First Wwoofing Experience

Hello all!

Despite what I thought, I do have internet access at the farm so I can update you on what's happening. Since I last wrote, I have packed up my bag yet again and headed off on a wwoofing adventure.

WWOOFING: World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms

I work for 4 hours a day on a farm and in return I get a comfy bed and three meals a day provided for me. 

On Monday, I spent some time walking around parts of Christchurch which I hadn't seen yet. Half way through my walk, my camera died so I've decided to repeat a few of these walks later just to take pictures. I didn't have time to do the Botanics or the museum either so I'll do that too. I saw the Cardboard Cathedral though. It's pretty impressive when you realise it's all paper and glass. I'm not sure how they're going to stop it rotting over time, but I'm sure they'll manage something. As I had no camera at this point and nobody to take pictures of me, I spent a grand total of 10 minutes in the place. I'm not religious, so I didn't stay for a service. Besides, it was too nice outside and I just wanted some peace and quiet to read my book.

Soon after I visited the cathedral, I walked back to the hostel to collect my bags, as I had stored them there earlier. I packed up as much food as I could, leaving behind one bottle of tonic, some fruit and veg and my honey. I gathered all my stuff up, which was unfortunately quite heavy and trudged my way through a hot, stifling summer day to the Museum at the botanics, where I got some directions for the rest of my route and a cap as I had burnt my scalp! Boo! NZ apparently has a hole in the ozone layer which means that even when it's cloudy or I'm not completely careful with my application of suncream, I can get burnt very easily. And for those hard to reach places on my back... well, let's just say they're stinging now!

My plan that day (Monday) was to make my way to Lincoln road, where my first wwoofer host, Deborah, works. That day I got there at 5pm, half an hour before I needed to be, so I went to a nearby beer garden and had a cold lemonade. On my way there, I passed by Hagley park. As big as the meadows in Edinburgh, only completely and utterly flat with a netball/basketball court in the middle instead of tennis.

Deborah is Northern Irish. She came to NZ on a sort of work visa 30 years ago and never left. Her Irish accent comes out in a lot of her vowel sounding words like round and now, but apart from that has an almost NZ accent. She is very nice but doesn't talk very clearly so sometimes she's a bit hard to understand.

Glenn is her husband. He's NZ born and I'd say, around 65+. They're both semi-retired but Deborah has recently taken on a temporary Mon-Fri, 9-5 job, so at the moment it's just Glenn and I working on the farm. Glenn doesn't say much, but always tries to say something interesting. I've learnt about different NZ honeys from him, about bees, irrigation systems, mowing and about composting and mulching. Tomorrow afternoon, they're getting some pigs so I suspect our morning tomorrow (Thurs) will be us setting up for them.

Their only regular visitor is their daughter, Heather. From what I can gather, she's the youngest of 6 (4 step-brothers and sisters and one other brother) and the older children are all split up around the world, from America to Shanghai. She works on a dairy farm only a few miles away, working with the cows. She works 9 days on and 3 days off. If I had come last week, I wouldn't have met her at all. She's done a working holiday visa in the UK so we've had a bit to talk about. But, when she's here with her parents, the only talk around the table is of farms and farming, with terms I don't know a lot about and her complaints against the farm she works at now. When her parents aren't around we have normal conversations and tonight, when they did the recycling after dinner (I cooked) we played with my travel jenga that I got from my friends. We played on a wobbly table so it was extra hard, but we managed!

I've decided to stay here and work until Sunday, and then hopefully on Monday morning, I can get a lift into Christchurch with Deborah. There's only one bus a day out this way and from what Heather has told me, it's only come about in the past 2 years and is generally the school bus. There's not a lot of public transport in NZ, because mostly everyone drives. The only buses are in the cities and on the main tourist trails. There's not much for people who live off the beaten track. It's worse than the highlands at home!

I'm going to stay at the same backpackers on Monday - hopefully - and on Tuesday morning, I'll head to Geraldine (south) to wwoof again. The lady there, Sally, sounds nice (via email only so far). Her husband is Scottish and from Edinburgh so there'll be a little bit of home there. They can also take me on for 2 weeks. I'm not sure if there'll be internet access there though, it doesn't say much on their profile on the website. I'm looking forward to it. Sally says, apart from outside duties, that she'd love me to help her in the kitchen. From the reviews on the site, it seems like people in the past have appreciated her cooking quite a bit so I'd love to learn some new recipes from her. While I'm still at Deborah and Glenn's. Deborah said she might teach me how to make her special homemade chutney. I suspect that it'll happen at the weekend.

I've booked my bus to Geraldine and booked my night in the hostel on Monday, so by 1pm on Tuesday I should be at a new farm. A big thank you to my friend M who suggested wwoofing to me a few months ago while in Edinburgh with my sister. I'm going to head to bed now as it's almost midnight and I'm up to work at 8. But tomorrow I'll take my newly charged camera out with me so you can all see where I'm working. In the meantime, I hope you are all well! Night!!

Kirsty x

Days in New Zealand: (almost) 7