Part I: Oceania

Willing Workers and the Storm on Kangaroo Island

Not all adventures involve movement; some are about digging in, literally and figuratively. Kangaroo Island was about to test both our resilience and our sense of humour.

Kangaroo Island. Even now, despite everything, the name conjures a feeling of deep affection. The scent of the bush after rain, the sight of kangaroos grazing in the early morning light. It remains my favourite place in all of Australia. That this statement holds true even after our WWOOFing experience there speaks volumes—partly about the island’s truly staggering, soul-soothing beauty, which manages to transcend almost anything, and partly, perhaps, that the experience itself wasn’t quite the unmitigated disaster it sometimes felt like at the time. Mostly.

For the uninitiated, WWOOF stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms. It’s pitched as a kind of cultural exchange, a clever workaround for those lacking the coveted work visa. The core idea is exchange—Willing Workers offer their time and labour (work) in exchange for room and board from their organic farm host. A noble concept, resting on slightly shaky pillars of goodwill and mutual understanding. Stripped bare, it means unpaid labour, hopefully balanced by not starving and having somewhere dry to sleep. There are guidelines, of course. WWOOFers aren’t expected to be skilled tradespeople, but equally, they shouldn’t just treat the host as a free hostel with chores attached. “Freeloading,” the official handbook solemnly declares, “is not in the spirit of the adventure.” The main practical guideline, the one supposedly underpinning the entire system: half a day’s work for a full day’s board. Remember that line. It becomes important later.

Becoming a WWOOFer is simple enough: buy the membership book for your chosen country (AUS$25 in our case), which serves as your ID, directory of hosts, and rulebook. Picking a host, however, is where the complexity creeps in. Each host gets a mere paragraph to sell their farm and outline potential tasks. The result often reads less like a job description, more like a slightly desperate lonely-hearts ad: downplaying the backbreaking labour while waxing lyrical about rustic accommodation and bonus extras like fishing trips or dolphin sightings. You peruse these entries acutely aware that many hosts are located in the absolute back end of nowhere, miles from anywhere, leaving you utterly reliant on their goodwill and transport. Horror stories circulate on the backpacker grapevine—tales of spider-infested caravans offered in exchange for dawn-to-dusk toil under a merciless sun. We heard a few grim accounts heading up the coast—the guy stuck shovelling manure twelve hours a day for weeks. They lingered in the back of my mind as we scanned the possibilities. My modern solution? Only consider hosts with a website. Surely, anyone savvy enough to maintain a decent website wouldn’t turn out to be a banjo-playing antagonist from Deliverance? Eventually, our list narrowed to two. The first politely informed us they’d “used their budget for WWOOFers” (an interesting concept for unpaid labour). Which left us with a wildlife sanctuary, on Kangaroo Island. I dialled Dave’s number, hoping his pleasant phone voice wasn’t just another part of the sell. We set a date to arrive in Kingscote, the main town, and left it at that. Hindsight, that cruellest of editors, suggests 90% of our subsequent difficulties might have been avoided by asking more pointed questions during that call. Obvious things, yes—accommodation, food arrangements—but the crucial question, the one I now mentally tattoo onto my forehead for future reference: “Exactly how many hours constitutes ‘half a day’ in your particular interpretation of the WWOOFing bible?” I will definitely ask next time.

The ferry crossing from the mainland was rough, the sea churning under a sky threatening persistent rain. Still, my mood was buoyant, and I hummed happily to myself. I genuinely wanted this to work, so I looked out to sea while imagining muddy boots, satisfying work under an open sky, the simple rhythm of farm life. I wanted to truly embrace the WWOOFing exchange, the WWOOFing spirit. We arrived on KI to find it drenched. A small shuttle bus collected us, then proceeded to race through the dark, wet night towards Kingscote at speeds Douglas Adams would likely classify as significantly exceeding R17 (that theoretical velocity consistent with continued physical and mental wellbeing). As I clung white-knuckled to my seat, the driver, apparently sensing our impending destination, cheerfully filled us in on the local gossip regarding Dave’s Sanctuary. Recent WWOOFers had passed through. One young girl, apparently, hadn’t taken to it. “Hated it,” the driver elaborated unnecessarily. “Said she ‘had to go home.'” Ah, the universal WWOOFer escape code, the polite fiction masking a desperate need to flee. An ominous sign. Sensing my renewed unease, the driver added brightly, “Hope you like snakes, mate! Dave’s got a big one!”

I managed a weak smile. “Love snakes,” I lied. “Just… hope he hasn’t got any spiders.” Small favours.

