I recently signed up to be part of the New Zealand Wwoofing (willing workers on organic farms) community and within a few days had arranged my first stay. The idea behind wwoofing is that a volunteer will stay with a host on their organic farm, working in exchange for food and accommodation and providing a great way of gaining hands on experience of organic farming. Although some experiences have moved away from this initial idea, (there now also being non organic farms, or other completely different jobs such as au pair work or cleaning the house) I pleased that was able to find a truly organic farming experience in the beautiful location of Taranaki.

Daniela, my host, picked me up from the bus station in Waitara (the farm’s nearest town) and drove me the fifteen minute journey to the farm. As she had to rush off to pick up her daughter, she left me with Cece, another wwoofer who had been at the farm for eight weeks. I was first shown to my room, which was part of an outhouse building for wwoofers. This turned out to be two spacious rooms with a sink, a bookshelf, table, couch and two beds in the front room and four beds, a table and room to spare in the back. As there were currently only two of us all of this space was to be mine, I couldn’t believe my luck. Not only that, but the farm itself was within glorious rolling green surroundings. From the back of the main house it was possible to enjoy a landscape garden leading out to farm fields, often housing cattle or sheep.

Wwoofers’ House

Within the first thirty minutes of me arriving it was straight to work, sorting a bag of macadamia nuts. During my two weeks there I learnt a lot about the nut farming process, finally understanding why they are such a luxury expensive product!

The nut trees take ten to fifteen years once planted to flower and then there is another ten months until the nuts are ready to be collected. From here the nuts are sorted into six different sizes, bagged and dehydrated to 10% hydration. Nuts are then fed through a machine, one size at a time, where bad nuts are removed from batches with the remaining being bagged and put into a chiller.

Once they are ready to use the nuts then need to be cracked, after which good nuts sorted are from the shells and any remaining bad nuts. This needs to be done for each size separately as the cracking machine has to be altered according to size.

Nuts are then washed in salt water and baked at 60°C for ten minutes to adhere to food safety standards (they would be left in the oven for longer to produce roasted nuts). These would then be sorted through and separated depending on the quality and size of the nut, made into products such as macadamia milk or butter, snack bars or bagged nuts. All of this work needs to be carried out through timely labour or costly machines and means I will never again complain about the price of nuts!

Other work I was involved in whilst on the farm was digging up and bringing in corn, carrots and beetroots from the vegetable patch. Then helping to sort and prepare these for the weekend markets. I also became a master at attacking weeds with a hoe, helping to create a new large compost area in the garden.

I was impressed to see very little waste was produced at the house, with little to no packaging as most food we ate was produced on the farm. This food was then reused as compost, creating a self sustaining cycle.

Most of my two weeks was spent on the farm, though I did manage to see a little of the local area through various day trips. My first weekend there I joined Daniela at the market in New Plymouth, helping to set up her stall before taking a wander around the town. This was a fairly small coastal community, boasting some amazing and creative street art.

Hanna, another wwoofer, joined us for the second week and the three of us managed a couple of trips out exploring. The first was to the local town of Waitara. We managed to hitch a ride most of the way there and then took a walk along the river to Waitara Marine Park, where the river met the Tasman sea and there was a small, but beautiful, black sand beach.

Our second trip was to be to the White Cliff Coastal Walk, so named after the White Cliffs of Dover. After walking a good 40 minutes we finally hitched a lift from a guy in a truck, Hanna riding in the back with three dead possums… From there we seemed to run out of luck, waiting in several different spots along the main road for nearly two hours in total, not a single car stopped for us. We did take a quick walk to a nearby caravan park, which hid a secluded black sand beach, the small area enclosed by deep orange cliff walls.

As we began our walk back home we spotted a sign for a winery, which we were disheartened to find was closed, so instead walked down to another beach, this one decorated with large grey boulders. Deciding to try and hitch to Waitara to feel like we had made something of our way, all plans were forgotten when we found the winery now open and settled in for a couple of hours to enjoy beer, food, coffee and WiFi.

I had a great time at the farm, really developing my knowledge of organic life and of farming, not to mention enjoying the incredible organic vegan meals Daniela always provided for us. I definitely hope to do some more Wwoofing during my time in New Zealand.