WWOOF: The Seaweed Queen of Great Barrier Island

I’ve got a hot cup of tea resting on the arm of the couch beside me. Dirt traces crescents beneath my fingernails, like shadows lurking beneath a stone. Seaweed flakes dot my blue shirt, and the hem of the t-shirt that peaks out beneath it. Mud creates patches on the bottom half of my pants, and I can’t conceive of how it could have gotten there; I wore gumboots all day. All day, every day.

Outside, the sun sinks low, falling between two rocky islands on the horizon, and clouds skip and skid across the sky, caught in a sea-wind that barely brushes me, cradled in a valley between two verdant mountainous spines.

It is peaceful and perfect and idyllic—except for the spider scurrying long legs up the window, a spine-crawling silhouette against the sunset. When I first arrived, my host (let’s call him Tom), said that the spiders never leave their window webs. They remain frozen in place, like bugs stuck in amber, so I can almost pretend they aren’t there. However, when one of the dozens of little denizens that share this home with my host and, temporarily, with me, move…

I swipe a hand down my back. Just in case.

The first night I was here, in Tom’s home on Great Barrier Island, a black spider (one of the many in the web-choked corners of the rooms) scurried across my host’s back. Right shoulder to left hip. So they don’t always stay in their window.

I’ve mastered the art of not looking in the corners, of blurring my peripheral vision, of gazing out the center of windows and not allowing my eyes to linger on the frames. Look only at that which is the most important—and pretend nothing else exists. Because, truly, the spiders dwelling on all the walls are a mere dusting of discomfort in an amazing place.

Great Barrier Island

Located 60 miles from Auckland, and boasting a size of 110 square miles, this barrier island is an isolated place. With 1000 year-round inhabitants, a good number of them spread across the remote bush in 60- or 80-acre blocks, it’s the antithesis of Auckland.

I boarded a freight ferry at 6:45 in the morning, and then bumped and bounced across the waves of the Hauraki Gulf for four and half hours to arrive. The island was formed from ancient volcanoes, like most of New Zealand, and it rises dramatically from a wave-rumpled sea. With mountains swelling from the blue water and native forests draped like a blanket over every visible surface, it looks wild. Untouched. I can imagine Polynesians paddling up to it, and the same wild and untamed view greeting them as greets me today.

The ferry docks and I shoulder my backpack, striding down the freight deck and onto the island. I search the abandoned wharf for my WWOOF host.

WWOOF stands for Willing Workers On an Organic Farm, and began as a website that connected budget travelers with an interest in organic practices to hosts who were willing to provide room and board in exchange for a half day’s work. Now, it’s far more flexible, and my host on Barrier is merely looking for helping hands with his gardens.

I’ve messaged him several times, mostly because the ferry to Great Barrier Island was delayed by three days, and I wanted to ensure he could still accommodate me. His texts appeared unruffled about the delay, as though the boat arriving three days late is simply a fact of life. The latest message, sent that morning when I confirmed the ferry was underway, says he’ll be down at the wharf when the boat arrives. And he’s the one with the plaited beard.

When I spot him, Tom does indeed have a plaited beard, as well as curly grey hair, a sweater poked with holes, and gumboots up to his calves, mud clinging to the edges like barnacles. He shakes my hand and ushers me to his truck. Mud cakes the floor mats and I set my feet on top of a pile of paper bags and a spare sweatshirt…that I hope he never plans on wearing.

We peel out of the parking lot and onto narrow roads, cruising at a speed that makes me feel like I left my mind behind on the ferry, as though it fell out of my bag as a consequence of my teetering land-lubber walk.

The sky is grey and low, thick with clouds. We speed along on the winding roads, first tracing along the curve of the rocky beach, then veering off. We pass a few homes dotted along the route, a run-down one there, a barn with a boat in it there. Even a small school tucked in the curve of the beach. Sometimes, the kids get to take kayaks out for class, Tom explains.

Some dwellings are adorable—little seaside cottages—and other’s appear to struggle against the heaving ocean winds. But all stand resolute upon the island, existing in a place where life is slow, but not always easy. Great Barrier is the kind of place where everyone has solar energy (because there is no other option) and there are no lines on the road and food costs twice as much because it’s shipped in from Auckland. As soon as we pass through what Tom calls a “little settlement,” the paved road turns to dirt. These routes are not for the faint of heart: twisting and winding and going down cliffs and up mountainsides at angles that make the truck hum and creak. I swear there is not enough room to pass another vehicle, but Tom does twice, waving to each person as we pass.

