Dustin and I spent our second week in New Zealand wwoofing on Waiheke island. For the uninitiated newbies (because clearly Dustin and I are experts), wwoof stands for willing workers on organic farms or worldwide opportunities on organic farms. The gist is that you volunteer three to five hours per day, in exchange for room and board, and some friendly conversation. It’s a good situation for the person or farmer who needs a hand, and a nice way to experience someplace new for travelers and volunteers.

Since one of our goals is to meet people and engage in conversation beyond “where’s the bus stop?,” it seemed perfect (if possibly a bit like cheating, since it’s not serendipitous. But hey, we thought it was clever.) It feels similar to AirBnB, where we could intentionally put ourselves in the way of friendly folks who wanted to share their little slice of the world, and learn a bit about ours.**

We contacted several hosts on Waiheke, a little last minute, and got a response from Simon saying he had work for four or five days. If we weren’t city folk*, we were welcome to “rock on over.”  It sounded like a great opportunity to us, especially as it was our only opportunity, so we grabbed ferry tickets and headed to the island.

Waiheke is only 35 minutes from downtown Auckland, but felt a world apart; it’s an idyllic little island once you have the chance to look around. At first though, as we were taking the bus out to Simon’s (and hoping the bus driver remembered to let us know when to get off), I was slightly concerned that it was going to be too overdeveloped, and that the photos we’d seen beforehand were misleading. The bus first drives through Oneroa, which was a small town with lots of shops and restaurants, giving the impression that the whole of the island would be like Hampton Beach on a busy summer day, just without the arcade. It turns out there was no reason to worry; it was truly that couple of blocks, and the rest of the island was covered in vineyards, grassy hills, and mostly deserted beaches.

The congenial bus driver did in fact alert us to our stop, and we hopped out on the side of Onetangi road, looking for Simon’s place. As we walked up the drive, Simon came out and greeted us with a firm handshake and hearty hello. We dropped our bags in the “wwoofers hilton” (our home-away-from-home for the next several days), and Simon gave us a quick tour of the property. A bit later on after we had settled in, at beer o’clock we joined him on his man deck (the Kiwi version of a man cave) for an IPA and casual conversation. Over some of his homebrew, we talked about where we’re from; cricket and Simon’s lack of interest, though his son Freeman loves it; motorcycles and an upcoming trip to the states that Simon and some friends will be doing, riding all across the US (we heartily recommended going through the Adirondacks); and the magic of homebrewing – Simon said that Dustin’s a “born brewer,” which I find slightly concerning – we don’t really have space to expand his operation. So far, our experiment of putting ourselves in the way of folks to meet them was going swimmingly, and we hadn’t even pulled a single weed yet.

Wwoofer’s Hilton at Simon’s farm

Simon’s veggie garden 

A fine example of a man deck

*Simon recently had two American wwoofers that didn’t quite fit, and were terribly put off by the long drop, outdoor shower, and bugs. He was concerned we’d be a bit…fussy, but after five days, we had restored his faith in American wwoofers.

**I think working for an open source company and being around many sharing economy enthusiasts has colored my view of things like AirBnB, Uber, and wwoofing. It helped put me in a very receptive mindset to such things, and possibly a bit more appreciative of them. It’s also taught me that to keep the ecosystem going, feedback is important, and so I’ve diligently left reviews each time we’ve stayed with someone or wwoofed.