WOOFERS in Glen Innes
I met some Woofers last year near Glen Innes, along the New England Highway in New South Wales, at an organic farm and working ranch that also hosts tourists who want to fossick for sapphires. Both of the Woofers were Irish, she quite blond and he a shaggy red-head — a “ranga”, as the Prime Minister likes to call herself. They were working their way around Australia, helping on farms and properties that needed willing workers. Australia has a long history of encouraging workers to come to the Antipodes, willing to put muscle to the plow, the brewery, the factory.
Woofers are Willing Workers on Organic Farms, an international movement, started in the UK in the 1970′s. These young people may be working their way around the world, but they are also sharing their expertise with those with whom they work as well as bringing innovative organic farming practices back to their home country. Since this ranch had been productive for a century, they had a history to document and new practices to employ.
Homestead at Glen Innes
The two Irish Woofers were enthusiastic and full of information, donning their gumboots to take two kids out to dig though pea gravel found in a stream bed for tiny saphires less than 1/2 the size of your little fingernail. In fact, my two 10-year-old charges were happy to don old gumboots from the muddy pile under the porch, dig through the gravel for 3 hours (checking each other for leaches from time to time), and finally shower off the grit (and leaving their bits of soiled wet clothing behind as kids are wont to do).
Two amazingly bouncy kids I’d brought to the sapphire mines were quiet now, writing songs on notepads during the long drive home, quiet as they imagined their heart’s exposure: “No one listens to me” went one. “On the road to the sapphires” went the other. Heartfelt, heart-piercing. Both rather like the earnest Woofers I’d just met, making their way around the world, sharing what they knew with people willing to listen.
For more information about Woofers and fossicking in the New England area of New South Wales, check out these websites: Tourist Information and Willing Workers on Organic Farms.
