Wwoof
AUSTRALIA | Friday, 9 November 2007 | Views [391]
Not a bark, but an Organization: Willing Workers on Organic Farms. It's funny though they're not all farms. For our first wwoof our host was a dear sweet older woman, Judy Day. She had her own organic garden with a couple of chucks (pronounced chook... it's a chiken) and quite a few little projects. She was very eco friendly. When we arrived Jaymie got the weeding job and I was to paint a portion of the outside of the house. It was really nice actually.l.. doing something different from the norm. .. or doing the norm? I don't know. That night she made us a nice meal and we chatted over dancing with the stars. I started to read High Fidelity and finished most of it by the time I left (2 days later). Great book by the way. The next morning we slept in until about 10.30 and got to gardening. We weeded for about two hours and then she let us stop and took us to the blue mountains. From there we did a tour of the old mines and J and I did two seperate walks. I did one of a landslide they had years ago that closed off most of the mine.. it was really neat.. kind of spooky. We did a gondola ride back up the hill and killed some time in town before Judy picked us up. She made a delicious fritata four us. The next day she didn't have any duties for us, but we felt guilty not helping out so I painted a headboard in her room and Jaymie polished some silver dishes. We headed back to Sydney that afternoon. On the way in Ricdk texted us and offered a place to stay... so we took it. He met us at central station, which is a 2klm walk to his place... but we opted to do it. J and I were trying to be tough... about 1k in and I was sweating and it was raining and man i realized I needed to chuck whatever extra shit I've picked up in Oz, but we trekked on and made it! We all went for a swim and then headed back to his apt. He made us dinner too! A yummy pizza w/pesto and mushrooms and zucchini AND cous cous w/Sultana's and veggies. OMG After a few beers and a bottle of wine and good converstaion we passed out. The next morning he had to head to work, but offered us a lift to the train station... it was such a releif to not do the walk from his place. We caught our flight to cairns... I was sat next to a young mother and her 2yr old daughter... the horror. Lucky for me she was the most well behaved little girl ever. She is half chinese and half japanes, so she spoke both languages and she was learning English. So bright.. we played memory w/cards and she was really really good and then we drew and listened to music a bit. In Cairns the weather was hotter.. in the high 90's and HUMID. We stayed in a hostel just out of town that provided a shuttle every hour. We were melting so we decided to take a swim.. it was lush. Just what we needed. The front desk mentioned to us that it was ladies night in one of the clubs downtown and that we should go... we headed to town and went to the club and opted not to too meat market mixed with heat and sweat and alky, eww. Instead we roamed arounf the night markets and the town. We were waiting with a couple of boys staying at the hostel for the shuttle back and a couple of drunky's wandered over to say hello. One of the boys had found a sandal (they call 'em Jandals here) and was trying to put it on his friends foot... but she was so drunk she couldn't stand up straight. They ended up both tipping over and she face planted in the dirt... Sooo funny! I wish I would have taken a pic. After they stagger off another drunk guy, solo, comes over for a chat. He tells us his love troubles and then ask Jaymie and I if we want to rid in his hot rod tomorrow. No thanks... our shuttle arrives. Thank god. The boys, from Holland, were in disbelief. The next day we head to the lagoon and esplanade and check out everything we missed the night before. We were thinking about heading out, but Jaymie and I got into a big arguement. We said what we needed and took and easy night doing our own things. The next day was our Reef trip. It was a pretty neat boat. Our first stop was amazing... I snorkeled for a long time... my jaw was sore from biting down on the snorkel. Jaymie took a dive lesson so we weren't together much at the first point. I met a rally cute fijian/autralian girl and her bf and a couple of Irish gals. We were having a laugh w/some of the boat crew. The second spot was even better. One of the girls and I saw a couple of tiny reef sharks, a huge clam.. like so bug and tons of pretty fish of all colors. The ride home was so nice.. one of the crewmen sang and we had wine and cheese... perfect way to end the day. On the walk home we met a few other pals from the boat that convinced us to head out for a few drinks. We eneded up meeting up with a big group and drank until the wee hours. The next morning we caught our bus up to Port douglas for our second Wwoofing job.
