Wairuna Organics - a different WWOOFing experience

Hello from the other side 🌏✌

After two weeks in Palmerston, I continued south to Clinton. However, before that, I made a stop in Dunedin, which is on the way and where I had booked a room for one night. After taking care of some errands in the afternoon, I went to the Botanical Gardens again, where I had more time to explore everything. This time, I discovered some beautiful new spots and I think I have seen the most important parts now. In the twilight, I returned to the hostel. The next day, I had until noon to explore the city further. I first went to the market, but didn't buy anything. Then I decided to go to the Dunedin Chinese Garden. Each arrangement in this type of garden has its own meaning and certain elements must always be included: a pavilion, rocks, a lake or water, trees, flowers, and winding paths. I really enjoyed it there. Unfortunately, I was a bit pressed for time and could only take a quick look at some things. I had to go to the Intercity Stop, which was quite far from the city center. From there, I was supposed to go to my fourth temporary home, Clinton. Yes, the name probably means something to everyone, but not every New Zealander knows this village. When I told the bus driver my destination, he asked in surprise: 'CLINTON?' 😂 Apparently, not many people want to go there 😉 And when I arrived, I saw a gas station and a small playground in front of me, a main street, and three or four side streets. A real village, with about 300 inhabitants. It reminded me a lot of the Eifel region, both in terms of landscape and the fact that many people drive through Clinton because it is located on a highway, the so-called Presidential Highway. It's called that because there is a small town called Gore 50 kilometers further south. But that's just a coincidence. Anyway, after a few hundred meters on a secondary road, I turned onto a dirt road and then went through a piece of forest before some cars came into view, one of them with the name 'Wairuna Organics' written on it. That's the name of the farm where I was going to spend my next ten days. After my previous WWOOFing experiences, I was expecting to stay with a New Zealand family and maybe a few other WWOOFers who all live in the same house, but I was wrong.

A few minutes later, I found Shaun, who lives there alone, and he showed me around first. It quickly became clear that there were nine other backpackers stationed on the property, most of them from Germany. Shaun immediately gave me a choice regarding my sleeping place: either in the 'Station', which was the communal kitchen, or in a small adjacent room on the floor. I chose a somewhat unstable-looking double bed in the Station, with the anticipation of being woken up by early risers the next morning 😣 This anticipation was reinforced by the insider info that it would get quite cold in the Station at night, around 0-3°C 😨 I also found out that everyone on the farm had to make their own breakfast and lunch. In the evenings, we took turns cooking for the group, so that 2-4 people cooked for all the WWOOFers. Shaun never joined us for meals, but he provided us with a lot of food, especially a lot of vegetables grown on the farm, but also always fresh cow's milk, meat, bread with spreads, eggs, and everything else we needed. Unfortunately, there was only one shower and two toilets on the farm, so there was sometimes a bit of a wait. At first, I was also very surprised that the buildings looked quite run-down and neglected, but upon closer inspection, it wasn't that bad. Of course, on the first day, I got to know all my roommates. At the beginning, they were my compatriots Laura, 2x Steffi, Konstantin, and Lena, as well as Juliana from Colombia, Michael from Tahiti, Mayu from Japan, Anna from France, and Jake from Ireland. But when I left, only the two Steffis and Konstantin were still there, and they left the farm on the same day as me. Only Laura and Jake stayed longer. At one point, there was a true influx of Germans with Jana, Alex, Jenny, Josh, David and four girls whose names I can't remember anymore. The only non-German newcomer was the Dutch guy Byron. So, temporarily, for my last two nights, we were 16 people, 14 of whom were from Germany.

Most of them were younger than me, especially the Germans, who had all just graduated from high school, but I got along great with all of them. But back to my first impressions. After the first dinner together, we immediately started playing cards and I got to know the game 'Kaktus', which is really a lot of fun. The night was also much better than expected, it wasn't particularly cold and when the first person came for breakfast, I was already awake. At 10:00, after breakfast, we gathered in front of Shaun's house to receive instructions for the work. Laura and I were then sent to the beet field to weed the plants. It was quite monotonous and not very exciting, but with Laura as a conversation partner, the four hours went by quickly 😊 After that, we had lunch. From 14:00, we had the rest of the day to ourselves. We mostly spent this time in the 'WLAN room', not just surfing the internet, but also playing cards, reading, talking, etc. The next few days, we continued weeding, and on the weekend, we did it with the whole group, as Shaun always goes to the market in Dunedin with one of the WWOOFers on the weekend and sells his products there. But soon we were relieved of that, because there was a special major project to be done. Shaun's house had to be painted, in purple. Not exactly my favorite color, but everyone has their own preferences 😆 But that wasn't the case at first. Three whole days went by because the walls had to be cleaned and then sanded. Sanding in particular was torture with the sandpaper. Fortunately, I was also chosen for other tasks from time to time, like harvesting carrots or cutting garlic. So compared to many others, I didn't have to do as much work around the house. On my last day of work, I had to face a real endurance test. It was the sunniest and warmest day since I arrived in Clinton. And of all days, I was allowed to go into the greenhouse, which was naturally heated in this weather. It felt like being somewhere in the tropics ☉💦 In my rubber boots, which I wore daily for work, little swimming pools were soon formed and at the end, I had to wring out my socks because they were so wet 😭 My task was to completely remove the weeds from a path with a shovel. But then it was done and I had completed all the work. Shaun was overall very pleased with me, as he was with everyone else.

There are a few other things worth mentioning. Regarding my sleeping place, I was able to move to one of the caravans after only two nights. Also, and this is really unusual in New Zealand, besides the aforementioned milk cow, two more cows, sheep, some chickens, the dog Chloe, one cat, and a wild boar, Shaun keeps two possums as pets. Most New Zealanders see them as a pest, but on Shaun's farm, they are sacred. In the evenings, he regularly came to us before feeding the possums, so that we could see the animals up close. They were just really cute and beautiful to look at 😍 I even got to hand an apple to one of them. I should also mention the evening when Steffi, Steffi, and I prepared dinner - spaghetti bolognese - but I was a bit too optimistic and sprinkled too much cayenne pepper into the sauce, making it very spicy for bolognese 🔥🍝 But that's okay, everyone thought it was delicious. In general, the food was really good, and I was sometimes surprised by the cooking skills of some people. The conversation somehow turned to regional dialects after dinner and I told some of the others about some typical features of the Eifel Platt dialect, such as 'I get my medications', 'I picked up three kilos', 'Laura's mobile phone' or 'dat Alex (as a girl's name)'. The reactions were somewhere between amused and horrified 😂😂😂 I haven't even mentioned that almost everything is pronounced differently 😅 Then there was my penultimate evening, when Shaun actually came to join us in the Station to celebrate. It was a great evening with good music, a somewhat unusual wine that was strangely brown, and other alcoholic drinks, as well as a lively atmosphere. Towards the end, I even got to dance arm in arm with Shaun across the room, which was more like wild jumping 😂 In any case, Shaun suddenly lost his balance and dragged me down with him, so suddenly my host was lying stretched out on the floor and I ended up on top of him. I think not many WWOOFers can tell a story like that 😂😂😂

After saying goodbye to everyone the next morning, I went traveling again for a few days after six weeks. Where I was and what I did, you will find out in the next report 😊

See you then 👋

Your Max