Wwoofing - Mooral Creek, near Wingham

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For those of you who do not yet know what wwoofing is, it's full title is - Willing Workers on Organic Farms or WWOOF, if you take part you are discribed as a wwoofer. What happens is this, as a wwoofer Leanne & I would work for 4-6 hours per day in exchange for food and lodging at the place of work. When you join the organisation they give you a book with a discription of the host, the work and the contact details and if we liked it we would organise a visit. Well thats you lot brought up to speed, now for our experiences, and lets be honest, thats what you really logged on for isn't it?

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The property was a 100 acre 'hobby farm', it had a variety of animals; chickens, ducks, cows, pigs and guinea fowl. Our hosts Mary & Roger were from South Africa and were very kind and hospitable. Our accomodation was a small room with a single bed for the two of us shared also with a family of mice, one of which decided to introduce itself in the early hours of the morning, much to Leanne's shock at feeling a small animal scurrying in the bed and my surprise at Leanne screaming in the middle of the night, but there were no casualties. The house itself was small 100 year old wooden house, there were gaps in many places where the wood had contorted over its long life which were described by the hosts as the ventilation, but it was pleasant and comfortable. Our main duties consisted of feeding the animals, weeding (not british style, australian weeding is like tree felling or bush cutting), we cleaned the vehicles, made a gate for the chicken pen, a new mail box and fixed the dvd player.

In the week we were taken to a place called Wingham Brush. In the 1970's the local community there decided to restore an area of overgrown vegitation back to native forest. The results are astounding. The area itself is about 500x500 metres and there is an elavated foot path to walk around. Amazingly the area has become a habitat for 'Flying Foxes' or Fruit Bats and there current population is approximatly 600,000. This is truly incredible, as there are bats on every branch of every tree in the place.

On the weekend, our hosts after seeing the good work we had performed all week, left us with the farm to look after all the animals while they had the chance to visit family for a birthday celebration. This was a great honour for us, to look after these animals and we had a lovely time.

All in all a great introduction to wwoofing.