First WWOOFing Experience

I have never really done this before, but many people have told to me try blogging on my next trip so that is what I have set off to do. I'm not the best writer or anything nor do I really know how to write a blog, so bare with me.

Two weeks ago my friend Claire and I landed in the Wellington national airport. I was thinking sunny New Zealand would be awaiting us, but no. A very wet, very stormy morning is what greeted us once we stepped outside the airport to the bus station. A rain storm in the middle of summer? Thank you for that NZ. We had to bust out the rain jackets and I actually got to use the cool new rain cover I'd gotten for my backpack. We got on a bus and headed north about an hour to Silverstream, a small little town out in the Upper Hutt Valley. In Silverstream we met up with another friend, Emah. There we waited for a couple hours in a cafe with free wi-fi and good warm coffee before our WWOOFing host, Carolann, picked us up.
I didn't really know what to look for. Every car that drove by I thought could have been her. It's an interesting concept, we were going to go stay with someone we never met and had only exchanged a couple emails with. Nervous and excited. Carolann picks us up in the farm car, which is covered in hay and smells like, well a farm. There was another WWOOFer in the car, Keith (he was Irish), who came into town with her. Her farm is about 20 mins from Silverstream but we made it in about 10 with the way she drives. All good fun we had our seat belts on.

At the farm she showed us to the WWOOFer cottage. There we meet Crosby, an 18 year-old guy from Florida, and Aisling, Keith's girlfriend who is also from Ireland. Carolann showed us to the bed room which was made up of two sets of bunk beds and gave us each a roll of toilet paper. "Guard this with your life" she says, and we couldn't help but laugh. Carolann's farm is a self sufficient farm. Or she tries to be as much as possible. So naturally our toilets were composting toilets. Thats what the toilet paper was for. And we were only given one roll a week. She gave us a yellow binder that had WWOOFer rules and told us to read through it and if we had any questions to ask the rest of the gang.

I can't really say that any two days at the farm were the same. But there was a routine. Work started anytime between 8:30-10am, whenever we really wanted to start. We'd work for about three hours and then break for lunch. After lunch we would only have about one more hour before we were done for the day. Work included weeding, planting and harvesting blueberries, lots and lots of blueberries. Yum!

On the farm we had to make all of our own food which was fun and I learned a lot about being creative with the food you've got. I learned to make my own bread, very,very yummy. My own butter, cheese and yogurt. We were taught how to make muesli, which we ate almost every morning for breakfast. We got to experiment with making our own tea, often chamomile or mint that ended up making us sleepy. We had a lot of free time on the farm. I read so many books including the book that Carolann wrote herself about self sufficiency.

We were given three days off during our stay, two times we went to Wellington (the capital of NZ), one of which we went to help Carolann set up for market. And once to another town along the bay called Petone for a street festival.

On the last day of our stay three new WWOOFers arrived, two more Americans and one French guy who spoke very little English but we seemed to be able to communicate. We were all glad that we were leaving the next morning because the new comers weren't quite what we expected.

Yesterday was a good way to spend our last night in the capital. We went to the beach, hung out on the pier and went bar hopping at night (note to parents that read this: drinks in NZ are very expensive so getting "bloody" drunk on our budget was not possible). It was still great fun to sit down at the pier and drink our
$10 passionfruit mojitos

My impressions of this country so far is that it is not so different from back home. I guess it's just easier then Thailand (my only other international travel reference), in that I speak the same language and the culture here is very westernized. Then again I've only really been in and around Wellington and I'd say it's just a smaller relatively cleaner San Francisco. Nothing I've fallen in love with but I hope that I will find some part of this country that I can't find anywhere else.

I write this now on the ferry heading over to Nelson on the South Island. Where we are going to be helping at a cafe by the beach. Hope that it is as good as it sounds.

Cheers!