We hurtled on. Kangaroo Island, it turns out, boasts precisely zero nightlife, at least of the human variety. We were deposited on an empty, rain-slicked street in Kingscote. The driver, perhaps regretting his earlier snake-related wind-up, pointed out the nearest pub (“Just in case Dave’s late”) wished us luck, turned his bus around, and vanished back into the night at warp speed, leaving us feeling distinctly abandoned in the damp darkness. Thankfully, Dave arrived barely a minute later.

Dave, like everyone else on KI it seemed, drove fast. His car, however, was warm, clean, and blessedly snake-free. I began to relax again. This would be fine. En route, we stopped briefly while Dave expertly dug up a termite nest (“white ants”)—apparently gourmet fare for the echidnas he kept. Lesson number one absorbed. He explained his situation: family currently stuck on the mainland tending to a gravely ill relative. He needed to keep his businesses running (the wildlife park, the accommodation), hence, he still needed us WWOOFers. He’d actually stopped using WWOOFers years ago, he mentioned, but restarted after a near-fatal bite from a Tiger Snake left him weaker, more easily tired. Listening to this, I remember thinking, if this was him weaker, then he must have possessed superhuman energy levels beforehand. We finally arrived at our home for the next fortnight: clifftop cabins. A sigh of relief passed between us, and any lingering anxieties about substandard accommodation evaporated instantly. Stunning. Simply stunning. Perched on cliffs overlooking a north?coast bay, the view across the water towards the mainland was breathtaking. The huts themselves were brilliant—self-contained studio style, combined kitchen/living area, lovely bathroom, comfy double bedroom. After months of roughing it in hostels and questionable guesthouses, the sheer unexpected luxury left me momentarily speechless. I just grinned at Cesca, a wide, stupid grin of pure delight. Dave, seeing our reaction, smiled himself.

“Right then. Pick you up at 10:30 tomorrow morning.”

We slept soundly, dreaming not of spiders or snakes, but of comfort. Morning revealed the full glory of the location. Kangaroos dotted the grounds like furry, bouncing garden ornaments—dozens of them grazing peacefully in the soft light. Bliss.

Dave collected us bang on 10:30. The short drive to his place took us up winding, typically terrible KI roads to his property, sprawled across the hilltop. Dry-stone walls snaked endlessly. A long drive led past the public sanctuary area towards the large, half-finished house commanding panoramic views along the coastline. Dave’s Sanctuary felt like one man’s monumental, possibly lifelong, battle against entropy. Every stone in the hundreds of metres of dry-stone walling, he’d placed himself. All the work on the ambitious, still-skeletal house—his own hands. The scale was daunting. Years already invested, yet completion felt perpetually distant, hampered by setbacks like falling trees damaging the roof. The public sanctuary area was in better shape. Large enclosures and aviaries surrounded a central viewing courtyard. Recent storm damage had felled a few trees, adding to the general air of ‘work in progress’. Our first few days were largely spent clearing this up, starting with sweeping the yard. I don’t mind sweeping; it’s meditative, mind-numbing work, and allows time for contemplation (mostly about when the sweeping will end, but still). This prep was for the ‘tours’ Dave ran on alternate days. He adopted a specific persona for these—a higher-pitched, relentlessly chirpy bonhomie that seemed to charm the tourists but felt distinctly different from his usual, more reserved manner. Even though it was winter, the brief two-hour opening window drew a steady stream of visitors, fifteen or more most days.

Tour prep involved wrangling animals from the main holding pen into the viewing area—kangaroos, sheep, a calf, and the alpaca. Ah, the alpaca. A magnificent beast, tall and haughty, who took an instant, visceral dislike to me. While the kangaroos hopped obligingly and the sheep trotted along, the alpaca would plant its feet, fix me with a look of profound disdain, and refuse to budge.

“Come on!” I’d urge.

It would draw itself up to its full six-foot height, perhaps flare its nostrils, and then unleash a startlingly aggressive, thankfully ‘dry’, spit in my general direction. Having once seen a camel score a direct hit with a volley of cud the size of a golf ball, I treated this threat with respect, ducking and weaving. This spitting ritual continued daily for two weeks, until the alpaca apparently decided spitting wasn’t working and escalated to attempting to actually eat me. Mutual antipathy defined our relationship.

