WWOOF experience

For those who are wondering, WWOOF stands for “Willing Workers On Organic Farms”. It is a system where travelers work at participating organic farms in exchange for lodging and meals. Every year, thousands of young (and not so young) travelers and farmers benefit from this win-win deal.

My first WWOOF location was at Backwater, a beautiful property at Bermagui, NSW.
Backwater is a beautiful piece of property with splendid views of greens and the Cuttagee Lake. There is about an acre of productive organic kiwi orchard, while most of the rest of the 80 acres are devoted for forest conservation and regeneration.

The house has been well designed and built for comfort. One of the many features is plenty of natural sunlight inside the house. The water front view accompanied by singing birds had made my breakfast enjoyable every day I was there.

Colin and Anne Browne are the good couple in their golden eighties. They are probably two of the nicest people I have ever met, with seemingly all the calmness, contentment and patience that one can find.

Their positive energies propagate through their entire farm especially on the animals. The horses and cows are calm and friendly, even to a complete stranger like me.

Of course, I have to mention the 3 dogs.

Mickey is the most playful and he likes to sleep on my bed.

Fred likes to snuggle and enjoys a belly rub.

Lily, Mickey’s mother, is the quiet one and always waits with hopeful eyes under the dinner table whenever we are eating.

Colin and Anne are true believers of sustainable living with minimum carbon footprint. Solar power, wood fire, rain water, grow their own greens and collect mushrooms from the bush are just some of the good examples of how they practice sustainability in their simple and yet healthy and pleasurable life style.
They are in their golden eighties and still reasonably active. Anne rides horses regularly and plays golf and table tennis weekly. I am sure they would easily outrun anyone their age or even 10 or 15 years younger.
This is probably due to their active lifestyle when they were younger.
They had their own sail boat when they were living in Papua New Guinea and used to make island hopping their regular holiday program.

If there is one thing that I have learned from them, it is sustainable lifestyle is both practical and healthy.

Thank you Colin and Anne.