It said in the wwoof book the job was looking after baby goats, birds, turkeys, geese, chickens and joey kangaroos plus some mowing and watering the garden.
Once I arrived I soon noticed there were No baby goats, no joey kangaroos...Just a frustrated mature male goat named Billy who bulked constantly and has in the 3 days I have led him to his field where he can eat lots of nice grass, hit me twice with his horns . Once in the shins and once on my forearm. Luckily only with the non sharp parts of his horns. The second time it took me bout 30mins to get him back in his small place next to the chickens and turkeys, it was a force of will and this time I won but had too keep holding his head down by his horns.
There are 3 geese here, who if not fed before 8am attack the campers, if there are campers. And two male and three female peacocks. In a pond some kingfish and crabs.
In a cage there is also a wounded eagle who needs to be fed road kill ... And at last we have Butternut the tiny dog.
There was also no sign of a veggy garden or plans of creating one as was also mentioned in the description. No organic anything.
The staff were very nice people, well most of them. There is a Aussie bloke with a heart too big for his own good, Gordon, who works here until he can go back to the melon farm where he works when it is melon season, Marianne is a German woman, who is a teacher in her own country but working here to get her second year visa, Paul, a young German scuba diver who arrived a day before me and is also here so he can get his second year visa, Jim an Aussie who has been here for some weeks and mainly does the store/petrol station, and Cookie the chef who has been here for a year.
The owners are Alan a former Lawyer from South Australia and his second wife Christine who has German roots but doesn't really advertise them.
Another backpacker arrived who had been working there for a while but who just went away for a week in Bali. She is from Manchester and her name is Alex. She turned out to be some piece of work... No respect for an other persons property, no sense of responsibility, lazy and dumb as fuck.
On the first day I arrived I was told via email by Chrisitine to ask for Alan, she was going to the next town Tennant creek. About 160kms from here. When I arrived Alan was nowhere to be found and I ended up waiting till the early evening for him to show up. I introduced myself told him I just wanted to see how real Aussies lived and loved animals and was willing to help. I got the motel room they normally give to workers who come down here to do some work for a couple of days. The others stay in the staff quarters. My room has two beds, airco, a fridge, coffee/tea maker (warm water boiler..) and a shower, sink and toilet. The TV turned out to have dissapeared.. The shower needs to get repainted and the whole room is shabby but ok if you have been sleeping in a hot van in areas with tons of flies and mosquitos.
Halfway the sixth day I was getting fed up with it all. This was not what I drove back for. I am a volunteer, working for food and accommodation, in exchange I wanted work work with animals and see the real Aussie life in the Outback. What I saw was two employers showing no guidance, no respect, no structure for the people working there and abusing the backpackers stopping by to get their first or second year visa or to earn some money or wwoofers like me.
I worked more hours then a wwoofer should (4 to 6 hrs a day) but that in itself didn't bother me, there was nothing other to do there. That and the fact the work was hardly what had been described got me frustrated. In the 5 days that I worked there I helped sort bottles, placed boxes of empty beer bottles on pallets, helped clear up the backyard, helped take bottles and cans to the depot, helped move furniture to their home in Tennant Creek, helped in the roadhouse, replaced sprinklers and fed some animals and walked and fought a distressed goat.
The cook and the store/bar/waiter guy constantly talked bad about eachother to me. The German guy trying to get his second year visa was busy most of the day either looking for the boss for instructions or cleaning up the mess in the back, sorting bottles and cans that accumulated after months of being tossed in a bag or box or whatever. Gordon, who I got on with really well from the start, had his truck lost after lending it to the dumb Manchester bitch who parked it somewhere she shouldn't have and got it stolen, which did not prevent her from enjoying her holiday in Bali, and on her return simply stating that shit happens... It seemed as if I had landed in a really bad soap opera.
The drop that made me leave was when, after the last of my beers that were in my van got stolen, I wanted to get some new once in the Renner Springs store they turned out to cost $73 instead of the $53 in town...as a wwoofer I did not receive a staff discount so...
I was not going to spent more money than I would in a small town on the 2 beers a night I had while reading before passing out after a long day ( start work at 7 am one hour feeding the chickens, turkeys and geese, taking Billy to his meadow, giving the Eagle his share of road kill, get the sprinklers going and moving them every hour or so, then ask cookie if I could peal some potatoes or something, check on Billy if he hadn't hanged himself and then after 11h30 wander around trying to help where I could then start work again doing dishes and help clean up the kitchen from 19h till 21h.
And yes the owners didn't give me a hard time, and yes Alan told me it had been a long time since a hardworking backpacker had stopped by. But this is not what I came there for.
The goat and the eagle seemed to be in a bad place, the owners hardly to be found when you needed them, no communication whatsoever on the tasks that people like Paul needed to do, not before days after...
So after having a little "talk" about it with Alex, trying to explain that this was not what Wwoofing is about, I lost it.
I packed my stuff, found Gordon and explained what and why, went to say goodbey to Paul, and got the hell out of there.
My heart was bleeding cause I would have loved to spent more time with people like Gordon and Marianne and Paul.
At least I got to meet them and this Wwoofing experience was not a waist of time. I will contact the Wwoofing org and give them all the feedback about Renner Springs I can and hopefully no other backpacker like me will stop there to look after joey kangaroos and baby goats...
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