Once the menagerie was assembled, Dave would admit the tourists, hand out buckets of feed, and chaos would ensue as kangaroos, sheep, and the demonic alpaca swarmed the visitors. Highly amusing to watch. Dave would then lead the tour around the enclosures—pigs, ponies, deer, emus, peacocks, various ducks, parrots, two koalas snoozing high in their branches, two shy echidnas, and a kookaburra trained to laugh on cue. The finale involved bringing out the ‘specials’: a six-foot, non-venomous Carpet Python (magnificent creature, I loved handling him, watching guests recoil then tentatively touch) and a cute but surprisingly tough possum, swaddled in cloth to protect visitors from its claws, munching contentedly on almonds. My job soon included fetching the python before each tour. One morning, a bright young child, being gently prompted by his parents, asked me where I had got the python from?

“I don’t know,” I replied, and then, spying Dave nearby asked him the child’s question.

“Oh… I found that under the house one day,” he answered, in that Australian way of disdaining nature’s dangers.

The large snake, wrapped with muscularity around my neck, its head trying to enter my back jeans pocket, quietly hissed. Dave picked up on my sudden discomfort.

“Don’t worry,” he said to the child, but really for my benefit, “it’s only ever eaten dead animals, so as long as you don’t act too much like a mouse, you’ll be fine!” He winked.

Some animals had… personalities. One parrot detested all men, erupting into furious squawks whenever I approached. Another, a large white Galah, conceived a particular hatred for Cesca, slowly climbing down from its perch whenever she entered its aviary to stalk her menacingly, launching periodic attacks until she retreated, whereupon it would mount guard by the door, glaring. Highly amusing, until a different parrot took exception to me and nearly removed a finger.

The kangaroos, though, were pure joy. Every other morning, we’d feed the wild ones up near the north?coast bay, watching them emerge cautiously from the bush to nibble the oats we scattered. Even the semi-tame ones at Dave’s Sanctuary were incredibly gentle, soft to pat. One cold, damp afternoon, I found myself cuddling up to a large male for warmth, burying my face in his surprisingly soft fur. Amazing creatures. How does Australia support such large herbivores in the wild? Lack of serious predators, I suppose?

That first day felt long, but we chalked it up to settling in. Dave offered us a beer, introduced us to the farm’s battle-scarred Ute—our transport for the next two weeks. Its passenger window was permanently missing, requiring strategic parking against walls each night to keep the rain out. The incessant winter rain, an English summer transplanted, became a recurring theme, forcing frequent retreats to the Ute, angled carefully against the wind. Idyllic? Parts of it, yes. The location was paradise, the animals fascinating (mostly). The good times—cuddling kangaroos, watching tourist reactions to the snake, the sheer beauty of the place—were very good indeed. But the bad times … they were grindingly frustrating, often exacerbated by bad luck and Dave’s variable moods.

The core problem emerged quickly: Dave’s managerial philosophy seemed rooted in the assumption that WWOOFers possessed the innate practical competence of newborn lambs. Every task, from raking leaves to the scientifically correct way to shovel manure, to carrying branches, had a specific, Dave-approved method, deviation from which elicited sighs, head shakes, or outright correction. It felt like micro-management raised to an art form, which I perceived to be bordering on the obsessive. Actually, micro-management isn’t the right word; it felt more like being subjected to a constant, wearying critique of one’s very existence, punctuated by the sound of shovelled shit hitting a wheelbarrow with suboptimal trajectory. Compounding this was the near-total absence of positive feedback. After another sigh from Dave and a minute adjustment to how I held the shovel, I caught Cesca’s eye. She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of her head, her shoulders slumped. We genuinely tried, working hard, aiming for efficiency, but “thank you” or “well done” were apparently not in his vocabulary. Just a low-level grumbling dissatisfaction that, by the halfway point, had seriously eroded our morale, and likely his too.

Then there were the hours. That simple WWOOFing guideline—half a day’s work? Utterly disregarded. We routinely worked from 10:30 am, with a short lunch break, until 6, 7, sometimes 8 pm. We felt that this was not exchange; but a full-time job without pay. And the work itself? A mixed bag:

The Good: Feeding animals (especially a tiny, orphaned lamb needing bottle-feeding), assisting with tourist horse rides, the chaotic fun of rounding up two escaped emus (tempered by finding that one later died, presumably of fright).

The OK: Burning massive piles of fallen timber, erecting plastic fencing around paddocks, wielding a chainsaw (until I broke it, then fixed it, then cut down the wrong limb due to unclear instructions), packing wool into giant bags, planting trees in freezing winds near a north?coast bay (hands numb despite gloves), collecting specific eucalyptus leaves for the perpetually sleepy koalas.

