spereately, so you end up just queueing to place an order, then waiting around to pick up the burger. Charlotte went for the old fashioned cheese burger, while I went for something a little bigger with bacon. The seating area inside was packed, so we walked down the road and found a free bench at the side of the road to tuck in. They were greasy and hard to eat but they were very good. Reasonable for what they were at about $16, we'd easily shell out £16 for one similar back home. Despite being awkward to eat, we just about managed to keep our dignity in tact and not end up with it smothered all over our faces. Afterwards, we walked round town for a short while longer, taking a few photographs, trying to work a little bit of the burger off. We didn't really help ourselves when we came across the ice cream shop 'Patagonia'. With self control left at home, we went in and got ourselves an ice cream. After that, it was time to get ourselves out of there before we ate anything else. We'd left Rodney locked in his cage back at Valerie's, so we didn't want tot be away from him for too long. He generally gets put in a cage when Valerie is at work and she has no wwoofers to look after him, otherwise he chases rabbits down the end of the road and plays chicken with the cars. It was a nice feeling to arrive home and be greeted by a very excited dog.

Tuesday 26th July

To make up for forcing Rodney into his cage the day before, we decided to take him out for a walk and stretch his legs. We chose to drive about 40 minutes past Queenstown to the small village of Glenorchy. It had been recommended to us by both Chris and Pam from Arrowtown and Valerie, so we thought it was worth the trip. We chucked Rodney a blanket in the back of the car and he settled down nicely for the journey. Just the drive there was worth the trip. The road follows the shore of lake Wakatipu all the way through to Glenorchy, with huge alpine views. We'd picked out a fairly decent walk for us to do with Rodney, which lasted about an hour and a half round a lagoon. A lot of it was on raised boardwalk , which was good because it kept Rodney from disappearing on us on our first walk with him. We sat down and had lunch on a bench looking up towards the mountains and then headed back towards town. We had a short look around the small village but Rodney started to get a bit wound up by a dog that was off the lead, so we headed back to the car, and set off home.

Wednesday 27th July

After 2 days off galavanting, it was finally time to knuckle down and get some work done. During this blog, I'm not going to bore you with all the nitty gritty jobs we did during our time at Valerie's. I'll write about the entertaining ones and hope that the photos that don't match up with text are fairly self explanatory. One of our main jobs early on was to clear the front garden area, which was very untidy and had loads of planks of wood that needed splitting into kindling for the open fire in the house. There was also 2 huge drums full with wood that needed a thorough sorting. I set about splitting the wood with an axe, while Charlotte focuses on pulling everything out of the drums. While we were slaving away, Rodney kept himself busy by posing for photos on the bales of hay. The photos make it look like Charlotte got the drums sorted in seconds but it took both of us over a week to get it all finished.

Sunday 31st July

After working straight for a good few days, we thought Rodney could do with a nice long Sunday walk. We chose to go to Lake Hayes, which was a walk we had done whilst wwoofing in Arrowtown but this time, we decided to walk to the lake and then do the circuit. We put on Rodney's jacket, as it was fairly chilly and started walking. We followed a route called the Queenstown trail, which is a huge network of trails all over the Queenstown area that combine with roads when needed. It took us an hour or so to reach the lake and we let Rodney run loose when we arrived. It didn't take us long to think we'd made a mistake there though. He disappeared off the pathway and then started making a high pitched yelping sound. We thought he was hurt so we stood around and tried to call him back. He wasn't having any of it and carried on. We caught a glimpse of him through the thick bush and saw that not only was he fine and chasing rabbits like it was his last day on earth but he'd also lost his jacket somewhere. We almost gave up hope of ever finding it amongst all the foliage but Charlotte could just make out the lime green of a tiny part of it. We weren't sure how Valerie would react if we returned without it, so Charlotte, being the smaller of us, climbed the steep hill and battled with the thorny bushes in order to retrieve Rodney's jacket. Rodney disappeared a few more time during the walk but with his jacket safely in our hands, we just let him go and he always returned looking pretty pleased with himself. By the time we returned home we'd walked 11 miles and we were all fairly worn out. That evening we discussed with Valerie how long she wanted us for. With all 3 of us pretty happy with how it was going, we agreed that Charlotte and I would stay until the 5th of September.

