Farm Life

Welcome to blog post 2 of today! As we said at the end of the last one we have begun our Woofing adventure which means after 10 heady weeks we are finally back at work (albeit unpaid!) and to be fair loving it! 

We decided on bit of a whim, as things were looking a bit slack in Brisbane, to contact the Wwoof hosts that our friends Ben and Lianne had spoken so warmly about when they were in Oz. We contacted Will and Inara and they invited us up to their little piece of heaven, 66 acres of land in the NSW hinterland, about 40 minutes in land from Byron Bay. We arrived on Tuesday just as the heavens had opened and Will set us up with a lovely pot of tea. He made us really welcome and explained he how had a mixture of avocado and macadamia trees on the land and that for the next few days we would be picking the macadamias, as he had just harvested the avocados. We also met our fellow Wwoofer, a nice young English girl from Kidderminster called Hannah, as well as Will and Inara's beautiful dog, Chica, a quiet and gentle soul with a cheeky streak thrown in for good measure. That night we had thunder and lightning, coupled with an almighty downpour and howling wind, just to make us feel at home!

Now how Wwoof hosts put you up can vary from host to host but from Ben and Lianne we knew what to expect, that our kitchen would be in an old converted bus and the toilet would have no door but at the same time the most amazing view! Hannah had already nabbed the choice bedroom above the lounge so Bruce has become a proper bedroom for a while as we begin our Farm life. 

We met Inara on Wednesday morning, who is a real warm and happy person too, and then began work doing what is affectionately known as "grubbing", ie searching through the grass and soil around the base of the trees for any macadamias not picked up by the machine. Needless to say that a following 5 hours of this, the last 10 weeks of leisure certainly caught up with us and we have been aching in muscles we didn't even know we had! Alex has been driving a Yewt around with some gusto, we have learnt about the De-husker that processes the macadamias and mainly enjoying the simplicity and reward of the work. It helps that it has been at least 20 degrees every day with beautiful blue skies, set in a corner of the world where rolling pastures sit side by side with creeks packed full of prehistoric rainforest, as flocks of colourful birds squawk and wheel overhead and the ever present kookaburra cackle in the distance!

Yet it isn't all tranquility and living in harmony with nature, Rhiannon has already attracted two ticks and we've both been attacked by a leech! But this pales in comparison to the drama that occurred on Friday afternoon after another morning in the orchard. We returned to the kitchen/bus for a well earned brew when Hannah asked if that was a toy snake in the shelving unit wrapped. Right on cue it lifted it's head in reply before coiling more tightly around the tennis ball it had claimed. Cue mass ineptitude as we vacated the bus quickly and began discussing, with the conjecture of three Poms without a clue, what the hell to do. We went to get Will but they had gone into town for an appointment, so only returned with Chica the dog in tow. Hannah phoned her Aussie boyfriend, Angus, who grew up "out bush", and after he finished laughing came up with three options on what species it could be (one of which, the Brown Snake, is in the top 10 most venomous snakes in the world!) and said somebody should keep an eye on it while the others identified it. The girls came back from there snake classification session and had come to the conclusion that it was most likely an Eastern Brown Tree Snake (otherwise known as a Night Tiger!), which was only "mildly venomous". After a further 30 minutes of not knowing what the hell to do, Alex got all very fed up with it and donned his snake wrangler outfit, a thick work jacket and gloves (for protection), and after placing an empty recycling bin below the shelf used a broom to slide the snake into. Thankfully it worked and Alex didn't miss the bin, and elated proceeded to award himself 100 man points for his actions!

With the snake safely incarcerated inside the bin we still had the problem of when and where to release it, so decided we should all just relax and have a beer. Alex, now firmly ensconced in his fit of manliness also decided he was going to build a fire for the evening!

After the excitement of the Attack of the Night Tiger as that event shall henceforth be known, we release the snake well away from our dwelling on Saturday morning. Work that morning consisted of a final bit of macadamia picking and the cleaning of the sauna down by the creek, in preparation for the first saunas of the winter. Oh yeah, did we forget to mention there was also a Sauna here!?! Our reward for this was the first use of the sauna, which was absolute bliss, and the most special part was the fact that once you'd had enough of the sauna you could run down to the water hole and dive straight into freezing cold water, Scandinavian style! In the spirit of a travels we both jumped in without hesitation, an experience that extracted noises from us that we'd never heard before as we shivered our way back onto the rocks. Drying there in the sunlight, invigorated and refreshed it was the best way to end a working week either of us could think of!

What should have followed was a relaxing drive into the nearest town, Lismore, for a late lunch and a bit of shopping. Unfortunately due to the rain at the start of the week, it meant Bruce couldn't make it up the hill to the road and ended up being unceremoniously towed to the top by Will's tractor! We then rushed to town and back, and the week really caught up with us as we begged on the sofa watching TV. Nevertheless we have rewarded ourselves with a relaxed Sunday of pancake breakfasts, tea drinking, firewood collecting and writing before getting back to the macadamias tomorrow.

Peace and love to you all, this is a place for thinking and we are thinking of you all! Until next time...

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