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We live on an acreage property with a rainforest arboretum which does require constant work - mulching, planting, pruning, mowing, whipper snippering, weed eradication and a lot of chain saw work, especially after storms.
In order that we can keep on top of things many years ago we joined an organisation called Help Exchange, HelpX for short.
HelpX is a bit like WWoofers but perhaps with a broader charter which allows mostly unskilled people opportunity to have short stays where they can undertake a whole range of tasks related to household and property maintenance.
The usual requirement is 3-5 hours of work per day in return for accommodation and food. We usually show our guests around the area in their non-work time.
We've indeed been fortunate to have had some of the nicest young people you'd ever want to meet stay with us, usually for just a week, though longer stays are possible with many HelpX hosts.
Most of our recent guests have been French university students interspersed with other nationalities from time to time. We can honestly say we have been unbelievably impressed with the respectfullness, trustworthiness, diligence, manners and individual personality of almost every guest we have ever had.
If you've followed my photostream you will be aware that we travel a lot. This has enabled us to catch up again, particularly in Europe, with several of our former HelpX guests, sometimes years after they leave Australia.
The cultural exchange for us is every bit as valuable as the work component of a HelpX stay as most foreign language speakers we have stay with us are here in Australia to improve their English. We've never had a problem communicating even though we don't speak a second language.
Nevertheless, sometimes the communication barrier presents an occasional humorous and rarely, a not so humorous moment. For example, when you send a HelpX worker to the shed to get a wheelbarrow and they come back with a rake or when you ask them to prune a bush and they prune it to the ground.
In every case though the incorrect performance of the task is innocent and needs to be viewed from the context of our role as educators.
Our guests always seem to enjoy their stay with us, if the references they write on our profile are any indication, and the same goes for us. We're often very sad when they move on to their next host but, as any good parent knows, kids have to go out and take the opportunity of new life experiences, so we gratefully say goodby and wish them well in their travels and in their future lives.
Just one final point. Many helpX hosts are just suburban mums and dads with young kids and pets. You don't need to be on a bigger property to enjoy the benefits of a cultural HelpX exchange.
The young man in the image above is Romain from France, a great worker and just an all-round nice guy. Romain was with us for a week in early November 2022.
He had just completed a degree in Business Marketing back home in France before arriving in Australia and was using HelpX to save money, gain new experiences and to improve his English.
There are a few organizations similar to HelpX.
Others include WWoofers (World Wide Opportunities on
Organic Farms), Workaway and Worldpackers.
All these require work in return for accommodation and in most cases provision of food can be negotiated.
A couple of others providing free accommodation but not food include Global Freeloaders and Couch Surfing.
Please consider joining and adding your Handheld Panorama Photos to the Group - HANDHELD PANORAMAS
Tags: Forster Mid North Coast NSW Dune Bennetts Head Panorama Widescreen Beach Landscape Beach Australian Beaches Help Exchange HelpX Romain Werth France Storm Sky Clouds IPhone Panorama Iphonephotography shotoniphone iPhone Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max iPhone 13 Pro Max Luminar Neo The Big Dune Big Dune Sand Dune Cape Hawke One Mile Beach Forster One Mile Beach Sand Dune repeated subject panorama
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In mid February 2023 these two fun loving 23 year old French girls stayed with us under the HelpX scheme where travellers can request to stay in your home for free and have meals provided in return for 3 to 5 hours of unpaid work per day.
The type of work varies but on Raintrees its usually gardening related work, mulching, planting, raking leaves etc.
Our usual work arrangement is to work from 8am till 12pm or occasionally to 1 pm.
Our normal policy is to only take HelpX when we have lots of work needing doing around the property and usually only for a week with each applicant, Sunday till Saturday though longer stays can sometimes be negotiated.
Most travellers don't have a vehicle so we pick them up from the railway station or bus terminal and drop them back there on their day of departure.
Sometimes things don't go to plan, as was the case with these two girls. We picked them up from the train and took them to dinner at a local restaurant where I managed to successful acquire Covid. This made the task of organising the daily work a little difficult as it was necessary for me to socially isolate from the girls. They were very warm and empathetic girls who showed genuine care for my well-being throughout their stay and we were sad to see them go at the end of the week.
They achieved all the tasks we had set for them in a pleasant, amiable manner which makes things so much easier than having to be more forceful in work demands.
With the daily work done by mid-day we would then show them around the local area in the afternoons, as was the case on this day here at the spectacular One Mile Beach sand dunes in Forster, NSW.
