wwoof!!!!

How to combine a stunning environment with an experience with local people?
Wwoofing!
After my good first experience with the happy t family it was time for me to travel seriously by myself, without relying on anybody.

The second woofer family had all the requirements to make me glad: firstly it was a winery….and it could have been enough since I’m wine lover (or without exaggerating, I do prefer wine to beer), fantastic environment, in middle of the nature, only hills, grass, cattle, vineyards, stars, insects and frogs.

My previous experience in the bush has actually helped me in dealing with insects like walking in the grass barefoot.
You know, when you are in the country you feel like you’re the guest of the nature and not the way round….in our normal life we’re probably used to kill the insects we just dislike, ants, mosquitos, flies, spiders and so on but when you’re far from the city you realized how the nature has survived so long without human beings and you don’t want to do anything that can affect it.
There was an interesting sign on a bench in the Sydney’s Royal botanic garden saying : ”The environment can do without people, but people can’t do without the environment” how true is it?!

Anyhow I had such a good time in the winery, that’s why I decided to stay longer than the original plan, so 2 weeks instead of 1. Probably from the people point of view I got more from the first family even if I worked harder and I wasn’t fed enough but I’ve seen so many good things, like how to raise kids making them respect the environment, without being maniac of the cleanness or how to deal with the lack of water or electricity. See the 1 year old baby playing in the mud, or the 9 years old daughters walking in the middle of the bush shoeless when it was dark were just few examples of what I meant.

In the winery life was easier, people were nice and kind, had such a good food and wine everyday…I was there with two English girls and we were actually part of their life: we went to a bbq, a birthday, we’ve been hosted by a chef in a near winery for a lunch…amazing life!
We tried to chase foxes as well, without any luck but was fun…and I learned so many things about wine…I had to come here in australia to learn how to make coffee and learn something about wine, can you believe it?

And the ast day I had a free wine tasting at Clovely, the biggest winery in Queensland (well Queensland is not best know for wine, but…whatever…) where Wally make me us taste 3 whites (Verdelho, Semillon and Chardonnay) a Rosé (nebbiolo vineyard) and 3 reds (Shiraz, Barolo and Merlot).
Wally is a funny old man with Russian background, we were at his son’s birthday, and his trying to grow his own nebbiolo vineyard “I bought a 150$ bottle in Italy and Clovely can do the same here so why shouldn’t I?!” Go wally!!!!

My third woofing experience is here, where I’m writing you from: Whitsundays coast.
When I landed with my flight I saw palms a the entrance of the airport track, waiting room outside, like a garden…that’s the holiday atmosphere you find when first arrive!
we’ve just survived to a cyclone, well fortunately the category 3 (that has become 4 meanwhile) hasn’t reach the area, but for 2 days everybody talked about this, the family who host me bought grocery for weeks and weeks (6 kilos and rice, loads of cans of meat, litres and litres of milk etc etc). This is what happens when the Cyclone comes…
I’m leaving in a boat…fuck yeah! Well I Expecte it to be in the sea, but finally it is a old one park in the garden, when I first arrived, it was dark and the boat outside is rusty and dirty…I was freaked out! But now I simply loved it, and when I moved into the house because of the cyclone, the normal bedroom seemed to me so boring…
The amazing thing here is…I can deal with my original phobia I had before coming to Australia :snakes.
On the way from the airport to home we stop a while and Darren show me something moving in the street, it was a snake crossing the road: it was the first one I saw not in captivity. Then second one has been the day after: I was moving some stuff with the wheels barrel in the garden and one balck- gold snake pass in front of me. Cool, my first one from that close!