Then we’re dropping down again, another rocky beach opening up into brilliant views of the Coromandel Peninsula in the distance. It’s green and rocky, and surprisingly close. Barrier already feels like a world unto itself, yet the north island of New Zealand is right there.

We pass junk cars and old four wheelers and stacks of dirty items like bathtubs, old windows, and building materials. Since it’s expensive to ship things to and from the island, everyone just holds onto everything, thinking they may need to use it again one day. It makes sense, but it’s unfortunate. It lends the route a strange junky feel among all the vibrant, untouched forest. Great Barrier Island only has 1000 permanent residents, but humans have still left their unique brand of presence along the roads.

Before I know it, my host has pulled over on a tiny shoulder and parked the car. “We’re gonna get some seaweed,” he says. And I just go with it.

Down a root-strewn mud slope and onto the rocky beach.

He gives me a woven white bag, like what you might buy soil in, and we start scooping handfuls of small seaweed, more accurately sea grass, into these bags.

The seaweed is chock-full of good minerals and breaks down into very fine soil, so it’s practically fertilizer that we’re bagging. We fill about twenty-five bags, me filling and my host bracing them on his shoulder and trudging up the bank to the truck. Little do I know, this will become an almost daily occurrence.

We drive down steep grades, then rumble up slopes, only to swerve back down to within feet of the sea, and do it all over again. Quickly, paved roads turn to gravel and the forest edges in close. Up and down and around—sometimes we hit rocks so hard my butt leaves the seat. There’s no such thing as straight in these hills and we go blazing past tree trunks that I’m certain are going to scrap the side of the truck and lurching over rocks I’d have crawled over slower than a turtle. Tom’s hands dance across the wheel as we do 180 switchbacks and cross narrow bridges.

All the while, Tom points out different trees and explains that 100 years ago much of the island was burned to create farmland. But it was too remote, too far from Auckland, to be much good, so the forest has reclaimed the land. Rows and rows of young trees still stretch high into the sky, often meeting up high so we zoom through a tunnel of foliage. It’s winter, but everything is vibrant green. At one point, we dip into a gully and the host slows the truck. “Here’s a piece of the ancient, original forest that used to cover the entire island.”

It’s wild, like you can feel it in your soul. The forest floor is shaded by the giants above it, trees with trucks so wide four people couldn’t wrap their arms around it. It might take another three hundred years for the rest of the island to return to this, long after I no longer have eyes to see it.

The truck comes to a lurching halt in a low-spot, throwing water from deep mud puddles. The host passes me a pair of gumboots (saving me from muddy feet and ankles for the rest of the week). “Too muddy to drive down to the house,” he says. So I throw on my backpack, climb on the back of a four wheeler, and we go skidding and bumping down the two-track again, this time in open air, coming to a stop above his house.

Its hand built, solar-powered, and heated with a wood stove. The walls are unfinished, the 2×4 studs still visible, and the stove is connected to a propane tank tucked among a whole grouping of them, like a patch of white bushes in the middle of the room. The best part of the place is the deck. It’s at least half the size of the house, rail-less, and looks out upon a beautiful view of a bay, rocky islands, and the rest of Barrier rising in rows of peaks and crests in the distance.

Tom checks the tide charts and it’s low so we hop on the four wheeler again and zoom down to the beach where the wind blows and the waves crash. While narrowly avoiding getting drenched, Tom also catches a snapper for our dinner, and then we’re back on the bike. So far, I’ve only experienced his down-hill driving. Let me tell you, I thought it was a good thing I had medical insurance because I thought for sure I was flipping over backward.

So I’m on the back of this four-wheeler with a person I only met a few hours ago. A person who seems nice enough and I believe I can trust him (he’s told me in the few hours we’ve known each other that he has three daughters, the youngest of which is also 24. He believes that most people are good people. He believes in the spirit and energy of nature: trees, waves, etc. And he has twenty or more glowing reviews on the WWOOFing website, so I feel confident believing he’s a good guy). But I’m still not going to put my arms around him.

So I’m clinging to the metal bars on the back of the four-wheeler, but that puts most of my body weight leaning back, not forward. And Tom takes off.

