Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF)

The day finally came after more than a week in Dunedin to head to Clinton (an hour's drive) and begin work on the farm.  Not only was this to be the first time we'd ever worked on a farm, but it was the first time we'd worked at all in almost three months!  We went through a popular scheme known as WWOOFing and ran across the listing for a farm nearby called Wairuna Organics run by a guy named Shaun.  The photos on the website and the reviews seemed pleasant enough so we went ahead and emailed and low and behold he got back to us fairly quickly and affirmatively.

So there we were pulling up to his house feeling a mixture of nervousness and excitement.  We knew neither what to expect of him and what he would expect of us.  The property was what you might expect of a working farm - cluttered and chaotic, but somehow peaceful and steady.  We gave Shaun a ring to let him know we were out front and he came out to meet us in his farmer's garb looking as though he'd already been working all morning.  After introductions he showed us around the property and the accommodation he had for WWOOFers (of which he's apparently hosted many) and told us to get changed and ready to begin working.   A few minutes later and we met him behind the shed ready to go and he brought us out to the fields where other WWOOFers were already working and instructed us to begin manually weeding the carrots (this is an organic farm mind you).  So for four hours we sat on hands and knees with backs to the sky plucking weeds while carefully avoiding the stalks of the carrots.  What a way to earn your keep! 

To the fields!

The deal with WWOOFing is that you help around the farm typically four hours a day in exchange for food and accommodation.  Besides just being a way to live fat and rent free, many hosts offer to teach you things about gardening, farming, ranching, sustainability or anything else that the host may feel passionately about.  As you can imagine, plenty of travelers just use the system for the former, while many of the hosts use it for the work without doing any of the ladder.  This being our first experience, I'd say that overall we came out with a positive experience somewhere in between.  

We worked for a total of three days, one cloudy, one rainy and one sunny. Each day was spent unsupervised in the carrot field with the other WWOOFers.  We had intended originally to work for two weeks, but the strenuous work coupled with a restructuring of plans drew us out early.  We didn't see a lot of Shaun since he mentioned to us in the beginning that he had hosted over 2,000 WWOOFers in the last ten years and was taking break from cooking group dinners and whatnot (which is something he advertised on his profile).  Fair enough, the guy looked like he could use a vacation and he seemed nice enough.  That said, we didn't learn much in the way of farming or anything (perhaps we may have had we stayed longer).  Where the experience truly shined was in spending time with the other WWOOFers.

Shaun had hosted so many WWOOFers over the years that he had built a separate building to serve as the quarters for the workers called "The Station".  Besides that, he had a few old busses and such modded out to be little bedrooms strewn around the property.  They had just finished harvesting some 30,000 cloves of garlic and they were hanging from every ceiling in every building around the farm including the station.  We were very pleased to see that we would be safe from the grasp of any vampires that might be lurking about.  In our little garlic den was a few beds, an old iron stove for making fires, a dining area and a kitchen.  It was there that we spent most of our time off the field laughing, chatting and playing games with the other workers.  We even met a couple from San Francisco who'd been there for a few weeks when we'd arrived.  It was communal living and even in the short span of three days we made some really good connections with people.  It felt like a little family of sorts.  

The Garlic Den...ahem Station

I would definitely be down to WWOOF again, excited even.  I certainly see the appeal, though hopefully we'd be doing something less arduous than weeding carrots.