Monday 1st August

We decided on a trip to the cinema today, so we locked Rodney in his cage and headed into town. We paid for our ticket and then decided we fancied some popcorn to watch the film with. Sweet popcorn doesn't seem to have made the journey to New Zealand yet though and all they had was repulsive salted. We went without but still enjoyed the film. Afterwards, we thought we'd visit Queenstown's competitor to Fergburger, Devil Burger. There was no queue at this joint, so we ordered and managed to find a seat to relax and enjoy our burger out of the chilly weather. We came to the conclusion that we enjoyed Devil Burger more than Fergburger but we didn't say it out loud just incase we got chased out of town by an angry mob with pitch forks and torches. Upon our return home, we were once again greeted by an ecstatic Rodney.

Thursday 4th August

Valeria had the day off work to go up ski racing today and when she got back, she told us she needed our help for a job. The task sounded really easy. Muster a group of 9 sheep into a pen, where they could be drenched and cleaned up as they had worms. Now, it probably would be an easy task if, the field was flat and didn't have a valley in the middle of it. That's a slight exaggeration but there was a large dip where a river ran through it. It would also have been easier if the sheep had had any experience in doing it before but this was their first time. Valerie walked behind them whilst Charlotte and I tried to funnel them into the open pen, all the while barking at them like sheepdogs. Anyone passing by must have thought we were insane. The little scoundrels were having absolutely none of it though and whenever we got them in to the funnel, one would break through a gap that we couldn't help and that would cause all of them to go ballistic and leap down the hill back to the start. We must have tried this a dozen times and we only ever succeeded in trapping one inside the pen. Even so, when we approached that one, it managed to run at the gate, jump it but catch its legs on the gate, do a double somersault, fall flat on its face and then leap back over to its friends. After a while, a couple of Valerie's friends who were staying the weekend turned up but even with their help, we just couldn't get them in the pen. Exhausted, we gave up and went to have a cup of tea. The blasted sheep would just have to wait to another day. As frustrating as they though, we did have a good laugh while doing it. Rodney didn't really help the situation either as he was digging holes or nipping at the heels of the sheep when they started running.

Saturday 6th July

It was weekend walks time for Rodney and we decided to do one that we never got done when we'd been staying in Arrowtown. The weather was warming up now, so Rodney didn't have to have his jacket on anymore and look silly. We drove out to Arrowtown, parked up in the free car park and headed of down the banks of the Arrow River. When we got to a bridge, we crossed over and started up what is called ‘Tobin’s Track’. It was pretty much an old 4x4 road that climbed steadily up the hills and led eventually to a viewing point, where we could see for miles from Arrowtown, all the way to Lake Wakatipu near Queenstown. Despite being quite steep, the walk was pretty easy and good exercise for both us and Rodney. By now, when we went walking, we were picking walks that dogs were aloud to be let off the lead on, so Rodney could get the most out of it and chase rabbits to his hearts content. After reaching the top in about half an hour, we stood around and took some photos and let Rodney explore the area. It was quicker going down and when we got back to town, we treated ourselves to a pie from Arrowtown bakery (pie number 6 each (I thought Charlotte was ahead of me. But I've just remembered that she didn't have one when we stopped in Wanaka)). We ate them in the car and gave Rodney a treat so he wouldn't be tempted by our pies and then headed home.

Sunday 7th August

After doing some work in the morning, we ventured out for yet another walk with the untireable Rodney. Despite our best efforts previously, we'd never been able to find a pathway to the nearby Shotover River but after getting Valerie to draw us a handy map on the back of an envelope, we didn't know how we'd ever missed it. We turned home at about the 4 mile mark when we were directly under the flightpath of planes just landing behind a hill at Queenstown airport. The walk also took in an historical wooden bridge that crossed the river, which we'd seen signposted on the road into Queenstown but had never got round to visiting, so it was nice to tick that off the list with the walk. On the way back Rodney darted off through a fence into a field that had poison signs all over it and refused to return when called. It wasn't the poison that we needed to worry about though. We left him to his hunt and he eventually returned bleeding from a number of places, he'd clearly had a fantastic time. He got cleaned up when we got home and had a few more scars added to his already large collection.