We are cruising. I hold on for dear life, my legs locked tight at 90 degrees, as though the force of my heels against the back wheel well is going to keep me on this thing. Somehow, despite tree branches whipping my cheeks and mud splattering across my back and this guy driving like a bat out of hell, I manage to stay on the four wheeler. It’s truly a miracle.

Later, Tom walks me through his gardens, which are as green as everything else on the island. Winter doesn’t mean much here, except a lot of rain. For dinner, he cooks fresh snapper, sweet potatoes, and broccoli. Despite not liking much by way of spices (he doesn’t even have pepper in his house), everything he cooks seem to turn to gold. I’ve never had better sweet potatoes.

My bed is in a small loft overlooking the main room and it’s toasty and warm from the fire Tom started when the sun set. I brave the spider infested room with the compost toilet, stare directly at my bedding in the loft and not at any corners–very important not to know what is up there with me–and contemplate, in the darkness, the beginnings of my experience.

The idea of staying with a stranger is daunting, especially out so far in the bush where there is no one else around. I feel safe, but the sensation of being stuck is still unnerving. Living with unknown person leaves a toll, no matter what the environment is like. Also, the spiders.

I imagine that everyone who has had an experience like this has moments where they question what they are doing. What they are thinking. I could be home in my bed right now, waking to drink tea with my Mom, go hiking with my Dad. Instead, I am laying beneath a low ceiling of cobwebs and wondering if I should be trying to catch the next ferry out of this place. And wondering what happens if that ferry gets delayed three days like the one I took to get here. I feel trapped, even though this was my choice.

But the whole point of this year away is to be a little bit uncomfortable. To do things I wouldn’t normally do (and wouldn’t need to do). I decide not to hop on the next ferry. I decide to push through my discomfort (because it is a safe kind of discomfort).

And I become the Seaweed Queen of Great Barrier Island.

In the mornings, I crawl out of bed and descend rough-cut spiral stairs. I drink tea with my host while we watch the sky. For the first few days, it’s cloudy and grey, but progressively the mornings get sunnier, the sky bluer. By the end, Tom opens the sliding door when the sun first peeks over the summit and lifts his hands, praising the “beautiful sunny.”

Tom has sea-blue eyes and eyebrows that constantly express surprise. As he talks, they jump up and down his face, depending on his enthusiasm for the subject. He has garden-slumped shoulders, works without gloves, drinks a minimum of seven cups of tea a day, and says repeatedly: “All I wanted as a kid was to live in the bush and plant trees.”

So we scarf down porridge for breakfast and proceed into the gardens. I venture through the muddy paths armed with gumboots, gloves, and a hoe, and go to battle against the insidious weeds that flourish on the island. (I almost called this post The Buttercup Killer of Great Barrier Island for how many days I spent tearing buttercup out of the ground.)

Around noon, we pause for tea and a biscuit (i.e. cookie). We eat lunch right after, so Tom clearly believes in desert before dinner. Afternoons are reserved for bumping and twisting drives down the beach and seaweed, seaweed, and more seaweed.

As the weather improves, we get more done in the garden, so it clears up time for other things. We head back down to the beach and this time it’s me who catches dinner.

We hike up above the house, where old Maori terraces are still visible beneath the forest growth. Tom shows me Maori adzes (obsidian blades) he found digging in his garden and the face mask that washed up on the beach from one of the many Polynesian Islands out in the Pacific. Tom tells me of the skull he found in a cave, and how Maori chieftains used to be buried in caves, and how he believes in spirits. How he feels welcomed by them. How sometimes Tom feels them nudge him, as though saying remember me, and he’ll look around and realize he’s on a terrace he hasn’t seen before that could have been shaped up to 700 years ago.

We walk the sand beaches of the north side and visit a natural hot spring, soaking in the natural pools alongside a small river. We walk beneath a petrified tree trunk jutting from an ancient bed of volcanic stone.

Evenings are full of reading. For me, books. For Tom, Facebook. And we discuss history: what came before and what will come after us. For Tom, his legacy will be trees, ones that stand long after he is gone, that continue to nourish his children and grand children and great-grand children with fruits and nuts that he planted in the soil of Great Barrier Island.

For me, I’m not sure.

But, for one person out there, it’s as the Seaweed Queen of Great Barrier Island.