Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
After completing repairs to their earthquake hit Christchurch home, retired couple Niki Guy-Junker and Rolf Junker decided they had one more adventure in them.
They could cope with one more "doer upper."
So they hopped in a campervan, headed deep into Central Otago, drove past a property with a 'for sale' sign outside, then bought it.
"We didn't even notice the road... We were so enthusiastic about getting here," Niki says.
A gravel road winds its way more than eight kilometres in either direction from their gate. Their letterbox is nine kilometres from home.
"We don't get the paper delivered, as you can imagine," she says with a laugh.
Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
The couple has spent two and a half years doing up their home, enjoying their craggy surrounds, planting vegetables and tending the orchard they inherited with the 10-hectare property.
Niki, a trained chef, uses the produce grown on her little farm to make ready-to-eat meals that she sells to mainly elderly customers living in Roxburgh, Clyde and Alexandra.
She has a home-based commercial kitchen.
Fruit of the Medlar tree Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
Most days Niki and Rolf can make it out to town.
"We've been snowed in a couple of times but that's alright - what's a couple of days not getting down the drive?"
Rolf agrees. "It's really beautiful up here when it snows but it doesn't happen often enough."