Monday 8th August

Today we discovered delicious sweetcorn fritters. Valerie had suggested them to us as a possible lunch, so we looked up a recipe and cooked up a batch. It was the first time in our lives that we had ever contemplated eating creamed corn as we'd always been repulsed by it. When mixed with some batter and fried though, it's pretty delicious, particularly when smothered in sweet chilli sauce (although Charlotte would beg to differ).

Wednesday 10th August

Finally the day had come to do what we had travelled all the way down from Kaitaia to do. Go cross country skiing. As it was winter in New Zealand, we thought it would be rude not try atleast one winter sport while we were here. Charlotte had done some downhill skiing in Canada and the thought of throwing myself headfirst down a mountain didn't particularly appeal. Cross country seemed like the more sedate option. We'd found a place called ‘the Snow Farm’ which was solely designed for cross country skiing. The slight problem was that the access road to the Snow Farm was very windy (as in curly, not blowy) and very steep and is regularly icy. Most of the time cars are expected to at least carry a set of chains that they can attach to their wheels if needed. We didn't have our own set of chains but Valerie very kindly allowed us to borrow hers and even showed us how to attach them if we needed them. So we set off to tackle the road. Charlotte had read that conditions on the road were fine on that particular morning, so we were fairly confident. We wound our way up the side of the mountain, taking the occasional glance down into the valley way below us. When we guessed we weren't too far from the top, we passed a sign that said “FIT CHAINS NOW!”. Despite its urgent sounding message, we considered whether or not to for a while but were convinced when someone coming down told us that it was pretty icy up there. With Charlotte having been shown, she got down and had the chains on in no time with my only contribution being photos of her doing it. We were correct in thinking we were almost at the top and it wasn't the road that we'd needed to put the chains on for, it was for the car park, which was like an ice rink. The chains helped though and we parked up and slipped our way across to the building. We checked in and were given our shoes, skis and poles that we'd be using for the day. Charlotte did have some experience in skiing but I was an absolute novice, so when we booked the trip, we'd included an hour and a half lesson that started at 10.30. There was about 10 of us in the group and it was quickly established that we had very little skiing experience to count amongst us. We covered the basics first, like how to get up when (not if) you fall over and then moved on to moving along the tracks. After some initial wobbles we all found it pretty easy to stay upright when moving forward. Next up was a braking, accomplished by making a v shape with the front tips of your skis close together. Charlotte made it look easy, while I hurtled down the hill at full speed and fell over. I tried again a few more times, ending with pretty much the same result. I could almost hear the ski instructor rolling her eyes. Fortunately, I wasn't the only one struggling, which made me feel slightly better about it. Next up, we tried braking whilst in the grooves. With one ski still in its groove, we had to try and get the other ski out and angle it in like before to slow us down, again, Charlotte passed with flying colours and I passed everyone like a flying colour, only stopping when friction eventually kicked in. During this exercise, for some unbeknownst reason, there was a single Asian lady, stood at the bottom of the hill, filming our struggles on her mobile phone, probably for her own personal hilarity. We both hurled some abuse at her (it's okay, we weren't obscene) on our way down and she scuttled off looking like she hadn't done anything wrong. By then, we'd pretty much covered the basics and we all set off on the easy 1km circuit. Everyone sped off ahead, which I'm sure Charlotte would have done too if she wasn't stuck behind me, while I struggled to get up a hill the size of a pavement curb. When we got to the end, we all hurtled down a hill back the beginning, which was a lot of fun and I didn't even fall over! That was the end of the lesson and we were let loose on the remainder of the tracks on our own. For a bit of practice Charlotte and I did the easy 1km one again before taking a break and grabbing a bite to eat. After lunch we enjoyed the slightly longer 2km track and took various photos and videos of each other trying to look like we knew what we were doing. That track went fairly straightforward. The next one we went on, wasn't so successful though. We got to a certain point and it just wasn't clear as to where we went next. We waited for a while for someone else to come along and show us the way but it seemed everyone was inside having a late lunch. In the end we tried walking up a snow bank to an earlier part of the track and going back the way we came. The snow bank didn't want to play though and it was a real struggle getting up it with skis on. We just about managed to pull our skis off and clamber up the bank, occasionally getting stuck in the very deep snow. By the time we made it back to the start, we were cream crackered and ready for another rest. After our second pit stop, we decided to go out for one last short loop before calling it a day. 2km later, we were spent. Cross country skiing was an incredibly demanding and physical sport that made us sweat profusely despite the cold temperatures. Although it had been a bit stressful and I had hardly mastered it, we had enjoyed our day and were happy that we'd given it a good go. We returned our equipment, thanked the instructor and returned to the car. Charlotte removed the chains at the same point she'd put them on and then navigated the road back down the mountainside. By the time we got home, we were well and truly worn out, we were sure we'd feel it in the morning too.

