To WWOOF on an island near the great barrier reef sounds nice, don’t you think? We do. So this is what we did! And we don’t regret it, it was another great experience.
Maggie island
A month ago, we didn’t even know about Magnetic Island. This island is facing Townsville (where we did our last WWOOFing) and is not so far from the great barrier reef.
Here the climate is sub-tropical, the vegetation and the weather are really different from the south-east part of the country. National parks are covering a big part of the island, lots of beautiful beaches, and also nice forest with a very rich fauna and flora. This time, we met nice spiders, koalas, lizards and once again a whole bunch of colorful birds! Didn’t get the chance to meet snakes and rock wallabies which also live on the island.
What we especially liked about Magnetic Island is that it is less touristic than all the cities and islands where we have been so far.
Our hosts : Rodrigo, Shereene and Ishtar
We spent one week at Rodrigo, Shereene and Ishtar’s (their daughter). Rodrigo was born in Mozambic and lived in a lot of different countries since : Mozambic, Portugal, Macau, Australie. He also travelled a few times around the world. Our trip around Australie didn’t really impressed him, but he knows what it is for having done it himself. Shereene, his wife, is australian, has polynesian origins and is a wonderful cook. Her leitmotiv would be: “Why buy what you can do yourself”. So yes it takes more time, but the outcome is just delicious… and very healthy !
About our job as WWOOFers, as Rodrigo and Shereene do not own a farm but a lovely house with a beautiful garden, we helped them in this garden. We also cut bamboos to build a fence and did another big wooden fence at the back of their garden.
We really enjoyed our time there with them, discussing about cooking, travels (and they did a lot), family, etc. We even had the chance to sit around a fire in their garden playing (at least learning…) Didgeridoo and djumbe which Rodrigo is very good at. Apologies to the neighbours because I must say that I still have to practice Didgeridoo… Rodrigo also practices meditation every morning. Also very interesting to talk about.
So once again, we met lovely people and learned a lot of interesting things!