The crossing from Wellington was for us a blessed relief as the, albeit grand, city had been a draining experience.  We had spent 5 hours in a hospital waiting room for my knee to be seen and Cesca to have her toe looked at.  They say that you should really try and get off the beaten track in the countries you visit, but I say there is no way better of understanding a people than by being caught in the gears of their bureaucracy.  Nothing I said to the lady in the hospital helped speed anything up.  Of course we were hardly bleeding to death on the floor but when I gently inquired – after 2 hours of waiting – what the suspected total wait would be she informed me that she had not even put us in the system yet.  Anyway, when the doctor did arrive she was magnificent and I got my knee X-Rayed within 10 minutes. 

Not surprisingly then we wanted a break from city life and boy did we find it.

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Stokes Bay’s incredible “hidden” beach

Kangaroo Island is my favourite place out of the whole of Australia.  That this holds true after our experience of WWOOFing here just goes to show that the beauty of this island is unsurpassed by anything else OZ has to offer, and that, on the other hand, our experience wasn’t really as bad as all that.

WWOOF stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms and is a way of getting around the fact that one may not have a work visa.  The nature of the whole enterprise is “exchange“, where the “willing” “exchange” their “work” for free board and food.  That is a lot of high concepts for WWOOF to hold up, so perhaps it is better to say that while WWOOFers aren’t supposed to have any specific skills they are also not supposed to use their host for free accommodation.  Freeloading, the WWOOFing guide says, is not in the spirit of the adventure.  To become a WWOOFer one simply purchases a membership book for AUS$25, which acts as membership card, list of hosts in that country and a set of guidelines for the scheme.

The main guideline is simple.  Half a days work for a full days board.

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