Leith Dick wants to do a swap. Not marbles or a crate. Something considerably bigger. It involves a piece of land which he has never lived on and never will. Eight years ago, Mr Dick was living in Tennant Creek in the Australian outback, working for a mining company, looking for gold. He said things were not going that great and he wanted to go somewhere else. Get out into some bush and wilderness and not be surrounded by people. That is when he saw a property for sale in Stewart Island. Cashed up from working in the mines, he bought the section for $68,000, sight unseen. He continued to work in the mine — thinking the land would be something great to come home to. But he never made it: life intervened. As John Lennon famously said, or was believed to have said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” Shortly after the land purchase, Mr Dick met his soon-to-be wife and before he knew it they had two kids. He moved back to New Zealand and is currently running his own plumbing business in southern Hawke’s Bay. He has visited his land in Stewart Island just once. He said it was a nice property, close to facilities and would suit someone who wanted to get away from it all. But his wife was not keen on the land “She didn’t like the boat ride over. Didn’t want to do that again. And that was fair enough,” he said. [Missing Credit] The sizeable block of land is situated in Dundee St in Oban, close to the town’s bowling green, and is covered in bush. So now he has decided to get rid of it but is not going down the sale route. He simply wants to swap it for some land on the West Coast. “We have just been down to the West Coast for a holiday and loved it. Thought it would be the place we would want to live. Want to be there by 2030.” He said a swap suited him better as he did not want to go through the sale process and a swap seemed much less hassle. The swap has been listed for about a month and he had already had offers for land in Haast and Reefton. Others had made monetary offers for the property — it was valued at $180,000 — but he wanted a swap. steve.hepburn@odt.co.nz
