Wwoofing in Blenheim, Marlborough

What a fun, interesting and exciting time we’ve had wwoofing with the Speedy family in Blenheim…

Chris, wwoofer

Steph, wwoofer

New Zealand’s Wwoof organisation has six aims and I can safely say that we have fulfilled three of them during our stay in Blenheim:

* to enable town-dwellers to experience living and working on a farm

* to show alternative ways of life

* to meet interesting people and make useful contacts

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* to help develop confidence in becoming self sufficient

A fourth, above, almost made it onto the list but, the town/city-dwellers that we are, Chris and I realise we’ve got a lot more to learn about growing things and working in the garden before we come anywhere near to gaining confidence in self-sufficiency.

We’ve spent the last few weeks learning about growing wine, looking after sheep, cows, an extensive vegetable garden, how to pickle excessive amounts of courgettes, collect firewood and make bread. And I’ve enjoyed every second of it. I’ve loved working outdoors, feeling the sun beat down and the fresh, breeze blow through the dramatic, golden hills. I’ve loved going on long (-ish!) walks and running after sheep. Blenheim is reputed to be the sunniest town in the whole of New Zealand, hence it is an ideal location for growing wine. We had only one rainy day during our whole stay (and boy, did it rain on this day!) so it really does live up to its reputation.

Vineyard work:

The majority of our wwoofing work involved the vineyard and included clipping and pruning the vines back and stapling the nets together. There were two other wwoofers there when we arrived; Paulina from Finland and Elke from Belgium. Paulina left a few days after we arrived but Elke stayed for the duration of our stay. It was great to have other wwoofers there as it was a lot more fun - we got along especially well with Elke who’s so laid back, it’s untrue - and also…it stopped us bickering as much! Yes, we have learned that our different working styles aren’t always aligned and do encourage us to bicker about how we should go about doing something - Kt, I am reminded of our short-lived career as factory workers when we were 15/16: all we did was bicker about the best way we should be fitting a mattress, building a bed and loading a lorry. No wonder we were sacked after two days!

Andy showing us what he needed on the vines

Chris’s insistence that we watch Westside Story on our one rainy day in Blenheim led myself and Elke to slight giddiness as we proceeded to Westside-Story-it-up in the vines. One of our jobs was to run up and down the vines making as much noise as possible to scare away the birds - David would have preferred it had we caught the birds and…well, killed them… but this was a little much for us. Instead, we brought music to the vines and the hills truly were alive…

Pickling and making preserves:

One of our rainy day activities was to pickle the oversupply of courgettes from the garden and by the end we had jars and jars of the stuff. This was one of my jobs when I wwoofed in Corsica so I had done it once before but I still can’t get over how much water you can get out of a courgette. Amazing.

It’s a dream of mine to one day have a vegetable garden like Pam and David’s and have so many vegetables that we’re forced to pickle them as we have too many to eat. I’d love that.

One evening when David came home from work he took us down to his peach trees where we collected three crates of peaches for preserving later in the week.

Herding Sheep:

During the week when David and Pam were at work (David is a high-school teacher, Pam a social worker) we were left to our own devices. But my favourite times wwoofing were at the weekends when David was around to show us the ropes and prove how ‘towny’ we really are.

Early morning on our first Saturday we were taken to the land at the back of the house which is mainly forested with pine trees. David had lost his sheep. The shearer was arriving at 2pm so we were taken on a mission to find them. After spotting a few up the mountain we were allocated positions at various points on the hill and told to clap our hands and make noise. “If my friends could see me now” was certainly one of the thoughts that went through my head as I stood alone in the forest making strange noises and clapping. Nuts, it was. But such fun. David drove us all the way round the back of the property, a drive that took around 30 minutes and we were still on his land. Elke said, “Wow, I can’t imagine ever being able to say “This is my land” about such an area”. Imagine. It truly is beautiful here and the scenery is just gorgeous. What a dream to live here.

Eventually, after a lot of shouting, clapping and wandering semi-aimlessly and alone through the pine forests, we managed to herd about 9 sheep round for the shearer but there were still a good number round the back. We left them for another day and went to watch the shearing.

Logging:

After lunch on the ‘Day of the Lost Sheep’ we were to help David collect pine wood for winter. As David hacked the branches off with his chainsaw, our job was to carry it over to the trailer. I was taught how to tie a knot around a fallen tree trunk that is sufficient enough to hold while the tree is dragged by the truck. Good stuff. I also learned that trees become a lot lighter when they have been dead a year - I guess I may have known this already but it only really hit my why this is: all the sap and moisture has drained away, you see.

Hard Labour:

Various other wwoofing jobs:

washing windows

building fences

Clearing paths...

Path before...

Path after...

Have we become more confident in living rurally and outdoor jobs? Hardly. We’re getting there, but we’ve got a long way to go to learning about self-sufficiency. I believe that if there were to be a world disaster which eradicated many things that we‘re used to - food, clean water, housing - David, Pam and their family (as well as Rob Cloughly and his family, our previous hosts) are the kind of people who could survive it. Many New Zealanders could, I’m sure. They're resourceful, practical and, to me, brave. Town people like me and Chris, the post-war generations, would dwindle away, having no idea what kind of vegetation is edible or how to even begin to live self-sufficiently. It’s a shame that this has happened to us, I think. I’m sure our grandparents and generations before them would have been great at the kind of ‘survival’ I’m talking about. This is something I hope to change, even if I only start with a little vegetable garden. Let’s just hope there’s no global disaster in our lifetimes!