Day 1
We have said before that parts of this trip feel as though they are completely different trips than the single trip we left for in November. Confusing? The Worlds Tournament seems like ages ago, our Western Australia road trip could have been last summer. Staying with the Rides in Perth couldn’t have been just a week ago, could it? Now, the five days spent in Melbourne and our trip out to Bairnsdale - just another wake in our ocean of adventures.
First off I’ll do a little explaining. What exactly is WWOOFing? WWOOF stands for “Willing Workers On Organic Farms.” When Claire and I first bought our plane tickets for around the world, the very next purchase was to join both WWOOF Australia and WWOOF New Zealand. As a couple, it costs $30 to become a member per country, and a handy dandy little book is sent to you in the mail. The book holds names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and descriptions of the farms that you can potentially work on. You look through the book, find the city you want to work in, read some description of farms, call or e-mail the farmers, and ask if they need any help in exchange for room and board.

The first farm we contacted was Matt and Emma of Mia Mia Farms. They said they were able to use us as workers on their farm so we headed out of Melbourne on a train first thing Monday morning. Bairnsdale is 3 hours east (and slightly south) of Melbourne. It has a population of about 10,000. Mia Mia Farms is approximately 7 km outside of Bairnsdale, is 87 acres, and is home to 32 female milking goats, five bucks (male goats), twenty female kids (goats), three dogs, one cat, seven chickens, and one alpaca.

Mia Mia farms is also the producer of “Capra” (Greek for goat) Organic Goat Cheese. Need I say more?

Within thirty minutes of arriving to the farm, we were introduced to the female goats. We helped with the feeding and milking process - all the goats are brought in from grazing and herded into a large gated off area. Then, they wait for the kids to be let in to have a feed off of their mothers - this is quite a site.

When the gate is opened, it is a mad dash of kids looking to feed off their mothers. It reminds me of Easter in the park - an area is roped off for all the kids (human children), but they can see the chocolate eggs. They are right there waiting for them. In fact, the kids could just step under and get the eggs if they wanted - this isn’t how it works though. It’s somewhat similar with the kid goats - they could slip through the fence if they wanted (and some do) but they wait, bleating “I want my chocolate egg! “The rope (gate) is opened and the kids go dashing to gather all the eggs/milk they can get. It truly is a sweet thing to see.
Once the feeding was over, the kids are rounded up and moved back to the other side of the fence, and into the area they are going to sleep (in the shed away from the foxes.). They are coaxed by some more food, most of them go, but some have to be caught. Catching a kid is pretty fun, I can’t really explain it better then to describe trying to catch any other animal with four legs. The thing about catching a goat is that you have to be sneaky, you have to out-wit a goat. This is hard to do, in case you didn’t know, goats are mind readers and this makes tricking them quite difficult. You must be able to clear your mind of all thoughts, then you must pounce right when the moment is right. Silly goats.

The next step is herding the milking goats in groups of nine into shed in which they will be milked. The shed is pretty big. It holds two milking stands, all the food, a sink for cleaning/rinsing, and still another half is just to keep nine of the goats separate from the milking process and waiting for their turn. The goats are always eager to go, they know that dinner is on its way. When you open a gate near a goat it pretty much always tries to get through, and during a feeding this is especially true. Once you let the goats up on the feeding stands they all start moving quickly up, it you have to use a lot of muscle and power to get them to the right spot, but for the most part they know to go as far down as possible to do their eating.
We then machine milk them until they are dry. The milk passes through a series of pipes and ends up in one spot. This milk will then be used to make the cheese (a process we have not yet learned.) The final process of feeding is clean-up. The machine has to be cleaned out (with water), the ground swept of all the goat droppings (which is used for fertilizer), and the left over water is splashed on the ground for a final rinse. Emma made dinner for all of us tonight, vegetarian lasagna with chevre on the top. I had two pretty huge pieces. Along with this, we had goat cheese on crackers. I think I may eat a lot of goat cheese this week.

Day 2
It’s smoky out today. Besides their being a terrible drought there are also some huge fires right now. The guess is that if they make it this way it will be in about 5 or 6 days, which is a day or so after our current departure time. Today we gathered large branches and sticks from around the property to mulch and turn into feed for the goats. We learned to use the mulcher and spent a good amount of the afternoon mulching and gathering. We also learned where the chooks live, and how to feed them. Feeding them is basic, throw the food onto the ground, the chooks eat it. We then gather their eggs, which are used for meals around the house. In general the chooks will eat just about anything, so a lot of leftovers, including avocado skins, mango skins, and fallen bad fruit from the trees, the chooks will eat.
We took the mother goats to feed on a different part of the property today. They are rotated around on different parts of the land to help keep weeds low. Everything here is part of a system. The cat was purchased to catch the mice. The mice were a real problem, mainly because replacing traps is time consuming. The chickens will eat a lot of the left over food and in return for scraps they give eggs. The alpaca is here to help protect the goats. An alpaca is strong and could easily kill a fox. The alpaca that lives here looks like he should be surfing in Santa Monica. Maybe he just needs a haircut. The ground gives the goats lots of food, and the goats eat a lot of the weeds that can take over a farm and become a problem that causes many farmers to spray pesticides.

