Hi guys! We are back after a one week WWOOFing in Willina! We have a lot of interesting things to tell you about this experience. We’ll try to be organized!

What we did

We were WWOOFing at Bill & Jiliana’s farm. Together they manage a tree nursery and also work as herbalists. We helped them at the nusery and in their “laboratory” where they prepare herbal medecines.

At the nusery, we achieved many different tasks: potting, weeding, fencing and helped for the market (fill the truck, then empty the truck, then fill the truck, then empty the truck). The market experience was a lot of fun, eventhough we had to wake up at 3am to hit the road to Newcastle!

About the fencing thing, I also had a bit of a surprise! At first, fencing can sound like a lot of fun… but I guess I didn’t think the whole through! I didn’t realize that I would have to dig 60cm deep (and 1m in diameter) holes, and of course in a soil mostly made out of rocks… Hard but good for me (at least for my back and my arms)! Oh and I almost forgot… while fencing I had to kill my first snake with a shovel: a brown snake (OK it was a baby but still… it counts).

In the laboratory, we also did a few things. We helped them to prepare herbal tea, some pills and some face cream. It was fun! Plus they offered us some of the products we helped them prepare (Marie seems very happy about that!)

What we ate

This is where things are getting real! Yes, usually when you are WWOOFing you eat great food. But here we will have to tell you more about it. Bill & Jiliana are vegan which means they don’t eat any food that comes from animals (no meat, no milk, no eggs, etc.). You could say that it doesn’t sound very funky at all. But there are many ways to have very good meals without any of these animal products. In fact, we didn’t miss anything at all during this week (not even Ed!!!).

They also follow a specific diet which pay attention to the food combination that are good or not for your digestion. It’s a bit tricky to explain quickly, so we will let you make your own research on the subject.

Bill & Jiliana’s didn’t force us to follow their diet but we decided to give a try for a week. So we had to follow this unusual meals:
No breakfast (or a fruit juice only)
Only fruits and nuts for lunch (very yummy!!!)
Veggies and cereal for dinner

The “No breakfast” thing frightened us a little bit at the beginning but eventually we got used to it (even when working from 7am to 12am). We might think that a lunch with fruits only could be a bit boring. But you have to trust us, our hosts are very creative and manage to make a feist out of a fruit lunch: banana ice cream using frozen bananas only, muesli with nuts and dried fruits, a large variety of fruits, almond milk, etc. Everything home-made!

Very interesting diet! We will analyse the pros ans the cons of such diet on our way of living, but we will keep a few of their recipes and tips for sure!

Where we slept

This is the fun part of our stay at Bill & Jiliana’s (don’t get me wrong, everything was great but what’s following was very fun..). Right in the middle of their farm, at the top of a hill, stands a train carriage. And this is where we slept! We couldn’t really understand how they managed to bring it here but that’s not the point. It was AWESOME! Jiliana set her sewing workshop there and the accomodation for the WWOOFers. That was great to stay there. The view up there is great. Plus, goats and kangaroos were around to wake us up in the morning. Very exotic!

Here are a few pictures to illustrate this post:

We leave North Arm Cove tomorrow, where we wwoofed for 1 week at Philippa and Darral’s.

About 20 years ago, Philippa and Darral built the house in which we stayed. Darral designed the house himself by using pentagonal shapes and the golden number. The outcome is a rather unusual house without any right angle, but very comfortable to live in. The environment is also very pleasant! North Arm Cove is located by a river and very close to the ocean. We even have an amazing view on the cove from the house. We are still close to the bush which is good enough for our morning runs (sometimes with kangaroos!).

We mainly helped Philippa in the garden (weeding, collecting wood, pruning, etc.). Darral, who’s working in Sydney during the week spent the weekend with us. we helped him cleaning and organizing his shelter. The only annoying thing were the mozzies, well inplanted in the area! And unfortunately they seem to like our blood…

We had the chance to explore the area (Tea Gardens, Hawk’s Nest beach). And Philippa brought us to a game night organized by their community. We tried bowls, some kind of australian pétanque with balls that don’t roll straight… interesting! Once again the food was delicious! Philippa is a very good cook and made us try her homemade pesto, homemade hommus and some kangaroo meat (very tasty!).

Like we said, we leave tomorrow for another WWOOFing near Coolongolook, a bit up north from here. It will be our last WWOOFing before a touristic period. It has been almost one month that we are wwoofing now and we will be happy to do something else for a little while! Even if all of these experiences were great, it will be good to have a rest from WWOOFing.

Living with australian people is very interesting for us, espacially to learn more about australian culture and traditions. But living in someone else’s home also requiere to adapt each time we arrive in a new house. When you are used to live in your own house and being independant, it can be a bit tiring sometimes… And simply working in farms and gardens for almost one month is rather tiring when you are used to work in an office !

So, we are still enjoying WWOOFing but we will be glad to enjoy this little break from WWOOFing. Next time we will probably organize differently and try not to do 5 weeks of WWOOFing in a row!