A house on hill

By some kind of miracle we found a place to live in Queenstown that has got to be the best place we've ever lived in. It's nice and new and all that, and we've got a couple of good housemates Chris and Steph. And we have unheard of luxuries for backpackers like us such as a dishwasher, a reclining lounge chair and a free washing machine and dryer - no more searching for $2 coins! It's just great not having to live in a backpackers for once!

But by far the best thing is the view - it is really spectacular. We can see the lake, the mountains and the small town below. We can't quite believe we're living here, we got dead lucky. We looked at a couple of other places for the same price: on had a view of a supermarket car park and the other hadn't been decorated since the 70's.

All this luxury comes at a price of course, and this is that we have to climb the steepest street in history in order to get to our house, which is at the top of this ridiculously steep hill. Cars have to go up it in first gear and the pavent has steps to help you climb the hill. It's a real workout - by the end of the summer we'll have huge leg muscles

Queenstown

We got here at the end of October aiming to get work for over the summer. Rory found a job working with Ace Car Rentals: this meant cleaning cars, driving them around a lot, picking people up from the airport and so on. It's pretty decent job, nice people to work with and a whole lot better than cleaning in hostels anyway.

Caroline has been doing odd cleaning jobs, mostly at a boutique (small and v expensive) hotel where she went round polishing and arranging things in rooms. She is now moving up in the world and just about to start a job working on reception at Queenstown Lodge, hopefully we might be able to get on some tours and activities on the cheap...!

Mt Cook and Lake Tekapo

Erm I'm gonna put some nice pretty pics up here any moment soon...