Friday 12th August

After a complete day of rest where we could barely move, we didn't feel much better but still wanted to achieve something. After a look on the Internet for some nearby walks we found one not far past Queenstown on the road to Glenorchy. The fact it was called ‘Mt.Crichton’ didn't bode well but we thought we'd give it a whirl anyway. The walk followed the path of a stream inland from the shores of the lake and wound up until we were walking along a narrow pathway with a steep drop on our right. After a while, the path made its way back down where we crossed a bridge and ended up at a small rundown building. A sign told us it was Sam Summers’ hut where Sam Summers would stay when he was hunting in the area. The local council had repaired and maintained it and it was a wonderful little stop on the walk. We had a peak inside and found a few thin mattresses where modern day walkers could spend the night in shelter out of the elements. We didn't fancy bedding down and moved on. After the hut the pathway climbed steadily up the side of Mt.Crichton. We never actually reached the peak as there was thick forest all the way to the top but after the pathway started to descend, we came out at a bit of a clearing that looked across the valley and down towards Lake Wakatipu. There was a small bench there, so we perched ourselves on it and had our lunch. On the way down we lost Rodney a couple of times only for him to return panting like a good’n. By the time we finished the walk and got back to the car, we'd only covered about 4 miles but the hard work had been in the slopes, not the distance.

Saturday 13th August

Still feeling the effects of cross country skiing, we decided to try and get rid of the aches and pains once and for all by finishing off a walk that we'd only half done the previous weekend. We walked down to the river, across the historic bridge and this time carried on right round the airport. This was all part of the Queenstown Trail, which we'd really grown to love on our walks with Rodney. We stopped a couple of times to watch the planes bump over us and disappear over the mound before they landed at the airport. The path took us right out to a place called Frankton, which is the last suburb before you get to Queenstown. There, the pathway joined Lake Wakatipu before turning right and completing the circuit of the airport. While on the lakeside pathway, a couple of cyclists yelled “move out the way”. No please, no thank you, so we didn't really move for them. With it being a joint cycle and walking path, we felt we weren't in the wrong. They led a series of cyclists with numbers on their backs that we guessed were doing some sort of race. We still refused to budge as there weren't any signs saying that the race was on today. As we approached what turned out to be a changeover point, where the cyclists tagged their teammates who would then jump in to kayaks, a number of spectators told us to get off the path. I'll reiterate, there was no signage and they had hardly been polite about it, so we ignored them and pushed our way through the crowd. The pathway home led us past a supermarket, where we stopped for a quick lunch break. From there, we rejoined the river, crossed back over the historic bridge and tackled a steep hill which marked the end of the path and the start of the road. For all our walks so far, I'd mapped them with an app on my phone. When looking at this segment from the previous weekend, we found that the hill was nicknamed ‘Coronary Hill’. It wasn't hard to see why. We got home tired but finally free from the aches of skiing.

