Getting thereI wanted to do some wwoofing (= Willing Workers On Organic Farm) in Australia for 2 reasons: working at a branche not IT related and a possible apply for a 2nd year visum. After looking on a internet wwoofing forum i found an appealing note from the Krishna farm. The contact details not listed in there because the wwoofing organisation wants to make money from bringing workers and employees together, I phoned the closest Hare Krishna organisation i could find and asked for contact information about the add and saved myself $50. Wheee!
After calling they told me that I`d be helping mostly in the garden, 6 days per week and about 4 hours per day. food 4 times a day and accomodation provided. Sounded good so i headed of from Byron Bay to the Hare Krishna`s...
Surrounding
The site is better then I expected. The Hare Krishna`s are
here. This is their
website.
The area here is the result of this volcano;
Mount Warning - it has created all the terrain as it is in a radius of 80 km. That and the reason that it lies on the edge of the desert / subtropical climate makes it a unique environment... and world heritage. Hare Krishna bought the area for $70.000 in the 1970`s and its worth a few millions now. A large part is still pure forrest and the major part that is used is park, argriculture and houses.
Ian
When I arrived and walked through the garden I thought that a lot of people of the Hare Krishna`s would work there and I would be helping them. But only 1 person build the whole garden up; Ian. (70 years old...) He showed me around the garden, the temple and the guest house. The guest house is pretty simple; 3 beds (but i had them all to myself the whole time...) a table, toast roaster and a water cooker... thats it.
The days i worked in the garden i worked together with Ian;
- planting pots
- adding compost
- moving branches... fun fun fun
- pruming trees
and in between all that a lot of conversation. It happens a lot around here that conversations continue even after 2 hours...
Hare Krishna
Specially for you I`ll put her shortly what i heard and remember about Hare Krishna:
The soul owns the body, not the other way around.
What we are living now, on this earth, is real but temporary. We are suffering here from birth, disease, old age and death. To stop this suffering we must enter the spiritual world. You can reach this by service for god. (no capital G there) The bad news is that for most it is unlikely to enter the spiritual world after this life. The good news though is reincarnation; so this life will effect your next life like your previous life makes you live your current life. Action Reaction. And for every habit you have, this might influence what you become your next life.
Lazy? be a tree.
Eating meat? Predator.
Dirty? Piiiiiiiiiiig.
People are living on this farm to make it easier for them to take distance from the material world in the level they want. Some devotees are living in sheds (even a cart) with no electricity or water near the hous, while others live in red-brick house and have bigassplasma screens...
What they`re trying to accomplish is self sustainage in everything. Growing food on their land to making pots, benches and houses. At the moment a lot is needed from outside the farm but they hope to improve this...
Doing service can be done by allmost every activity you do, cooking, gardening, making pots, music. One activity every devotee must do is chanting. They got a bead bag, in there a bead nechlace. The necklace has 108 beads starting at a big bead representing Krishna. You take 1 bead between your middle finger and thumb (not the index finger) and
chant:
Hare Krishna
Hare KrishnaKrishna Krishna
Hare Hare
Hare Rama
Hare Rama
Rama RamaHare Hare
Then you move till the next bead... and the next one... next one... untill you got all 108. Then you did 1 round. Most devotees do 16 rounds per day...
Some random lines about the religion;
- Hare Krishna`s are vegetarian; no meat, eggs, fish. Milk products are ok though.
- Cow is a holy animal.
- Their bible is called the vedas.
- Christ is another name for Krishna.
- Every time you say the name of Krishna you it has a positive effect on your next life.
Enough for now...
Guitar LessonsSince i bought a guitar three weeks ago in Byron Bay and started ramming it since, Ian introduced me to PJ. Resident of New Gophinda and... guitar teacher; lucky me.
We often played after dinner for 2 hours. Started from hand positioning and which fingers for which chord to harmonics and some blues schemes... hand exercises to alternate tunings.... power chords to slides... really lucky to meet him so early after buying a guitar.
Ekendra played awesome guitar as well, playing every day till his 27th. a good acoustic guitar version of Wish You Where Here from Pink Floyd to Effervescent Elephant from Syd Barrett. Hard to imagine that he hardly plays anymore...
The Fridge
On the first week Alan took me to The Fridge; a waterhole 6km from the farm. I wish i could post some pictures of it to go with the text, but appearantly me and cameras dont mix... the memory card of my newly bought camera got corrupted and so... all the photos till the 8th of june were deleted. FFF**********CCCKKK. Anyways... it was a really nice spot, beautifull water slide and rocks and trees around it.
Work...
I mostly worked in the garden with Ian. Besides that i helped in the kitchen every sunday and with every festival. Chopping veggies mostly. Every sunday they have a festival; about 150 people joining most of the times.
Working this amount of time is easy to sustain, working 4 houts (most days less, some days way less, some days none...) and the rest of the days free.
FoodThe food is really really good. I expected the food to be boring and little variety - i brought with me some macaroni and sauce.... but never had to use it. Most times the food includes rice, a dough product and veggies. But in the 3 weeks i`ve been here, the only thing i got bored of is the pumpkin... and eating no meat at all was really no trouble at all. Thinking of eating less or no meat from now on.
Siegfried
After two weeks at the Krishna`s a friend of Ian arrived; Siegfried. He is a non-typical traveler, having spent most of his 52 year life racing over the world... and still going, but on a more comforting pace and an even more non-typical student. No surprisingly german from origin he got his Australian nationality in the 80`s and since then spending most time in Germany and Australia. Instead of a house he got a delivery van as home...
Not really a van though...
Bought it new for ~$55.000 totally empty; he made every component thats in it himself; cabinets, beds x 2, kitchen, closet, electricity, built a solar panel in. Bike at the back, kayak and solar panel on top.
He made life a bit (even more) easier at the Krishna`s, removing some of my workload in the kitchen and in Ians garden. Between all the working we climbed mount Warning (1200m), went a few times to Murwillumbah, played some excellent chess games and he showed me;
Crams Farm
20 km from the the Krishna`s you have Uki. 10 km above there is a dam, providing water to Byron Bay and surrounding:
Clarry Hall Dam.
So... at the other side of the dam formed some big lakes; Crams farm is the recreation area next to these lakes.
The first day spent the whole morning kayaking from Crams Farm to the dam; made some really nice pictures of the still water, green fields, far away mountains, dead trees in the water and colourfull birds.
The second day spent most time playing guitar and in the evening playing piano... The caretaker of the farm; Terry, took us to Uki where there was a jam organised with the locals, lots of guitar players, a big bass, some rhytm instruments and... a piano. Hade a great time playing some blues and even.... Old McDonalds had a farm in hillbilly style... (please dont kick me out of the band...)
SAESiegfried is also a film student at the SAE in Byron Bay - thats why im there for the last 4 days. He showed me around all the studios.
Saw a recording with 2 guitars, guitar soling, a band jamming (drums + bass + guitar in the studio, singer in the control room) and the world most expensive keyboard: a protools interface.
Sunday or monday im going north again though, having seen SAE and most of Byron Bay now.
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