The Least Worst Option: Dartmoor or Down Under?

"If I don't do something, everything will stay the same and then I'll die" I admonished  myself, as I smashed the ice of the horses' trough with a stone, having transferred their haylage bales into two nets,  and  lugged them one by one using the wheelbarrow, to tie them up by the gate.

I'm not strong enough anymore, to raise the stupid things off the ground, so if my mares catch their hooves in them, then that's just tough bananas.

Another winter of this at my age is just too much of a nightmare, so I've had a rush of blood to the head, and booked two months off, to knock New Zealand, and Australia, and South Africa, all on the head. I've always wanted to visit the three.

Meanwhile Susan, a new friend of mine, who is even older than I am, homeless and living in a van (occasionally allowed to stay over in Paignton's Travelodge for free when it gets too cold, courtesy the government), and who has only recently realised that she's eligible for a pension, attempts to run my life for me, from my luxury home.

I've tried every alternative: offered Wydemeet for a long term break on AirBnB, a holiday exchange on 'Home Exchange', renting it out officially through Knight Frank (not allowed because it's too draughty), and suggesting to the local private school that some of their parents might like to live in it over the winter. Nada.

Well it will be no picnic for Susan, and she knows it. One of my elderly animals will almost certainly die while I'm away, and somebody will have to Make The Decision.  And, with the alternative of living in her van, she's not even excited about having a centrally heated 5-bedroom house complete with hot tub to herself, that I would normally rent out at £3,500pw!

I have really really tried to escape this Dartmoor prison of mine, but nobody has been inclined to buy my 'too remote' beautiful home over the past 18 months of property stagnation.

So I've taken the house off the market for three months, am getting right out of here, and am anticipating that when I return in March, everything will finally come up roses.

"Can I come? New Zealand's always been on my bucket list!" begs my 21 year old beloved daughter. 

"Well it's been on my bucket list for 64 years, so you'll just have to wait I'm afraid, " I retort.  I need every spare £1 in my savings account to buy the best possible titchy Fulham flat and Brockenhurst cottage I can manage, when Wydemeet finally sells, so I can't be doing with funding children to come along with me on my (only relatively) jolly jaunt.

I've spent every hour of every day of every week for the past six weeks (not counting Christmas) planning a trip alone in a campervan that you can't stand up in, to circumnavigate New Zealand's South Island. Then I'm going to fly to Sydney, and on to Cape Town. After that, thanks to Rishi finally getting the economy vaguely under control, it's possible that I  might at last relocate to London and the New Forest, and embark on the final stage of my life, before my mind and body fall entirely to bits.

After two family holidays in my early teens during Easter in our VW van, both of which meant camping in the snow because my parents wanted to miss the summer crowds when all I wanted to do was sunbathe and meet boys, I vowed I would never camp again for the whole of the rest of my life. A sensible decision which I stuck to for the next fifty years. So what on earth am I doing?

I have literally just laughed out loud, reading my sister's itinerary of business class travel, plush hotels and personal travel guides, when she and her lovely husband embark on their own New Zealand tour, a couple of weeks after mine. But I've realised how desperately lonely I would be if I did something similar, even if I could afford it. My way, I shall have fun with lots of gappies, as we find ourselves meeting up in the same camp sites and must-see venues, as we make our way around the beautiful island.

Just about everyone I speak to about this says, "You're so brave!" I find this annoying, as driving around New Zealand in the summer with no responsibilities or work to do, will be  nothing like as brave as surviving alone in remotest Dartmoor at -10C; or worse still, trying to bring up a family and manage house and income when you're married to a polar explorer. 

I'm just seeing this little enterprise as the least worst option open to me right now, and am wondering whether I should be more excited about the whole endeavour... or more nervous.