Sunday 14th August

Valeria had been slowly building up a pile of dead leaves, branches and twigs in her garden for a while and she decided that as it had been dry for a good few weeks, it might be worth having a go at setting it alight and having a bonfire. She suggested a good way of getting It going would be to soak some rags in diesel, plant them around the fire and set them alight. Before this, we also restyled with getting a plow attached to the tractor, so we could scoop the debris onto the fire as it burnt. With no prior tractor knowledge, Charlotte and I got the plow attached pretty hastily and got the tractor in position. This turned out to be wasted effort though. Despite the initial burn it turned into smoulders not long after. We used the plow just for the sake of saying we used it but gave up not long after. The bonfire did burn slowly for nearly a week afterwards though, making a considerable dent.

Tuesday 16th August

Another walk for Rodney! This time we were going for Queenstown Hill, which believe it or not, is a hill, in Queenstown. We parked up and started the ascent. The first part consisted of a couple of residential roads but it quickly changed to walking path. The hill really was a bit of a slog. It was very steep and very dark due to the thick tree canopy above us. We had to make a couple of directional decisions along the way but we guessed all the pathways would eventually come out at the top of the hill. It did, but the views where we came out weren't as good as we were expecting. We could have gone higher but due to the path looking incredibly icey, we decided against it. The steep walk took us longer than we had expected, so we shelved our plans to go to the cinema, to go home and do a bit of work instead. We did treat ourselves to pie number 7 each though, before heading home. We got the pie from Fergburger’s next door neighbour, Fergbaker, which was just as busy as the burger place.

Thursday 18th August

We had a full day of work ahead of us today. Spring was starting to spring and Valerie’s garden was starting to show signs of life after a very brief winter. We were attacking a new vegetable patch all day. I pruned back some raspberries and relocated a gooseberry bush. Charlotte on the other hand spent an entire day moving about 100 strawberry plants from a place where they weren't getting any sun, to various parts of the garden where they would get some. She didn't even get them all done in the day though and had to finish them off the following day. You can imagine her irritation when Valerie came home and suggested some be moved elsewhere. With good grace though, she took the advice and I helped her with the move. We even managed to get a bit creative with where we put the strawberry plants. Using an old wheelbarrow, with handles and wheels removed, filling it with mud and compost and using it as a bespoke plant pot to go outside the renovated cottage, that was the original house on the land, and Valeria was planning to rent out to holiday makers.

Friday 19th August

Today was our planned long walk. We got a good rest overnight, ready for a relatively early start. As the horses were in a paddock on the way, we left for the walk and fed them as we went past. The walk was entirely on the Queenstown Trail and followed the same route we had taken to Lake Hayes a few weeks previously. Rather than turn off towards the lake though, we carried on towards Arrowtown. On the way to Arrowtown, we passed through the funny little village of Millbrook, which was actually a resort town with a couple of golf courses, although a lot of people seemed to live there. Not long out of Millbrook we reached Arrowtown, having walked about 9 kilometres by this point. Here, we had our lunch break, with me streaking into the lead in the pie eating contest with number 8 (I think) and Charlotte opting for a sausage roll. That gave us the energy boost we needed and we flew along the Arrow River. From here on out Rodney was able to be off the lead, as the walk wouldn't take us along any more main roads. We did loose him though a couple of times en route but after waiting patiently he returned panting away. Despite his constant chasing of rabbits he never seemed to able to catch any, always returning empty handed. The rest of the walk took us along the Kawarau River, that the Arrow flows into, before turning up to where the historic bridge crosses the Shotover River, up coronary hill and then home. The whole walk took us about 6 hours and covered 32 kilometres of the Queenstown Trail. By the time we collapsed at home were were pretty tired, yet we still had to walk back up the hill outside Valerie’s house to feed the horses their evening hay.

