For the love of Avocado!
Fact: avocados are delicious. I am not sure it is possible to get tired of eating avocado – its versatility as a food is limited only by our imagination. I have heard of replacing butter with avocado in baking recipes as well as breading and frying slices of avocado as fries. All that to say, we would love to have avocados on our future farm. So as we perused Workaway, we decided to look for an avocado farm to go spend some time on and learn what growing avocados
Working the land in Tasmania
One of the first projects we got really excited on Workaway, when we started looking for places to volunteer during our around-the-world belated and extended honeymoon trip, was Tiger Hill Farm. Paul Kean, the owner of the property, was a little surprised at our email as it came more than a year ahead of time (we might have been slightly over-eager). However, that gave us the opportunity to Skype once or twice and confirm that our time in Australia would include a few weeks in Tasmania. All thanks
Free-range is eggxactly where it’s at
Sometimes when you get to a destination it feels like you are coming home, usually a combination of the how you respond to the physical space and most importantly the people. That’s what Kenilworth Free Range Farm was to us. We arrived in Noosa on the Sunshine Coast on a dark and rainy night (yes, the irony was not lost on us), having taken a bus for a few hours from Brisbane airport. We spent one night in the McWilliams’ home “in town” before heading to Kenilworth Free Range
Yoga, farming, fencing and bug foraging in Perth
The story of how we ended up on this particular farm in Perth started when I was in high school and a new kid, Jesse, sat next to me during orchestra practice because our instruments – he played the viola and I played the cello – dictated it. Fifteen years or so later we’re still friends (orchestra was a bonding experience), and when we started organizing our around the world honeymoon with wwoofing planned along the way, I remembered Jesse’s family used to have an organic farm in Australia.
Planting Seeds in Prison: Rehabilitation by Gardening
A few weeks ago we had the chance to spend the day with Paul Bruns, founder of Hlumelelisa, a non-profit that works with prison inmates to train them in horticulture and gardening as a way to contribute to their rehabilitation and reintegration into society. The need to heal and renew the spirit underpins the principles of Hlumelelisa, and is reflected in its name which is the Nguni word for "a new spirit". The initiative, a 10-month program, embraces permaculture principles, focusing on water management and seed conservation for a
Gardening Yoga & happy farming in South Africa
The first challenge of volunteering on a farm in a country you are not familiar with is getting there. As we were headed to Happy Toes Farm in Groot Marico, South Africa, we took the bus from Johannesburg and almost ended up in Botswana! Somehow we got off at the right gas-station-in-the-middle-of-nowhere and Jeannine, the farm and volunteer manager, was there to pick us up. Happy Toes stands on a piece of land of roughly 3 hectares, and when the owner - mysterious ex DJ Byron who was unfortunately away during
Mindful farming in Spain
During our whirlwind 5-day tour of Spain a few weeks ago, which included Madrid and its surroundings from Rioja all the way to Salamanca, we did a lot of driving. To balance that out, we reached out to a few WorkAway projects to try and visit a small-scale farm in order to get a better feel for what the soil is like, whether there is a community around sustainable or organic small-scale agriculture, and other such critical details we could factor into the big decision: Portugal or Spain? Kahlyn
Olives, acorns & newborn lambs
While exploring central Portugal, we looked up a few WorkAway projects (similar to woofing) and – although most require at least a week stay – reached out to them to see if we could stop by for a day or so to see the setup and get some insights on life in the region. Alex and Karina were kind enough to welcome us to their farm, Olives & Acorns, for what ended up being two days and two nights. They are near Penamacor, which is not far from the
Ignorante wines
Proof money can buy happiness, in a bottle. This story started at a wedding we attended during our first week in Portugal (thank you Ana & James!). When we mentioned the concept behind our world tour, one of the bride’s friends who happened to be sitting at our table immediately thought of her friend Jorge who had “started from scratch and now makes wine” and offered to put us in touch. Forty-eight hours and a few emails later, we were headed towards what felt like a blind date. The meeting
Volontariat – WWOOFing
This post only exists in French. It explains what WWOOFing is, why we are taking that approach for most of our trip, and lists websites to find such projects around the world. Who knows, you might be inspired to spend time on a farm and "WWOOF" on your next vacation! Afin de prolonger notre voyage au maximum et sans dépenser tout notre budget en hébergement, mais également afin de découvrir des projets similaire à celui que nous désirons mettre en place, nous avons décidé de faire du volontariat dans des