Volunteer at Snowy River Camp.
After I finished high school (Abitur in Germany) in 2013, I didn’t want to start studying right away. Like most of the people of my generation, at least in Germany, I wanted to travel and see the world. I did one of the most cliche things, I went to Australia. This post will be the first of many about Australia. In the last years since 2012, I travel at least every 2 years to Australia. It definitely is my all-time favorite travel destination and I made a lot of long term friends there.
This post will be about my life long friends, which started as my employers. After a 1-month work stays in Melbourne, where I work in a chemistry lab, I had to leave the city desperately as I totally forgot to book accommodation in advance. I didn’t realize that the Australian football finals and some other major events were coming up in Melbourne.
Admittedly, it was more luck than anything else that I found the volunteer place at the Snowy River Camp. I met some other Germans in Melbourne and they told me about volunteer work. I registered at WWOOF (Willing workers on organic farms) website, from a local office in Melbourne I got a book (seriously a real thick book) with all the available worksites around Australia sorted after states. As some of the people there never answered me and you can find everything you can imagen in there, from private women looking for someone to help her with her garden over gigantic farms in the Northern Territory, to some gardening companies. In the end, I found Merry and Peter via the website. Merry posted that they would need help immediately, as Peter just had an operation and couldn´t fully work yet again.
A cold early morning start.
With one day's notice, I just took a train from Melbourne towards Albury and stayed in Albury for a couple of days, before Merry could pick me up. Snowy River Camp, today known as High Country Camp under new management, lies nestled in the hills of the Tallangatta Valley (Don´t know why there are 2 websites). Merry shocked me from the start, we needed to go shopping for a school group coming to the camp. I think we spend like 2 hours in one shop and then had to go to the next one, where we spend another hour or so. At that moment I already thought about leaving already again, as that was not really the farm work I looked for. Luckily I stayed. After shopping for half a day, we still had to drive around an hour to the camp, which helped to get to know her better. Luckily after that day, Merry never asked me again to come shopping with her again, only for some small parts. Mainly, she just took me into town and went shopping alone. During my first stay, I was the only volunteer at the camp. Mostly volunteer work involves 4-6 hours of work each day for accommodation and food. As I was alone, most of the days I help longer. I must admit, it was not really working when school camps stayed at the camp. My main task was to help with the activities (climbing, flying fox, canoeing) and kitchen help at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When nobody was staying, I did gardening work, fencing, a bit of cleaning, and animal work. In total, I revisited the camp 3 times and worked there, I also visited Peter and Merry 2018 at their new place after they sold the camp. In my experience, it is not really normal to return to your former chefs that often, maybe it is in volunteer work, but I became really close friends with them and I am always looking forward to the next opportunity seeing them. As I mentioned before, the first time I stayed with them, I worked there for around 1 1/2 month alone before some other volunteers arrived (the main reason is that it is located in a rather cold area of Australia, especially in early spring when I started), which makes the stay even more pleasant. You work less, as there are more of you, can do more activities together and spend the nights drinking and playing billiard… One of my best memories from Australia.
Working with my sister and a further volunteer in the fields, feeding horses.
There are so many different beautiful memories I made there, but I better only share the best and most memorable, as all would just excite just one post.
WORKING AT A SCHOOL CAMP/FARM
Working as a volunteer on a farm like this was really special to me. It gave me the opportunity to experience the people as well as the country. Even I´m studying chemistry and I can´t really imagen being a teacher, I really like to work with people.
I would love to photograph people much more than I do right now, the problem for me is my hesitation to break into somebody's privacy. Especially in Germany, it is a problem to photograph people without there admission as the one inside the picture owns the rights of his own. So photographing somebody in the streets could be a problem, as you officially need this person’s admission to publish the picture. In other country´s like the US, if you are out in public and somebody takes a picture of you, he owns it as it is a public space and he took the picture. (Quite a real easy short explanation of it, I think it’s much more complicated)
I took pictures of groups at the camp, but as I don´t know if they like to see there pictures on the internet and I don´t want to publish pictures of children or teens, which did not give me permission (or their parents), I won´t show that here.
Garden grounds and guest accommodation.
I enjoyed the work with the groups, some were a bit annoying but most of them were nice and liked to talk about where I come from and what I want to do. I still remember standing with Peter up on the flying fox starting platform. My job was to secure the wheels to the rope and help Peter to hook up the children to the wheels. It was hot, no shade, but Peter was always able to make the work pleasant. He was great around children, made fun of and with them, and motivated them to try some new tricks during the flying passage. When I remember all the fun I had with him up on this tower, I always start smiling. In the three stays with them at the camp I experienced everything, from really young school groups to a sailing club from Melbourne, who spend a weekend together with their families at the camp. One of the most contradictory of myself is, I liked the work in the kitchen, especially around breakfast, but at home, I hate the cleaning up part. When there was a BBQ breakfast with bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns (sorry Peter still doesn´t know how to write that) all the kids were lining up at the BBQ and asking you for extras or thanking you. It is one of the times and one of the jobs, in general, I think you see and feel their gratitude, of kids and people the most.
