Fruity Wwoofing

Fruit Vans!

A week at Fruit Vans and so far our first WWOOFing experience has lived up to all expectations :) We arrived last Friday in Sunnyvale, a suburb in west Auckland, to a bustling household tucked away at a deadend street. It's a different kind of 'farming' experience- since, well, there is no farm! It's a business started 3 years ago by Taryn and Marcello, an Australian/Brazilian couple (front-right) who began with 1 van selling fruit from local growers on weekends, and has now grown to become an operation so big, that they have 2 houses full of wwoofers (up to 20 in the summer months), and 25 vans. Yay for eating locally!

The house is filled with many other eccentric travellers from all over the world. Though English is dominant, there is also a lot of French, Spanish, and Portugeuse being spoken. We are having such a great time getting to know everyone! To say it is a house of laughter would be an understatement- there always something fun going on- cooking, games, wine, you name it ;)

As wonderful as the house activities are though, there is much work to be done. Our 4-5 hour work days started with the 'mouldly' unpleasant job of van cleaning, in preparation for the selling season. Sandie and I were assigned 5 vans in the backyard parked under some trees- opened the doors and watched the mold spores fly. ACK! Being in such a state we thought for sure they'd been there a number of years-- but nope- try 3 months. Turns out mold in New Zealand is out of control- and has even been known to grow in Taryn's spice rack. Bleh! It took the bulk of us wwoofers 3 days to clean out the whole fruitvan fleet- scubbing the vans mold-free inside and out.

On one of our first nights here we were in charge of cooking dinner for everyone. Amanda thought it would be fun to bring some Korea to Sunnyvale: on the menu was bibimbap, japchae, kimchi, and kongnamul. What a beautiful meal it was! Throughout the week we have individually been in charge of lunch/dinner and have cooked up many delicous soups and salads.

 

Then came Tuesday and a very special arrival- Lyndsey! Amanda's good friend from home has joined in on our crazy adventure for 3 weeks. She was eager to do some wwoofing so Amanda went to collect her from the airport (beautiful sign in hand) and brought her back to Fruitvan central. Jetlag wasn't plaguing her so she dove right into weeding work. So nice to have her here! You compost queeen you.

Late Tuesday evening Taryn opened up a rather important letter- a rental house inspector was due to arrive the next morning. dun dun dun- mobilize operation house clean and evacuation... = bonus day off!

Turns out all the Canadians in the house decided we needed to do some hiking despite the constant rain. Vicky, a spunky ex-pat from Montreal, loaded us in her car and we headed to the Waitakere Ranges with a quick stop in Piha at Lion's Rock for some ocean views. After perusing a guide book we settled on the Fairy Falls LOOP- a supposedly easy trail not requiring us to drag the guide book along . The forest was subtropical, very lush. green and filled with very wacky sounding birds. The views were amazing- decending down many steps we approached a stream which lead us to the falls. (There were no fairies.) The sun joined us as we basked in the wonderment that is the fairyless Fairy Falls. A few kms later we discovered we were slightly lost- as we emerged to a small with no sign of Vicky's car. Turning back into the forest we decided to follow another trail we recognized, heading up a rather steep hill. Luckily for us we found the car within the hour... lesson learned- never leave your trail guides at home kids! Quick coffee break at Elevation cafe where we see Auckland city spread out before us, and back to the house.

Later in the week Sandie worked on : organizing the growing clutter called a kitchen, decorating the living area with global community inspired posters, and general yard/painting upkeep. Amanda worked on: dismanteling big avocado crates with Vicky which included lots of crowbar/ hammer demolition. RAWR! Also weeding, and shovelling clay and rock soil to build up the compost walkway. Lots of dirty fun ended in a trip to the laundrymat.

PS.... Oh, and top it all off-- We were both offered PAID positions selling fruit at the other Fruit Van house 2 hrs south of here, in December. Did we mention how much we love these people? EEEE!