Jamboree Heights – Philipp's TravelBlog

Saturday

I left my hostel at 10am and headed out, but I didn’t find the right bus stop. It was called “Cribb St” and I walked along the whole street without finding it, then I ran into the Milton rail station. Turns out the bus stop would have been on the street that crossed cribb st and had the name because it was near that street, not on it.

No problem, using the translink app on my awesome android phone I quickly found another connection using the train to Richlands and the bus from there.

The train was not a problem, but then the bus didn’t come. The driver of another bus told me that the timetables were outdated and my bus would come “soon”. In the end I waited for almost an hour. Not a big deal, I had time and enjoyed the sun and the lovely temperature.

Finally I arrived in Jamboree Heights around noon. I found a note on the front door saying “I’m in the backyard” so I went through the gate at the side of the house. I called a loud “helloho” and soon my host Gina showed up. I had to show my passport, my visa and my WWOOF-book and filled out a table on her laptop with my contact details as well as emergency contacts. Gina showed me the house and the property, explained her plans for the future and finally led me into my room.

It’s a clean and bright room with a bed, a desk, 2 wardroabs and a veranda, and that all for myself. After a month of dorm accommodation this is really luxurious.

When I had unpacked everything I got work cloths from Gina and started working.

First we went with the car to a fruit shop nearby and collected heaps of fruit scraps to make compost.
Back in the garden I had to hack it into pieces with a spade. When that was done I had to dig out a big trunk and truncate the roots with an axe.
I managed to get rid of a fair amount until it went dark. That day I had worked 3 hours.

Afterwards I talked to the other WWOOFer who is here with me, Sepp. He’s a nice guy and we get along well.

In the evening Gina had cooked a lovely dinner for us.
Because I’m not used to this work, my hands were really weary and I could hardly type anything on my laptop.
I watched another episode of Castle and went to bed.

Sunday

Sepp and I started working at 9am, we had to build further garden beds. We encountered lots of problems so we hadn’t gotten very far when Gina got home around noon. With her instructions we went forward, had a quick lunch at 2pm and continued working until 5pm. Dinner was at 7.
This day we had worked 7.5 hours. The WWOOF guidelines say 4-6 hours a day.

Monday

Again we started working at 9am. I had to measure a few colourfolds and mark where to cut them. Then I had to dig up an area of 40 x 150 x 30 cm and put the soil somewhere else. This took way longer than I had expected because the soil was actually mostly hard clay.

Afterwards I had to fix one of the existing garden beds. The sticks and strings holding the passionfruits and the peas had collapsed, so I had to remove the strings, attach new ones better and put the plants back on them. I had to put in 2 more posts into the bed and span a net for further plants on each side. When Gina came home she had quite a few more things for me to do, so again I had to work until the dark. This day it was 8 hours.

After dinner I spoke with Gina kindly and told her that she made us work too much. She said it would have been an easy day and that we should not have slacked so much in between. I explained her that I worked straight all day and things did not go as fast we both had estimated. Then she tried to reason with me lacking the experience to do it faster, but my arguments had beaten that in no time.

She agreed to write down the times and make us work only when she’s home so that she can get a better impression.
She insists on 5 hours of good work a day, which is fine and okay with the WWOOF guidelines. What bugged me was that so far I was stuck on the property since I got there, because each time it was already dark when I finished working.

Tuesday

This day was fine! I had to work from 8am till 10am, continuing on the garden beds. I did really well and worked the drilling machine way better than Gina. Then I had 1.5 hours off because Gina and Sepp had to go and buy more colourfolds. When they got back it took me another 1.5 hours to finish the garden beds. We had lunch and the afternoon for free. I had to work another 1.5 hours from 6:30pm till 8 where I had to demolish Gina’s bathroom 😀 that work was quite satisfying, I had to get the tiles away from the walls and the floor. It worked well and Gina was happy.
I had a late lunch when I was finished.

Wednesday

This day I could sleep in. Gina had to work all day, so I would start working around 5pm and had the day for myself.
I went out for an extended walk and did about 10km in 2.25 hours. A very nice part was a 1k bushwalk along the Brisbane river that I did in both directions. I also walked up Mount Ommaney (a hill, not a mountain 😉 ) where I had a nice view above Jindalee Park and the Brisbane river.
On top of the hill was a huge water tank for the surrounding suburbs and the area around it was fenced and off limits.
But within that area I saw a deer running around! Unfortunately it was way to quick and I could not get a photo.
I would have been less surprised to see a kangaroo, but a deer???

From 4:30 to 10pm I worked again. First I had to spread out 1m³ of roadbase next to the front driveway, then I continued in Ginas bathroom. I teared it down and got rid of all the tiles and the bathtub ornaments. In between I had half an hour break for dinner.

Thursday

This day I started working at 10 and finished at 3. Gina and I continued on the driveway extension. With more roadbase we evened the area out, wetted it and stomped on it. Then I had to put 2cm of sand on it evenly. That kind of work is really exhausting, after 5 hours I was finished and drained. Spent some time with Sepp on our laptops, had a late dinner and went to bed early.

Friday

This day we had to start early – at 7am! At that time it’s freezing cold out there and I wore 5 layers of cloths. From 8 on I had to put off a layer every 15 minutes, so at 9 I had only the normal shirt for the daytime left. I finished before 10 and had the rest of the day for free. This was really good, hadn’t it meant for me to work longer the following day.
I spent the free time checking and sorting my dancing music and repeating all that I have learned in the past year. It seems so far I haven’t forgotten anything 🙂

When Gina got home she was quite talkative. And she had a bag full of mandarines with her that she collected from the tree at one of her clients, to find out in the end that she picked them for herself because the client had no use for them. So we pressed them and had fresh mandarine juice for dinner.

Saturday

This day was bloody hard! Started at 7:30am, 20 minutes lunch break around 1pm, finished after 4:30pm. I had worked nearly 9 hours straight, among other things paving the complete driveway. I was paid with back pain and horribly aching hands. At least Gina said she would buy beer for the evening 🙂
And during the day she brought us freshly self pressed mandarine juice.

I am really glad that I am finished here. Accomodation and food are really good, but the work is bloody hard and there’s nowhere to go in your spare time.

Tomorrow Gina will give us a lift to the City. Sepp stays a night there while instantly hit the road with OzExperience to Noosa.

Now, finally, photos from this week:

From 2011-06-19+7 First time WWOOFing. Posted by Philipp Hübner on 6/20/2011 (34 items)