Do it for the Ferg

It hasn’t quite sunk in yet that we only have five days left in this amazing country. After traveling throughout almost all of the south island we decided Wanaka and Queenstown were by far our favorite places so we would spend our last two weeks in that area. About a month ago we set up to do a WWOOF in Queenstown to help us save some money. Before going we were kind of wishing we could just spend our last bit of time hanging out and not working, but we are SO glad we decided to WWOOF there. We pulled up to the absolutely gorgeous house on Sunday afternoon and met Sally, our host, her spunky little dog, Kala, and another German WWOOFer, Annalina. Sally is in the process of selling her house ($4.9 million asking price!) so we spent most of the week tidying up the yard and cleaning the inside of the house so it’s clean for viewings. Another bonus was that Sally is a chef, wine connoisseur, and just opened up a café. We were treated to delicious meals every night and got some wine tasting “education” as well. I even got a little German practice in with Annalina. Sehr gut!

Sally had a big hill in her backyard we hiked and chased sheep up.

A new favorite: bacon and egg pie and beetroot salad. Everyone seems to love beetroot here.

 

When we weren’t working we took advantage of the nearby trails by doing plenty of hiking and borrowing Sally’s mountain bikes to explore the area. Sally live right next to the Queenstown trail so we had great access to bike to the nearby city of Arrowtown (such a cute place!) and Lake Hayes. We tackled the Ben Lomond peak one day, which made us sore for days. About an hour into the hike Blake points to a peak ahead and says, “What if that was the one we had to climb? I’m so glad it’s not.” Well, turns out that peak was the one we were climbing. As much as my legs hated me, the 360 degree views were so worth it. We rewarded ourselves with a famous Fergburger afterwards, which made it even better.

Biking through Arrowtown

More biking. Lake Hayes in the distance

We made it to the top of Ben Lomond!

Cool viewfinder on the top of Ben Lomond

Basket of dreams on Queenstown Hill

The famous Fergburger

 

Yesterday before we left Queenstown we spent the morning with Sally and Annalina at the Lake Hayes A&P (agricultural and pastoral) show. Every town seems to have one of these shows, which are very similar to county fairs at home, so we were excited to finally see one. We had a great time laughing at the Top Twins perform their comedy act and at the little boy riding his really short and fat pony.

We could not stop laughing at this pony.

We wished we would’ve WWOOFed for Sally for a much longer time earlier in our trip, because we had such an amazing time. The next four days will be spent in Wanaka hiking, biking and doing as much as we can outside. I will most definitely cry when we leave, but I’m so excited to see my parents in Australia on Friday!