Saturday 20th August

We'd timed the long walk well. Today was our 3rd anniversary and rather than spend the entire day on a coach like we did last year, we'd booked a hot pool for an hour in the afternoon. The pools were located just outside of Queenstown in an area called Arthur’s Point. We parked up, with swimming costumes in hand and made our way down a few flights of stairs to the the building. With the booking we'd made, we got a complimentary cold drink, chocolate bar and towels, which were all set up when we went into our booth. The hot pool was in a room with a window overlooking the Shotover River and with snow capped mountains in the background. With the push of a button, the window could be removed to make the hot pool slit lay more alfresco. The hot pool helped soothe the aches from our extensive walk the day before but we'd hardly had time to drink our drink and eat our chocolate before our time was up and were drying off. Suitably relaxed, we thought we'd go for a short walk in the area before heading home. The walk followed a man made gorge that had diverted the Shotover River and finished at a platform that overlooked some rapids.

Monday 22nd August

Valerie's daughter had flown down from Christchurch in order to speak to her former school about the joys of university and this meant that she was staying in the renovated cottage. With her down, Valerie asked her to rope her sister (but not Valerie's daughter) into help get the sheep into the open and drench them. The extra people would help a treat. The secret weapon was Lucy’s sheepdog. Despite the dog however, Lucy got distracted talking to someone in a separate field with the dog still on the lead. Whilst distracted Harriet (Valerie's daughter), Charlotte and myself somehow managed to get the sheep up the slope and into the pen first time without any hitches. We could only laugh, with it having been impossible a couple of weeks earlier. Lucy, with Pig the sheepdog in tow had experience dealing with sheep, so she took control of cleaning the sheep up and squirting the drenching fluid into the sheets mouths. After that was done, they were let out the race to leap across the field as much as they wanted. We did still have one more date with them later in the week.

Tuesday 23rd August

With her daughter down, Valerie suggested that it would be a good idea if we all went into Queenstown in the evening for a meal. Initially reluctant, we were happy to go and thought it would be nice to see Queenstown at night. The only hitch was that I was very short on clean or suitable trousers. On a whim, we drove out to the shops and managed to pick up a bargain pair of jeans as well as a cardigan and t shirt for Charlotte. Freshly suited and booted, we headed in to Queenstown. First stop was a bar down a back street where Valerie wanted to attend the prize giving for skiing. We got a beer and made it last, as they weren't cheap. We weren't there for long, once the prizes were given out, we hit the streets and the 2 locals considered which restaurant was best go go to. With our first attempt full for another half hour, we tried one called ‘Public Kitchen’. They squeezed us in and we were explained how the restaurant worked. It was pretty much like a tapas bar with local kiwi food. All the dishes were made for sharing and contained locally sourced ingredients. We went for pork belly, beef cheeks and mussels and clams, with some roasted veg, kofta balls and calamari rings as a side. The whole spread was delicious and we were very grateful that Valerie picked up the bill. With dinner sorted, we started to walk back to the car, stopping to treat ourselves to an ice cream each from Mrs.Ferg’s, the 3rd incarnation of the Fergburger incarnation. Despite making us much colder than we already were, the ice creams were pretty good. All in all we had a lovely night and when we got home we were mobbed by an excited Rodney, who had been left all alone.

Thursday 25th August

We had a day out planned with Rodney as it was such beautiful weather. The town of Cromwell was about a 40 minute drive east of Queenstown, through the picturesque Kawarau Gorge. We got there fairly early and picked up some lunch from the local supermarket. We did 2 separate walks while we were in Cromwell, both located out by the small village of Bannockburn. The first was by a place called Bannockburn Sluicings and wound around the the old gold mining area. The landscape of the walk was a complete contrast to the rest around the Cromwell area. It was bleak and sandy with the appearance of a desert, whereas Cromwell was lush, green and very fertile. There were a few old shells of ancient buildings left behind from the gold mining days and also an old dam that had been built but other than that it was a fairly bleak but rather interesting walk. Our second walk of the day simply followed the Kawarau River until it entered the Kawarau gorge. It took us a couple of hours to compete and Rodney knew he'd been walked by the time we finished it. The days just seemed to be getting warmer and warmer and despite still being in August, Spring was definitely rushing towards us.