So today we were part of this process. We gathered the branches to mulch and to eventually feed to the goats. We fed the scraps of our food, and the goats left over food, to the chooks. We gathered eggs from the chooks. We fed the goats. We got milk from the goats. We then had a feast of goat cheese at dinner. Well, goat cheese, potato and sweet potato, baked goat cheese, grilled mushrooms/ zucchini/ eggplant and toast with cheese. This has probably been the best meal I have had on the trip, which is hard to say after having two amazing meals with the rides (one with grilled Kangaroo).

Day 3
Today has been the first day when threat of a fire has really been the forefront of all work and talk. I’ve been interested to work on a farm, and to talk to the country folk ever since I’ve chatted with other Australians about the drought. It’s been on the minds of many of Aussies, and we expected it to be magnified a great deal here. While that has been true, the drought really does affect the farmers; the threat of fire has been the real fear. Of course drought only makes things worse, it’s a huge cycle, a Catch-22. There have been five major fires that have turned into a single 50 km front that has been traveling for a while now. The threat, as I mentioned before, is that it will be here by Saturday or Sunday. At the beginning of the day there was some hope for some rain, as I sit here and type I can say with some confidence that it looks as though the night will finish and there will not be any rain. A cool breeze did take a lot of the smoke away, so it was much easier to breath today then it was yesterday. I digress, water is an issue here but we have been doing a good job of keeping showers short, and watched general water use, but it is not as big of a threat to Matt and Emma who are mainly taking care of the goats, and don’t have to water acres upon acres of farm land to grow corn or something like that.

The threat of fire has us preparing the farm for the worst. Claire and I cut back some of the bush and fed a lot of it to the goats (they love the bush, and Matt explained to us why the minerals are so good for them). I fed the chooks today while Claire swept leaves and other debris away from the house. I filled up big containers full of water and placed them around the house, and Matt and Emma explained to us that if a fire came Emma’s mom would come pick us up and take us into town, while they would stay here and fight the fire to protect their property. Other fire preventative work was done around the house today as well. We cleared a lot of plants, cut a lot of tall grass, and cut branches away from the house.

Days 4-5
The most eventful parts of the past few days have been moving the goats from one paddock to another. Sometimes we’ll be moving the herd between two paddocks that don’t have fences between them, this can be quite an adventure. Many of the goats will follow you because they think you have food (or because you do have food), other times they’ll see near by bushes and take off like a kid in a free candy store. Chasing the goats around is by far my favorite task on the farm. First you have to catch them, then lead them back to paddock where they belong. Pretty sweet! We had to do this two times in the last two days, it’s fun just to be around the goats - they have such funny personalities. The best is hanging out with the kids though.

Besides that, we continued to help with fire preparations around the house. More raking leaves, cutting back bushes and tall grass (which the goats helped do as well; sometimes they were let out just to eat the bushes that are expected to be lost in the fires). We did get a chance to work in the cheese factory yesterday. We were hoping to have this opportunity so we could see the whole cheese making process. We had to be super clean to go inside the cheese factory. First we came over in clean clothes, changed into completely white clean cloths they keep in the cheese factory, put on clean shoes that they have there, and wore a hairnet and apron. It was super fun even though one of us was just washing stuff the whole time.
As I type I see the smoke moving in. The first day we worked the smoke was pretty bad, probably because it wasn’t too windy so it was just sitting. There have been some amazing sunsets since we’ve arrived, but it would also be nice to see some blue sky. The wind picked up over the next two days and the temperature was a bit lower than the first, I think this helped the air a bit. However, in the last two days the fire has moved significantly closer. We (Emma, Matt, Claire, Emma’s Mother, and I) decided we should leave the farm and stay at Terry’s (Emma’s Mom) place with her and Emma’s brother (Lucas). They live in a bit more residential area making it a bit safer. Yesterday Claire and I arranged a bus ride up to Narooma where we’ll stay a night then take another bus up to Jervis Bay where we’ll be starting our next five days or so of WWOOFing.

Matt and Emma kept apologizing for the week, saying it was a weird week, not normal because of the fires. While that may have been true, we had a great time and felt like we learned a lot. Not to mention the food! If I didn’t say it already, Emma is an amazing chef, so we ate amazing food all week long. Maybe I can get Claire to explain some of the foods better then I can. At any rate, it was an awesome week, hopefully the fire doesn’t become too much of a problem for Emma and Matt. Think good thoughts for them!

Day 6
Last night we stayed with Emma’s mother and brother (Terry and Lucas), who are both really nice. We had a pleasant dinner and chatted quite a bit. We headed to bed early though, since today’s Farmer’s Market started at 8am and was about a half hour away. The Farmer’s Market was near Lakes Entrance - a remote town on the water that gets a lot of people on holiday from Melbourne. The market was not very big, and today it was not very busy. It was still nice to see another place, and we wondered the area, people watched, and sat by the water. We saw three large pelicans flying above the marina.
In a few hours we get on the bus that will drive through the night to Narooma, where we get dropped off at 5am. Ouch, that’s gonna hurt.

-Whit