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: