James & Charlotte's Travel Blog: Wwoofing in Queenstown

It's been almost 3 weeks since we arrived back in Queenstown, so it seemed as though it's high time I put a bit of it into writing.

I guess the place to start is WE SOLD OUR CAR!!

It was a huge relief. We'd only had it listed for a week from a Monday and in a Sunday, an English guy from the Isle of Wight but traveling in New Zealand, made an offer of $1900 for it. Although this didn't match our asking price or our absolute minimum price, we accepted the offer as we just wanted it off of our hands so we could relax a bit. It was hard to accept that it was time for the car to go but we were incredibly keen to get some money in. As the Sunday went on after the acceptance of the offer we had numerous other inquiries for the car and continued to accept viewings and such like. The following day, when Charlotte informed the man buying it, that we were postponing the sale for a view later that day, he raised his offer to $2000 and if we showed it to someone else, he was out. $2000 is what we had been after, as it was $150 up on what we'd paid for it and only $200 below our asking price. As before, despite the offer, we were still disappointed as we were pretty sure we could have got a couple of hundred dollars more for it. We took the offer of $2000 though and sealed the deal ending better off than we were when we'd arrived in New Zealand. For the price, the car was a steal. It was in great condition, apart from a loose bumper and we had been lucky to get it for such a knockdown price when we'd bought it 10 months before in Auckland. We'd been lucky that the seller was due to leave within the week, so after a short negotiation, we got a fantastic car, with a tent, kitchen utensils and cookware for, what was back then, about £900.

The next big chunk of news is that we know the exact date and time we will be arriving back in jolly old England. The only problem for you readers is that we just aren't going to tell you. The entirety of our remaining itinerary will remain a surprise to everyone and so will our travel home. Although we will tell one specially selected person, just incase.

That's the big news sorted, now just the odds and sods.

Over the past few weeks, we've been working fairly hard but also making the most of the free time and getting ourselves sorted for when we leave New Zealand. Rodney the Fox Terrier has kept us incredibly busy and for the first couple of weeks he was getting daily walks of 5 miles +. We've also had to keep the garden watered during the long, hot summer days of Central Otago and keep the chickens fed and watered. Unfortunately, we did find a dead one the other day but Valerie was back from skiing in the States by then, so technically it wasn't on our watch.

A job that took us quite a bit of time was shifting the near 500 bales of hay that had been cut and tied in two of Valerie’s paddocks. The job took us a good few hours, lugging the heavy bales on and off trailers and stacking them anywhere we could find a roof to put them under. It was a strenuous job but ultimately very rewarding. We were still doing it when Valerie arrived home from her holiday and in order to keep herself from succumbing to jet lag, she mucked in with us and we shipped around 200 bales with her help.

With our car sold, we now have use of Valerie’s spare car if we ever want to use it and get out and about, so fingers crossed, over the next 5 or 6 weeks, we might end up doing something a little more exciting. Our plan is to stick around at Valerie’s until we are due to leave on the 30th March but that only if she has the work for us to do to earn our keep and if she is happy for us to be around for so long (we know Rodney will want us to be!).