October 6 – 15th. Fairweather Farm, Nymboida.
- Rain, cabins, rain, Russel Crowe, rain, Daphne, a little sun, that which comes from a cows behind, rain, mating snakes, RAIN, rain, dingos, pancakes…rain…unlikely fire…plus another downpour of the wet stuff in a place far, far away.

After a far from thrilling three nights in Byron Bay we Greyhounded it two hours south to the appealingly named Grafton, which fulfilled our expectations of grey buildings and monotony. Thankfully this is only where our next host is picking us up so before long we were leaving its depressing industrial presence behind.

We actually left it very far behind as it took an hours drive inland to reach the deceptively named Fairweather Farm. The closest town to it was a place called Nymboida and we broke up our journey by stoping at a pub there, in strict contrast to most Aussie establishments it didn’t immediately inspire me to about face out the door as fast as possible and it was great to recover from our latest coach experience with a cold pint overlooking some impressively picturesque green valleys.

It transpires that the pub, as well as the attached lavish hotel (with helipad, in case you’ve got no fuel in your car) and small museum are all owned by Russel Crowe, who also has a property close by. And now you know. We didn’t indulge in the museum on our initial trip…but fell for its allure on our return journey nine days later. Called the ‘Museum of interesting things’ it contained a small but varied collection of historical items, one fossil, a fair amount of presumably difficult to obtain but dull movie paraphernalia (a series of named seat covers to Crowe’s suit of armour from the Gladiator film) and a random, but quite interesting, set of highly polished motorbikes. It was indeed interesting…at least for a half hour.

Driving us to such wonders was half of our host couple, a Scottish woman called Eleanor. This caused some initial confusion as there had been no mention of her existence in the WWOOF book but we quickly gleamed who she was by, well, asking. It actually turned out she had first come to the property as a WWOOFer herself…and just never left…bet that was an interesting phone call to the parents! Both she and her Aussie other half, Hayden, were great and it was pretty nice to be around people close in age to ourselves for a change!

The farm, its isolation hammered home by the final seven k of jerky driving down a dirt track, was a massive, 450 hectares in all. Such a description is in fact deceiving as little of that land was in use, most of it remaining wild bush…still; it meant we were a fair way away from the nearest neighbour! They ran a commercial vegetable and herb business so had rows of land dedicated to that, plus kept goats and pigs. Whilst I’m mentioning animals, a pair of typically hyperactive Kelpie dogs called Jasper and Brandy plus an aloof goose (they’re really not the friendliest of animals) and a cute Muscovy duck (clawed feet, red face, no quack) called Daphne that were constantly milling about…that is when the dogs were not amusing themselves herding them!

Structures were spread reasonably far apart, mostly amongst the large non-bush area adjacent to the vegetable plots, the exception to this being Hayden and Eleanor’s cabin which was located a five minute drive away. There was the main house, which comprised a kitchen, living room and large veranda, a bunkhouse in which during our stay two Austrian and then two Danish WWOOFers stayed, as well as housing the generator-powered showers and toilets. A good deal of the power on-site was provided by series of solar panels to the side of each building, so lots of panels all together but still small compared to the giant array Telstra (an Aussie phone company) had powered a transmitter across from the main house.

Liz and I stayed in our own cabin the other side of a dam from the main house and bunkhouse. This was easily the best place we’ve had to call home during our WWOOFing, a really well-kept wooden building that provided us with loads of our own comfortable space and luxurious amenities such as our own kitchen, in which we made breakfast each morning, and compost toilet. And if ever the calm started to annoy us there was the audible birds, including one nesting directly above our door, and the insanely loud nightly croak opera of what sounded like a million frogs down at the dam. So…not calm at all really! But incredibly nice none the less.

We were again spared early starts, the alarm being set for eight in order for us to have eaten and be ready to start work at nine. The length of time worked varied wildly, some days we’d be done by two, others we’d still be at it gone five. Either way there were typically long breaks for morning tea and lunch and it more or less balance our over all. It was actually good to be doing a fair amount of physical work, what with the last two hosts being childminding heavy or just plain nearly no work relaxed it had been a fair while! What we did changed from day to day, which helped ward off any boredom, and it was approached in such a low-key at your own pace manner that I must say I enjoyed it (for the most part at least!)

What we actually did: mulching, planting seeds, preparing seed trays, weeding (varieties 1-50), planting and more mulching. One long day was spent picking, weighing and bagging produce as they needed to transport the order the next day. Oh and on three occasions we drove in the ute to undertake the glamorous task of filling both it and an attached trailer with cow poo. The joys of organic farming!

There was a little sun the day we arrived. Then it rained for, oh, a week. Then another day of sun. Then back to the rain until we left. Daphne was happy at least.

Our last day of work was a bit different, instead of tending to the farm we drove off into the bush, to maintain and create a walking track alongside a river. The previous day we’d done for a walk (/climb/wade) by the side of a creek beneath the farm, so defiantly got our fair share of trekking done across these two days! We cut our way (my instrument – a blunt axe. Hayden’s instrument – a chainsaw) along the bank, ambled up and over slippery rocks, stoped for biscuits and I only lost one foot to the rivers depths. It was all very fun, though a touch odd to think I have no idea when I’ll nest find myself in such an environment.

Snakes. I’ve seen a lot of these typically lethal fellows but they still hold attention when they make an appearance. They don’t like the rain/cold so we only saw them on those rare days the sun made an appearance…but we still managed to see rather a lot. On the track clearing day Jasper earnt herself half a biscuit by alerting us to the presence of a carpet snake, which was coiled up asleep, or at least not bothering to move, behind a rock. Hayden decided it was too big to pick up but it made for a nice photo all the same. Black snakes – more deadly so of course more numerous. Especially when your moving sheets of tin that they had been calling home, cue encouragement to leave the veggie garden and, across one morning, a trio of them grumpily slivering down to the dam.

It’s mating season for snakes…which it’s pleasant to know makes them both more active and more aggressive. However it didn’t stop me pausing for several minutes to observe a pair engaged thus by the dam wall. It’s got to be one of the odder sights I’ve seen, them coiled around one another and hypnotically rotating like a spinning top or helter skelter. It’s also apparently a rare sight so I guess I was lucky (well as lucky as a man who comes across a pair of black snakes can be!) Liz joined my observance after a while…only for the two snakes to move a little in our direction causing her to bolt away from them across the dam wall! She was hence mildly surprised to run straight into a third black snake that had been chilling out behind both of us! It was evidentially surprised by such sudden movement in its direction as it instantly made a hasty retreat itself; swimming off into the dam…which five minutes later Hayden jumped into…I think our reason for not joining him was a good one!

Food. There was rather a lot of it…although due to times seamless ability to vanish sometimes we didn’t get at it till approaching midnight! What with morning tea at 11/12 and lunch often not occurring till 3, going on 4 maybe midnight was in fact a sensible time! I must report that morning tea did have a dark, sinister side…Hayden’s sadistic mission to murder me via excessive numbers (armies…evil armies…) of pancakes…it was tough at times but I somehow lived to tell the tale.

One (late) night we headed up to Hayden and Eleanor’s cabin, where we made pizzas, drunk a little wine and heated ourselves besides a massive fire…you know its got to be very hot when the persistent rain doesn’t bother it at all. Another night some of Hayden’s friends swung by, bringing with them a turtle plus a pair of dingo puppies they were raising. To be honest I wouldn’t have known they weren’t just normal dogs if I hadn’t been told but it was cool to see one of the Aussie animals I thought I’d missed out on all the same.