Job two: Exotic Fruit Winery. Shannonvale to be more exact. It was owned by the sweetest older couplde Tony and Trudy. She had a gem in her from right tooth that I couldn't stop staring at everytime we talked. They gave us the first day to wander aroung Port Douglas, a cute touristy harbor town. We went to an arts and crafts fair and had a wonderful day just walking and checking out the harbor. That evening Trudy made a really nice curry and we tried their ginger wine... a little to strong for my liking. The nextmorning we had to be up bright and early to pick Jaboticaba, a brazillian fruit that resembles a cherry or grape. We picked long and hard and then cleaned the fruit, squished the fruit and packed it to freeze. In the room witht th freezers there was a huge snake skin that Trudy had just found. Python skin that must have been three meters long. Ew. I took a long nap after working and then had a delicious dinner and watched Australian Idol with them. They tried to talk us into staying longer, but we already made plans for our next accomodation. They had two large dogs, that surprisingly didn't cause me to stop breathing. Max and tiger. The next morning we streilized bottles, bottled wine, picked more fruit, cleaned and squishes, and ran wine trhough a cloth to get the mushy stuff out. It was a prettylong day. I spent the afternoon wandering around the ground. I walked forever it seemd and didn't even get through half of it. They had amazing bambos and all sorts of fruit trees growing. .. just beautiful. After we were done Trudy gave us a wine tasting. We smapled about 14 wines. My favorite is the lychee and dry mango. So yummy! We stayed up talking after dinner for a bit and then called it a night. The nextmorning Trudy dropped us off at the white cockatoo to catch our bus north. We missed it by three minutes and had to walk around one klm to catch it.. but it was sooo hot and my bag felt so heavy.. it was a hike.
We caught the bus and stopped at a wildlife reserve on the way to our next destination. It was really neat. The animals get a lot of attnetion and are kept really well. We got to hold and pet the sweetest wallaroo. I wnated to take him home. Our next stop was Pk's Jungle Retreat. This was our third wwoofing job. The first day J was in the kitchen and they gave me front desk to clean, windows and bar work. It was halloween so the bar was packed! I finishes at 8:30 and showered and joined in the fun. In the lu there were two girls trying to put together a costume.. i decided to help. We got trash bags and cut batwings.. it looked pretty good. One girl, Brnada was from Brisbane, but decided to holiday up north.. she stayed for two months. The other girl was Laurren from BC canada... very sweet. I met really sweet boys from France that were bunking with us and ended up dancing w/them. The next day I had the lunch shiftin the kitchen.. it was really fun. They let me off an hour early. I went for a swim and then a hike to the beach. The water was sooo perfect, but I was to scared to go inside because of the croc and jelly warnings. A man had lost his arm just the week before, but to be fair he went chasing after the croc to get a good pic. Can you guess the nationality of the dood? lol I spent a long time chatting with and israeli couple, they ended up giving me a ferry pass for an island that I was going to visit later in the trip. sweet! I went to the bar for ladys night.. Jaymie wanted to drink a champaigne. I told her to try a belinni.. it makes the champaigne taste better. We met a sweet american couple that bought us the next round.. we drank and danced with them and I called it an early night. Jaymie was chatting up a cute young german boy... not sure how that ended. It was our last work day at pk's and we both had late shifts... Jaymie in the bar and I was in the kitchen. That morning we did a hike to the actual cape, cape tribulations and the beach. It was beautiful. After work I went out drinking with brenda and laurren... and quite a few of the other staff... i was out until about 4 just looking at the stars on the beach, watching the fire dancers and ... drinking. I could have definately spent more time there. The next day i slept in and Laurren and I woke up at the same time and tlaked about our dreams... it was quite bizarre, but really neat. We caught the bus back south. We did make a stop to do a crocodile cruise... saw no crocs, just a frog. Corey, our driver, was quite cute though... it made the drive more bareable. Back in Cairns we took it easy and spent two days planning the rest of our trip and catching up on basics. We stayed at a better hostel this time around.. it was more centrally located so it was easy to get around.
next to come about our trip down south..
Tags: Sightseeing
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