56th Day - Kiwi Culture

What do we actually do in New Zealand? Of course, mainly travel and get to know the country. But we're also here to 'wwoof'. Huh? What's that?

Wwoofing stands for 'living, learning and working worldwide on organic farms'. The rules are quite simple: work 4-6 hours a day and in return you get free accommodation and food.

Currently, we're working as 'housesitters', which means we're taking care of a 200 m² house. This includes the garden with its four greenhouses, 50 turkeys, 50-60 chickens, 1 dog, 4 cats, 20 ducks, and a business where we sell our own harvested fruits and vegetables.

So, it's not just a small house with a few plants, but a company that sells organically grown fruits and vegetables. And now, there are four of us running this business: the owners are in England over Christmas, along with the entire extended family - which means we're more or less on our own. That's why they left us their car, so we can take the dog for a walk. But the car only runs if it's fueled - with the credit card they gave us!

Yes, we're living with 2 strangers in a house belonging to strangers, in a foreign country, and driving their car and using their credit card to go shopping! Can you imagine that in Austria?! Can you imagine that? Or simply being invited to a barbecue party by complete strangers on Christmas Eve - quite unusual in Austria!

It took us some time to realize the amount of trust they put in us and how unreal the whole thing is. But apparently, in a country where the mentality is different and people fear unpredictable natural phenomena (earthquakes) rather than evil intruders, this is normal. Due to the location of the island in the middle of nowhere, the situation is naturally different, since things like border controls are not necessarily needed.

And so, we're not only getting to know the incredibly beautiful landscape of New Zealand, but also getting a better understanding of the customs and culture of the locals, which would have remained hidden to us on a purely tourist trip. Just because of these priceless experiences, our journey is worth every penny :)