“We are not actually WWOOFers,” I thought to myself as Kate, the manager of the Hone Heke Lodge, prattled along enthusiastically about the work Abe and I would be doing for her for the next month. She told us that cleaning the hostel used to be a paid position, but she decided using WWOOFers was better.
WWOOF stands for Willing Workers on Organic Farms, but the organization has grown to include employers other than farms. The idea is for employers to gain labour in exchange for housing travellers and teaching them about farming or brewing beer or making chocolate. True WWOOFing locations, are places that want to help travellers meet new people and learn new things, but many employers now use the term to mean a straight work exchange. They see WWOOFers as cheap labour.
I should have seen Kate’s attitude as a red flag: she was getting us to do paid work very cheaply, and she was not affiliated with the WWOOF in any way. But we had travelled all the way from Christchurch on the South Island to Kerikeri in the far north of the North Island to live here, and I was determined to make it work.
Abe and I had found Kate’s posting for work exchange and agreed to clean the hostel for a few hours each morning for our accommodation and internet. She told us we could easily work in the afternoons and evenings in the town of Kerikeri to save some money.
I listened to Kate talk about the town and our duties with outward excitement and inward anxiety. Abe and I had worked in Franz Josef for two months, but after traveling for another three weeks we needed to work again. Our funds were getting dangerously low, so free accommodation plus working in town sounded like a great proposition. But we had to find paying jobs quickly.
The next morning we started work in the hostel, and our agreed upon two-three hours of work turned into three and a half. The Hone Heke Lodge was a long-term hostel for backpackers working in the kiwifruit and mandarin orchards nearby. Most people stayed there for 4-6 weeks as they tried to save money. I heard working in the orchards was hard and from state of that lodge in the morning, it must be hell. Beer bottles and cigarette butts lined the tables and the floor in the dining area and flies buzzed around dirty dishes and half-eaten food piled in the kitchen.
Abe’s job was to clean the dorm rooms and the TV room, and I was to clean the kitchen, dining room, and bathrooms. That first morning I cleaned each area with latex gloves and a grimace. The Hone Heke lodge was old and overcrowded, with five toilets and six showers for over 80 people. Dead sandflies and spiders lined the ceilings. And people stared at me as I swept the food and trash off the stone floor in the dining area.
That afternoon, Abe and I went into town to apply for jobs. I walked into the first restaurant we saw and asked brightly, “Are you hiring?” “No, our summer tourist season is over, we won’t be hiring anyone,” a woman behind the bar said. Hm. The next place said something similar, and about 30 businesses later, we realized we might not be able to find jobs in Kerikeri.
I freaked out a little that night. I travelled all the way up here on Kate’s word that we could find jobs in town, and there seemed to be none. The only work here was fruit-picking, and we couldn’t do that because we had agreed to clean the hostel in the mornings. We had spent money hiking and traveling, and then more money to get here, and I was now living off of my savings account, which I hate to do. Abe was also feeling desperate.
The next day we cleaned again and endeavoured to find work in one of the remaining businesses in town. We asked every place in Kerikeri from the Asian take away restaurant to the BP station. No, they were not hiring; summer was over. On our way back from applying to the two supermarkets in town (they were not hiring either), we passed the Kerikeri McDonalds and Pizza Hut, the only two places in town we had not applied. The McDonalds was open 24 hours, which was a big deal for a business in Kerikeri since many cafes and shops closed at 3 p.m. There was a Now Hiring sign in the window.
I searched Abe’s expression, saw his disappointment that this was the one business in Kerikeri that was hiring, and smiled. “Yeah, I would rather strip than work at McDonalds,” I joked. We would have to leave this town.
Abe and I felt guilty reneging on our agreement to work for the Hone Heke Lodge for one month, but after a few days of asking around for work and weighing our options, we realized sometimes you have to cut your losses. We gambled and lost, and it was time to go somewhere where we knew would work and save money to avoid the social embarrassment of working at a company we both hated.
Backpacking through New Zealand is often an amazing experience, but at times it is extremely challenging.
In each new place, I have to navigate through a foreign town or city, I need to find a place to sleep, somewhere to eat, something to entertain myself. I need to meet new people and try to make friends, and in some places, I need to search for a job as well. Even though I am sleeping in old or uncomfortable bunk beds and showering in community bathrooms, I need to look presentable and be energetic. Conquering a new place takes a lot of energy.
In Kerikeri, I encountered the worst case scenario for a backpacker. My lodgings were dirty and unkempt, and I did not make many friends. The unpaid work was awful, and there was no paid work at all. And in that moment, I felt depressed and thought maybe I should just go home. I thought, “I feel too old for this; it is too hard.”
But because I am backpacking, when I feel that way, I can pick up and leave. Abe and I put in our two weeks notice (because we’re responsible like that), and we moved on in search of better things.
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