WWOOF

Mt Burrell, originally uploaded by ibeepix.

Last monday I started my first wwoof experience. My hosts Rico and Tomo live on a beautiful piece of land with superb views of Mt Warning, Mt Burrell and the Border Ranges. On this big pice of land they have a house and 2 separate dwellings, a vegetable garden, a lush subtropical garden, a large piece of rain forrest and a few meadows for cows and horses. I stayed in one of the separate dwellings, 'the studio' and had my own balcony and hammock with ever changing views of Mt Burrell. As a wwoofer I was expected to work 4-5 hours a day and my work there was mainly pulling out weeds. Weeding here is on a totally different level from weeding at home though. It seems that almost every single plant that was introduced by the white man in Australia, like morning glory and blackberry bushes, has adjusted to this climate so well that it is growing like some kind of monster plant. Many of these plants look beautiful but threaten the survival of local plants. But I have to admit, working in a garden like this, even for only 4-5 hours a day is quite exhausting.
And as enchanting as this place may look, it is obviously not easy to live here. The area around here is known as a place with lots of alternative communities, many of them professing right livelihood, love and peace, but according to my hosts in reality it is more like a war zone. Apparently under the surface a lot of power games are being played. And it has disappointed my hosts so much they are considering to sell everything and move somewhere else.
The centre of the whole area is Nimbin, and that's where I am right now. Nimbin is a small village, a few hundred people live here. After Byron Bay, which used to be the alternative capital of Australia, turned more and more mainstream, commercial and touristy, a lot of the alternative people moved into the hinterland and some declared Nimbin to be the real alternative capital. My wwoof hosts called Nimbin the centre of the circus and compared it to a wild west town, and I can understand why. Nimbin is a very colorful little town, all the facades of the shops have these flower power murals and many of the people here are freaks and low lives (I'm sure there are some really nice people here too, but it seems that these communities with lots of freedom and no rules attract a lot of weird people) . They look like they are stuck in the 60's with their rainbow colored clothes and bare feet and for some reason it's very fashionable not to wash your hair for at least 2 months. It only takes 3 minutes to walk through the town, but you'll definitely be offered to buy weed at least 4 times. When the receptionist of the hostel I'm staying at showed me around the property he told me that 'off course people are going to smoke weed here, but we have a little space in the back where non-smokers can sit', which somehow sounded so surreal and completely wrong to me.
Anyway I'll be out of here as soon as possible as this is not really my scene. I was kind of stuck in Nimbin for 2 days because there was no public transport to Murwillumbah in the weekend, but tomorrow I'll be heading back to normality. It was interesting seeing Nimbin, but it has left me wondering if it is impossible to have an alternative community that is not stuck in the 60's or 70's, but lives in the now.

View of 'the studio' with Mt Warning, originally uploaded by ibeepix.

Murwillumbah

Saturday I took a bus from Brisbane to Murwillumbah, a little village in the Tweed valley, about 2 hours south of Brisbane. I'm staying at the YHA hostel here, and it's a really nice hostel. It's quite small, in an old house overlooking the river and Mount Warning. And the woman at the reception offered me a deal I couldn't refuse, I could stay here for free in exchange for sweeping the floor in the kitchen and wiping down the benches yesterday, and today I had to clean the bathroom and vacuum clean the hallway, all together about an hour's work. She said she already decided that she would offer me this exchange when she heard me on the phone the day before, apparently she liked my voice, ha ha. Anyway, this is great as it saved me about 58 Australian dollars :-)
Murwillumbah is a very quite little town. It seems al the shops are closed on saturday afternoon and sunday and there are only a few restaurants and cafe's and they all have very strange opening hours. There is a wonderful little place where they have thai food and pizzas, I think that's kind of a strange combination but nevertheless the red curry I had was possibly the best ever.
And this afternoon I'll take the bus to Twin Bridges, a stop in the mountains between Murwillumbah and Nimbin, where I will do some wwoofing. I will stay there for a week to begin with, maybe longer if it's really nice. I'm very curious how it will be.

Going WWOOFing

After almost a week in Brisbane I realise that this is not a place I want to stay for a long time. I tried getting I job here, but according to the recruitment office (a special one for graphic designers) they would not be able to get me a job because I don't have enough experience :-( (2 years is not enough). And since the city is not that great either, it's just big in the sense that there are a lot of buildings, but there are not many nice restaurants and shops and cultural things happening, I'm leaving.
I'm going south in the direction of Byron Bay. It's supposed to be the alternative lifestyle capital of Australia. It's also quite touristy, but there should be a lot of nice little towns in the area. I got myself a WWOOF-book (stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms) and there are lots of places around Byron Bay where I could stay for a while. When you wwoof you can stay at an organic farm / Community / retreat centre for free accommodation and food if you work 4-6 hours at the place. There are a lot of places in this area with owners that are into yoga, meditation and art. So I think it's a good way to meet some interesting people.
This morning I phoned one of the hosts and I'm going to go there this weekend. Tomorrow I'll take a bus to Murwillumbah, a village not too far from the farm, I'll stay there for a day in a hostel and the next day I'll go to the farm.I'll stay there fot a week to begin with and then I'll decide if I stay longer or not. I'm not sure if I'll have internet there, or any reception with my mobile phone. But I guess I'll be able to go to Nimbin once in a while to give you an update.