Friday 26th August

Since we'd been staying at Valerie's place, Charlotte had been attempting to master sourdough bread, making it from the numerous ‘starters’ dotted around the house. A starter is a mixture of flour, water and natural yeast found in the air. On many occasions Charlotte had failed, it's fair to stay, pretty miserably in her making. But after almost 6 weeks of attempts, it seemed she had finally got to grips with how to prepare the starters and get them active ready for baking. The two loaves she cooked up were really tasty and just like anything you'd buy from a supermarket. In between making the sourdough, Charlotte and I built Valerie a compost bin next to what would be her new vegetable garden. We weren't actually sure if she wanted one but she had so much unused wood lying around the place, we just wanted to do something with it. We excavated a hole for the frame to fit into and then lashed together 3 pallets with numerous slices of wood and rusty old nails. For something we'd cooked up from scratch with minimal thought, we were pretty happy with the end result. We'd just need to keep our fingers crossed there won't be any earthquakes in the Queenstown area, otherwise it would probably topple like a house of cards.

Sunday 28th August

Valerie got in her mind that she wanted to separate out a ram from the small flock of sheep that had been drenched earlier in the week. This was so it keep another ram company that had been delivered a few days previously. We tried in vain to get them cornered in the same old one but after numerous attempts they just wouldn't go through the gate. On the verge of giving up, we tried cornering them against a fence and attempting to grab hold of one we thought was a ram. They were far too jumpy and agile though and somehow slipped through our fingers. We decided to try the through the gate trick one final time and were incredibly relieved when they actually walked through the gate, without too much hassle. We only ended up with about 5 out of 9 but the one we were trying to capture was one of them. I didn't mess around, as they weren't going to come to us. I hopped the fence into the pen, keeping an eye on the one we wanted and made a grab for him. A couple of hooves to the chest later, I had him on the ground and the others could be let out to join the remainder. We now had a task that we just had to keep our fingers crossed would work. The 8 remaining sheep had to be forced out of the paddock on to the road and then driven down the road. The hope part was that they would spot the open gate into a different field and enter it. Just as we were about to get the sheep on to the country road, rush hour hit and we had to let the sheep split and run back down the hill. On the second try it was much quieter and we kept our fingers crossed as they ran up the road. Through some miracle they found the open gate and entered the field, with me just behind them, ready to lock them in. This sheep mustering exercise had turned out a lot more successfully than our first one, so we were pretty pleased with our efforts. With only a fat goat to keep him company for the moment, Jumper, as I'd named him was bleeding for his old friends. Our next job was to get the other ram into the paddock with the goat and ram combo. Valerie had disappeared by this point so Charlotte and I were left to try on our own. Despite hopping right past the open gate, it decided to go round it rather through it on more than one occasion which was very frustrating. After about 20 minutes or so, the ram started breathing heavily and slowed right down to walking pace. You would think this would make it easier but it chose to circle a shed rather than track along the fence. A couple of Valerie's friends had turned up and they could see our struggle, so one of them and Valerie came up to help us. We'd done the hard work wearing the poor blighter out though and they pretty much had to push him through to the next field. We let him rest up before moving him on once more and this time it only needed me, as he was still pretty pooped from the first round. With a few hard shoves he was through into his new field and making friends with Groaty and Jumper. All that farm work, called for a sit down and dinner.

Thursday 1st August

We had one final long walked lined up for Rodney before we left. We parked up near Frankton, near the same stretch we'd been shouted at for walking on the path a few weeks before and walked along the shore of Lake Wakatipu, on the opposite side to Queenstown. The pathway passed posh houses set just back from the lake side, all with their own private jetties. There weren't too many boats moored up though, so they might have just been for show. After passing the houses the pathway followed the Kelvin peninsular which just out into the lake and has a golf course slap bang in the middle of it. If we'd turned back then, Rodney would have had a pretty good walk but we decided to do a different 3 hour walk that pretty much met up with first one we had just done. This one also went along the lakes edge but this time we were fairly high up on the top of some cliffs. It led to a pace called Jacks Point but when we arrived all that was in sight was a golf course, so we turned round and started the long walk home. By the time we made it back to the car, we were more worn out than we had been when we did the 32 kilometre walk. This walk was a paltry 27.3 kilometres in comparison.