We’re back to work! Sort of. Well, not really. We recently participated in a program called Workaway. The general idea of Workaway is that one works for four to five hours a day, five days a week in exchange for room and board. Workaway itself is nothing more than a website which connects people who have work, aka “hosts", with people who want to work, aka “workawayers”.
Our host, Errol, owns and operates the Daintree Manor Bed and Breakfast located a couple hours north of Cairns, Australia. The B&B has only three guest rooms, but is located on a large property which requires a lot of upkeep. Our typical day started around 8 am when we helped set up and serve breakfast for the guests. After eating our own breakfast, we cleaned up the dining area and kitchen. Once the morning meal duties were finished, and I tended to the chickens, we both mowed, trimmed, weeded, and painted. The hours flew by, and by the time we realized it, it was noon and our workday was over. A few times we told Errol to give us more work because we felt guilty that we were receiving more than we actually earned, but he always insisted that we were doing more than enough. In the afternoons, we had the opportunity to do much needed research, planning, and booking of the next phase of our journey in South America. A couple of afternoons, we borrowed Errol’s car and explored other parts of the Daintree Rainforest. On our two days off, Errol took us to his place at the beach where we worked on our tans and caught up on our books.
Errol was an incredibly kind host. We slept in one of the very nice guest rooms. We ate extremely well, and I think I gained a few pounds during our stay. He could have fed us anything, but we instead ate things like roast lamb, steak, smoked salmon, and tandoori chicken. Since I like to cook, I did much of the cooking and Errol gave us free reign of the kitchen and refrigerator. I even made a cheesecake one day. We didn’t have lemons, but there were limes from the lime tree on the property. Either limes in general are more potent than lemons, or perhaps it was just the lime I used because it turned out to be extremely “limey”. It tasted fine, but was almost a cross between cheesecake and a key lime pie.
The rainforest in the northeast corner of Australia is not what one typically thinks of when picturing the land down under. As the name implies, it is not the dry, red rock of the outback in the middle of the county, but rather a thick, lush, green jungle. People also often associate Australia with deadly animals, and the rainforest has a few. We didn’t see any, but we are told there are lots of crocodiles. As long as you don’t swim in the tidal rivers and creeks, they aren’t a problem. We did go swimming in a creek, but because it is cold water, it was croc-free. Jellyfish may be the most dangerous animal in this part of the country. For much of the year, there are areas of the beach netted off where it is safe to swim in the summer and when we went scuba diving, we had to wear “stinger suits”. There are a lot of snakes in the rainforest, but most of them are not poisonous. There is a wild 12-foot long python that likes to hang out in the shed at the B&B. Each morning before letting the chickens out of their pen, I had to check to make sure it, or any other snakes, weren't hanging around. On our first night, as we were about to settle into our room, I grabbed a flashlight and told Jesslyn I was going to look for snakes. I took two steps out the door before seeing one. It was curled up on top of a post supporting the porch. I couldn’t tell exactly how big it was, but I would guess about four feet. I let Errol know, and he said that it is a local, and of no concern. It was a brown tree snake, which is poisonous, but has fangs so far back in its mouth, it wouldn’t really be able to bite. And what list of scary creatures would be complete without spiders? We saw the absolutely enormous, and mostly harmless golden orbs and a huntsman.
In addition to the chickens, the B&B is also home to a number of guineafowl, both of which roam free about the property by day, and sleep in the pen at night for their own protection from the snakes. The chickens cracked me up. A couple of them would follow me and Jesslyn around as we worked. Some of them would sit or stand by the glass doors and watch us when we were inside. I wasn’t so fond of the guineafowl mostly because they were so noisy, and perhaps to a small extent because they are so ugly (sorry Errol!).
Overall, our time working at the B&B was fantastic and we were sad to go. Workaway is a great way to make extended travel possible, and we were very lucky to have come across this opportunity at the Daintree Bed and Breakfast.
- Jake
The birds coming to hang by the house after being let out.
The senior of the two roosters, Pop, was very photogenic.
A guineafowl, a face only a mother could love
There were some good photo ops of wild birds...
...and bugs
Our crocodile-free swimming hole