Besides the work with the kids, the general farm work the other side of the work at the farm. I must admit the farm work wasn´t hard or real heavy farm work. I took the three dogs for a walk every morning before the main work started around 7.30 am. The farmwork was more the work of a groundkeeper most of the time, as the garden grounds with the guesthouses were gigantic. I mowed the lawn, with a nice old sit-on mower, weeded and took care of the other animals. Feeding the horses with hay, feeding sheep and lamps, taking care that everyone has water. Clearing leaves, clearing small patches of forest of deadwood to minimize the risks of bush fires. All this work included my favorite toys, a blue pick-up truck, the Uht, and quads. As the grounds are huge, these things were great to move around and transport stuff, mostly us. (At one point you are annoyed to walk 1 km up the hill to the lakeside because you forgot something.) Admittedly, one time I overdid it and hit a large rock in the fields with the quad, driving too fast my had been the reason and cracked 2 of my fingernails completely. Also, I broke the mirror of the pick-up twice I think, both times there was a fence post in my way. I also broke the brake, and the gear of it I think (at least you couldn´t move the truck anymore). During that time the radios really helped, even it took me a couple of days/weeks to get the hang around these cracky noisy things. In the beginning, I always had to guess what the person on the other end tried to tell me. There is so much involved in the work there, I can´t really put everything in words, but somehow it always made me go back there.
CAMPFIRE AT THE LAKESIDE
Grilling with the smartphone light.
The lake is one of my favorite spots around the property. Even when it rained, sitting beneath the large tree was really calming. The lake is not natural, it´s a dam build by Peter and Merry years ago when they purchased the property. All the trees and the buildings were planted by them as well, the property was nearly completely empty when they brought it. That really impressed me.
It´s always impressive how a place can change depending on the circumstances. When I was alone, it was a calm, quiet place. As soon as other volunteers arrived, it was a place of fun, action, and friendship. One of my best memories of the dam is a nice campfire one night with my sister and other volunteers. We just took up the quad and the pickup, with marshmallows and “stick bread”. It took us I think an hour to light the fire, even with a lot of petrol as a starter. So I think I´m a real bad pyromancer. That night was great, a fire, some beer, and wine, music and just some talks around the fire.
In the middle of the lake, there are 2 large concrete pillars, they were placed there to hold a swimming platform, but it was never built. Now it makes a great picture spot and canoeing parkour. Or for me, the target of a morning swim. Some mornings I walked up to the lake and swim a couple of laps between the shore and the pillar.
GET TO KNOW THE LOCALS
Working on the room I stayed in the first 3 stays at Snowy River.
Getting to know the local community was one of the most challenging and fun parts at the same time. I really had and still have problems to introduce myself in person to somebody new. The first time I stayed with Peter and Merry, we demolished and rebuild a pool for the kids. As I´m not a professional builder, it doesn’t matter in Australia, some local people helped with tools as well as with knowledge and help. One of them was actually a former Formula one mechanic, which later also helped one of the volunteers repair their car. I found it quite ironic! He is a great guy, and as he spoke German I had a lot of fun with him.
A shocking moment for me was a horse-riding event in the valley. I was the only foreigner in the valley and most probably at the event. At the camp, I was always a worker, but at the event, I was just a normal German guy, with no idea of horses. So the worst event for me actually. I felt like an outsider, but as soon I realized that being an outsider can be something good, I enjoyed the experience to get to know new people. Now after 4 visits I´m not really an outsider anymore. I went to a football (Australian football not soccer) the last time I visited them. Most people remembered me and I had a lot of fun talking to people I got to know years ago still remember me. I never want to miss these experiences and these contacts, the karate group, the sailing group, the different school classes, and the people of the valley.
For me, this post is the start of my Australia reflection. I have so many ideas and memories I will write about. Most importantly this post is a big thank you to Peter and Merry, being great employers always making me feel welcome and useful, and more importantly, being great friends.
Writing this, I realized my pictures got at least a bit better in the last 6 years, still a long way to go to be a really good photographer, but a good start…
More pictures of Australia can be found in my galleries! I have traveled to this diverse country a lot in the last 10 years and have some stories and memories of nearly every state. While Victoria is closest to my heart, with most of my friends living there.
My personal best ones you can find in my portfolio.