Surprise! We are in Queenstown now. Way more has happened since last i wrote than should have happened. So we were picking grapes and living at Carolyn's. Grape picking remained a great job, but it finished on Friday. On Thursday morning we arrived at work and were waiting around for David, our boss who I mentioned was super nice, to come tell us where to pick. After a while the owner of the place came out and told us that on Wednesday afternoon David was killed in an accident while pulling the nets off the grapes we were to pick the next day. It was a total freak accident involving this machinery that we'd seen him use everyday. This happened on the one day that he did not work on the same vineyard as us, and it was a really shocking loss. The whole vineyard is a small family operation, so David was one of five employees. It was very sad. We drove home and spent the day working in Carolyn's garden and trying to understand how to feel as appreciative as we could. We were both very grateful to be with Carolyn's family, since this is the first time we've really sought comfort since our year began. The next day we went back and finished picking the grapes on that vineyard, so at least that family can be done with that land for a while.

The same day that we found out about David, we were thinking about what on earth our next move would be. Whether to stay on at Carolyn's, or go ahead and check out Queenstown for jobs, figure out winter, etc. That morning we got a text from, Fiona, a friend I made on Milford Track who manages a hostel in Queenstown. She said they were looking for a couple of cleaners in exchange for accomodation starting Monday, so as grape picking ended, we packed our bags and headed down South. It is the perfect opportunity to live in Queenstown for free while we make our plan. The fates seem to be in our favor. We started cleaning today and it is great. We just work 3 hours a day as part of their biannual spring clean. The hostel is right on the lake and a two minute walk from town. Just lovely.

We had a great final weekend at Carolyn's house. The weekend before we'd moved from our cottage down to their house to make room for a couple of wwoofers who were coming (since we were wwoofers with jobs, which makes us useless wwoofers.) We've slowly crept into this family's life to the point that now we just live in their house. Even after the wwoofers left, we stayed in their house because we didn't want to leave. As Carolyn says, we've "wormed our way in." On Saturday we got to go to Thomas' first rugby game of the season. It was so much fun and unbelievably rough. Maggie and I kept screaming and covering our eyes. At one point Thomas was on the bottom of a tackle and the three of us were covering our faces and yelling, "watch his head! don't hurt him! watch his eyes!" Not cool. He ended up breaking his nose. We didn't know until the end of the game because he hid it so that he could keep playing. What? I know. His consolation prize (even though he was more excited than upset) was the best dinner ever and movies and rice pudding. It was a cozy weekend. We miss them, but this hostel "job" was too timely an opportunity to pass up.

Who knows where we'll be next week.

Love,
Robin