I just finished a WWOOF stay on a veggie farm on the Great Barrier Island. What a great experience! Even most Kiwis don’t get the chance to visit the Barrier, so I feel very lucky to have spent four weeks there really experiencing island life and getting to know the local people. Our WWOOF hosts, Caity and Gerald, were wonderful. They’re the only people doing commercial agriculture on the island. Our main tasks involved harvesting and preparing all the produce for weekly veggie box deliveries and markets. It was harvest and tourist season at full bloom, with an abundance of beans, strawberries, tomatoes, zucchinis, cucumbers, and more to pick every day. It was hard but satisfying work.

The Barrier is unlike anywhere else I’ve stayed. The island has a small community of about 600 people (except around Christmas/New Year time when it gets inundated with tourists from Auckland), and everybody knows each other. There are only a handful of restaurants and shops, and prices are high since most things need to be imported from the mainland. The island is also off the grid and has limited cell phone and Internet access. We had to learn quickly how to conserve power and live with limited resources. It’s a simple and quiet life, tucked away among beautiful beaches and mountains. It really is a whole other world!

View coming into the Great Barrier on the Sealink ferry