Current Location:Kerikeri, Aotearoa
After a few days in Kerikeri trying to find a wwoofing gig I was about to give up as every place I called or emailed came back with a reply that things were full which was pretty disheartening. I actually got to the point where I figured there were too many Germans wwoofing for me to find anything in this area so I was about to hit the road and make it to Whakatane. Fortunately I got an email the morning I was to leave that a spot had opened up on a farm down the road so that’s where I find myself these next few weeks.
I’m hosted by Alex and Miranda, a kiwi and a dutch (respectively.) There’s also another wwoofer here from the UK, Jack, who has just arrived in New Zealand. The first day that I arrived we quickly got to work and finished up the day, for our evening entertainment we went and did some possum control, read hunting possums. It was a lot of fun, we walked through the bush with our headlamps looking for the possums to stare back at us at which point we take some pot shots at them with the .22 or Alex would give em hell with a shotgun. We ended the night after putting down a total of 4 and one injured. Possums here are quite a pest that kill a lot of the native flora and fauna. Common control methods usually involve 1080, a poison, which New Zealand consumes 80% of the worlds supply of 1080. It’s a highly contested control method due to second kill effects. Hopefully at some point the use of it ends or is greatly reduced.
After a few days on the farm we got to go for a cruise and try our hand at fishing on Alexs yacht. Being in the bay of islands is probably the perfect place to go sailing at this time of year as we have had perfect weather. We managed to catch only a little bait fish so we ended the day just having a good time cruising around the bay a bit. We got the boat out of the water now and have spent the last several days sanding it down and getting it cleaned up so we can repaint it.
This would be the first real commercial farm I’ve gotten to work on so it’s an interesting perspective than the other farms that I’ve wwoofed on but the work is nice and hard and the playing is also a lot of fun. This weekend we get to dock lambs and ride some horses around the farm, should be lots of fun.
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