In 2015 Antony and I were hosts on the site www.helpx.net where we had the pleasure of hosting a few overseas travellers. They cleaned all our windows and helped with weeding the garden when we couldn’t keep on top of it and in return we gave them a nice place to stay and food to eat. Wwoofing is very common in New Zealand but is mostly for those wanting to help on farms. Helpx and the similar site www.workaway.info are not as well known but are broader in scope and possibility for the volunteer. You could for example sail in the Mediterranean cooking gourmet meals for the luxury yacht’s owner (and yourself), speak English with a family in Poland wanting to learn or practice their language skills, pick olives in Italy or work at a restaurant on an Iranian island in the Persian Gulf (we did this!)
We enjoyed hosting the few volunteers that came our way in 2015 and decided to have a go at helping rather than hosting as we explored the North Island. We helped Peter in Wanganui and Nicki & Jarrod in New Plymouth with their gardens and Tim in the Coromandel mostly with painting. We did our own food (given that a gluten free vegan (almost) is tricky for others to cater for… we also had half a kitchen in the car boot). This meant we didn’t work as many hours as one normally would.
Host Peter in his backyard, Wanganui
Weeding Peter’s front garden
Completed Compost Bin Project, New Plymouth
Weeding, New Plymouth
Host Tim, Karuna Falls Community, Coromandel
Painting Windows for Tim, Coromandel
The last and longest workaway placement was at Te Henga studios at Bethell’s Beach, an eco artsy retreat centre. It was such a wonderful place to stay and the work ranged from laundry, cleaning rooms, creating drains and even installing a porn blocker on their wifi!
Te Henga
Te Henga sculpture in foyer
Our room, Te Henga
The highlight for me was that during our stay there was a poetry evening in the yurt- where a wonderful performance poet recited ancient Persian poetry- from Hafez and Rumi – as well as other contemporary poets. It was such a wonderful evening, with others sharing their own poetry too- my heart was so full of joy and delight. I look forward to reading more of these Iranian poets- and one day hopefully in the language they were written in. Something quite transcendent about their words and ideas about love, spirituality and life. Very, very cool. There were some places of stunning natural beauty in the general vicinity of Te Henga, see more here.
Poetry evening in the Yurt, Te Henga
Workawaying not only saves you money on accommodation but it enables you to meet some great people, learn about their lives, passions, businesses, travels, dreams, gardens etc. We definitely recommend this – even in your own country it can be really worthwhile!