The Ugly: Endless stone-picking from fields, hauling heavy building rocks from one end of the vast property to the other, mixing and carrying buckets of concrete (Cesca became worryingly proficient), clearing paddocks of naturally occurring tree stumps, changing tyres on the Ute (three punctures in two weeks thanks to the terrible roads and worn rubber).

The Terrible: Brush cutting. Hours spent deep in the bush, gathering prickly brush for fence-making, bundling it tightly (aiming for a bale every six minutes!), hands raw and bleeding by day’s end. Then hauling those heavy, awkward bundles back to the Ute, and with each heavy bundle of brush hoisted, a sharp, stabbing pain shot through my left knee, a familiar, unwelcome echo of an old injury protesting the strain until it was screaming in protest.

Limping back to the hut after one particularly brutal session, my hands raw and bleeding from cleaning a chainsaw, Cesca looked at me, her patience finally snapping.

“Darling, I can’t do this anymore,” she pleaded. “Let’s just leave!”

On more than one occasion, Cesca pleaded with me like this. Dave’s vague instructions followed by frustrated corrections when we inevitably misinterpreted them were wearing her down. But I wanted to see it through. I felt a reluctant sympathy for Dave—alone on this huge, demanding property, his family absent dealing with illness, juggling multiple businesses with only two inexperienced helpers. He was clearly tired, stressed, lonely, maybe grieving. Under different circumstances, I felt sure, things might have been amicable, even enjoyable.

Determined to finish on a positive note, we threw ourselves into the final days of brush cutting, working until dusk fell, forcing a nervous walk out of the darkening bush that Cesca decidedly did not enjoy. As our departure approached, we had one small treat planned: borrowing the Ute for a day to explore the island ourselves. That morning dawned brighter, spirits lifted by the impending end and a feeling we’d perhaps earned some goodwill with yesterday’s strenuous efforts. Cesca, happily anticipating our day off, reversed the Ute out… straight into the side of our hut, ripping the gas vent clean off the wall and leaving an ugly dent. The sound was sickening. Cesca was instantly, horribly upset, close to tears. I could only imagine Dave’s reaction; she’d endured enough of his negativity. A silent, instantaneous decision formed. As we drove the short distance to his place, I could feel Cesca vibrating with stress beside me. As we parked, she took a deep, shaky breath.

I seized the moment, leapt out, ran into the house, intercepted Dave, and claimed I had done the damage myself. “My fault, Dave. Reversed the Ute into the hut. Shocking driving. Really sorry.”

There wasn’t much else a husband could do. He wasn’t happy, understandably, but thankfully he didn’t yell. I hung my head, accepting the (undeserved) shame. Team Basho had blotted its copybook spectacularly. Our WWOOFing fate was sealed.

Needing space after the morning’s drama, we explored KI that day, the beauty of the island a welcome balm (Flinders Chase, Remarkable Rocks, Admirals Arch—another story for another time). We even bought Dave a new tyre for the Ute as a small peace offering. Returning that evening, we found Dave subdued, melancholy. An impromptu session of getting drunk together ensued. He gently chastised my “shocking driving,” but I was too weary, too emotionally drained, to argue or explain. By the end of the night, lubricated by cheap Australian wine, a fragile understanding seemed to emerge. The worst was over. We’d survived. I left him a credit slip to cover the damage.

The next morning’s drive back to Kingscote was quiet, almost conciliatory. Dave apologised for his grumpiness over the past weeks, acknowledging the difficult circumstances. We readily accepted, happy to bury the hatchet. Hugs were exchanged before he drove away. After he left, Cesca and I hugged again, a long hug of shared relief and exhaustion. And that was that.

Bad luck? Fate? Difficult personalities under pressure? Probably a mix of all three. We genuinely tried to make it work, put in significant effort. Better weather might have meant different, less arduous tasks. Dave’s family being present might have lightened his mood. Me not breaking the chainsaw or cutting down the wrong tree… small things, perhaps, but they added friction. WWOOFing itself wasn’t to blame; the system relies entirely on the humans operating within it. But I learned lessons. I’ll never again agree to those kinds of hours under the WWOOFing banner— to us, the arrangement had begun to feel exploitative. I’ll clarify expectations upfront, much more explicitly. And maybe try to address simmering resentment earlier, rather than letting it fester. Despite the difficulties, I did learn things from Dave—practical skills, yes, albeit painfully acquired, but also perhaps something about resilience, about enduring difficult situations, about the complex reasons people behave the way they do. In that sense, maybe, just maybe, I don’t entirely regret our time at Dave’s Sanctuary.

There’s WWOOFing for you. An adventure, alright. Just not always the one described in the brochure.