What is a Woofer?

Being a woofer provides a unique travel experience in New Zealand where people can work on sustainable farms or special places like parks in exchange for accommodation and food. This kind of arrangement allows travelers to immerse themselves in the local culture and meet residents, not just other tourists. Working for a few hours a day in exchange for such benefits seems like a great way to explore and contribute to the community.

Dorothy and john have been part of the “woofer” community for around ten years and have had people from UK, Germany and America to name a few countries work on the Sculpture Park over the years.

Meet Lilly Franke and Tabea Dietel from Germany

Why did you sign up as a Woofer?

Folks like us want to experience different lifestyles of people and families, who actually live in New Zealand and get to know them. The idea is to help out on sustainable farms or even special places like this park here. We work for a pre agreed time per day, for example for 4 hours. In exchange we get a beautiful accommodation and delicious food (John’s Pizza was very good).

Currently, we got to stay in the Ruru Nest Retreat, the accommodation is the best we ever had. We live in a little cottage with kitchen, living area, our own TV, bedroom and bathroom. Normally we sleep in the same house as the hosts and share kitchen and bathroom with them, so this was very outstanding to us.

Why did you decide to come to the Sculpture Park?

We wanted to stay in the region of Hamilton and looked for woofing places in the area. The park stood out immediately, because it is such a unique place as the places, we go usually are small farms with a few animals or just a garden.

How long are you staying and what do you want to achieve?

Our time in New Zealand is coming to an end and we only have one month of our 10 months stay in total left. That’s why we stay here for one week. We get to meet Dorothy and John and strived to support them, as there were jobs that needed to be done. We got to be part of a bigger project as we worked on the new “experimental” garden with Katie. This will be a low chemical vegetable garden and we were part of the preparation - very exciting!

We got to work with John as well, working on new park benches and making plyths for the new outdoor Gallery sculptures.

Our goal for the week was to find all the Ruru sculptures hidden in the park.

How did you meet?

We first meet 5 years ago in the youth orchestra in our hometown, in which we played together for several years (we both play the viola) The training camps with the orchestra are very bonding and we developed a great friendship.

What has been your favorite moment in New Zealand?

We discovered hiking as a great activity for us and climbed the Pinnacles in Coromandel as our first bigger hike. At Nelson Lake’s National Park we had our first overnight stay in the Angelus hut. It was a mesmerizing moment to wake up in the hut, to see the sun rise over the mountains and the Angelus Lake reflected beautifully.

This whole experience has helped us to learn to appreciate nature more.