Oh, and fortunately, neither of the girls contracted covid during their stay with us.
They moved on from us to stay with friends at Pacific Palms before heading to the Gold Coast then to other friends at Byron Bay. From Byron Bay they flew to Melbourne and then made their way to Daylesford where they had secured some paid work in a bakery. Both girls had 6 month working visas.
Tags: HelpX February 2023 Clea Noemi One Mile Beach Sand Dunes Forster NSW Mid North Coast NSW Barrington Coast Panorama widescreen Girls One Mile Beach Forster Great Lakes NSW Gap France Beach Landscape Australian Beaches Beach Sand-dune sandhill Australia Iphone Photography IPhone 13 Pro Max shotoniphone Iphone Handheld Handheld Panorama repeated subject panorama
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Jeanne and Lucas arrived at Raintrees Native and Rainforest Gardens on Sunday 20th October 2024. They had contacted us via HelpX requesting to stay a week with us which we accepted as we were preparing our house for painting and would need help to move things around in readiness.
I'd only previously achieved a successful 3 X repeated subject panorama a couple of times before and I was very pleased when this one turned out so well.
I've created a group for Repeated Subject Panoramas.
If you have an interest in creating some of these images with 2, 3,4 or, if it's actually possible, 5 subjects please consider joining the group. I wonder who will be the first to achieve a 5er?
Tags: Jeanne & Lucas Repeated Subject Panorama Panorama 3X Panorama Raintrees Native and Rainforest Gardens Raintrees Diamond Beach NSW HelpX 20th Oct 2024 itsahanger France widescreen
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The couple seen here in this image are from Wales, UK and the USA. They stayed with us from the 25th November till the 6th December 2019 under the banner of an organization known as Help Exchange.
Under Help X guidelines travellers can request to stay in our home in return for 3-5 hours of work per day. We provide a bed and 3 meals a day and we also show them around the local area.
Over the last few years we have really enjoyed meeting usually very well educated young people who travel Australia using Help X.
The couple in this image are Megan, a Biologist and Gwyn, studying computer Science.
The work they did during their time with us was been very much appreciated. That work involved constructing a complex irrigation system to services our large plant nursery using greywater. In this time of level 4 water restrictions the system will keep plants alive when no other water is available. They also set up a 1000 litre water tank as the core of the system which doubles as a water source in the event of bushfire.
The irrigation job took at least 4 days to complete, although Megan and Gwynn did many other jobs during their time with us including hand watering plants with greywater, felling dead Bangalow Palms, clearing gutters of leaves and removing dry leaves from firebreak tracks. They also removed a massive Parsonsia straminea vine from our tractor shed roof, no easy task.
We took two trailer loads of green waste which included the vine and about 20 bangalow palm trunks and frons to the tip during a period when council had waived the fee on green waste following the Hillville and Darawank fires.
Unfortunately we had a trip to Melbourne planned from the 6th November so it was necessary for them to move on to friends at Pacific Palms, after which they were to head to Sydney area for Xmas.
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Tags: Helpx travellers Raintrees Diamond Beach NSW Australia The Tanks Forster Mid North Coast Luminar 4 Skylum Sky Replacement iPhone X back camera Iphone X IPhone shotoniphone madewithluminar Panorama Iphone X Panorama Apple Iphone X Panorama Apple Iphone Panorama Iphone Panorama Megan Gywn people Great Lakes NSW Barrington Coast Gwyn Hockridge Megan Belanger Luminar repeated subject panorama
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© All Rights Reserved - Black Diamond Images
We live on an acreage property with a rainforest arboretum which does require constant work - mulching, planting, pruning, mowing, whipper snippering, weed eradication and a lot of chain saw work, especially after storms.
In order that we can keep on top of things many years ago we joined an organisation called Help Exchange, HelpX for short.
HelpX is a bit like WWoofers but perhaps with a broader charter which allows mostly unskilled people opportunity to have short stays where they can undertake a whole range of tasks related to household and property maintenance.
The usual requirement is 3-5 hours of work per day in return for accommodation and food. We usually show our guests around the area in their non-work time.
We've indeed been fortunate to have had some of the nicest young people you'd ever want to meet stay with us, usually for just a week, though longer stays are possible with many HelpX hosts.
Most of our recent guests have been French university students interspersed with other nationalities from time to time. We can honestly say we have been unbelievably impressed with the respectfullness, trustworthiness, diligence, manners and individual personality of almost every guest we have ever had.
If you've followed my photostream you will be aware that we travel a lot. This has enabled us to catch up again, particularly in Europe, with several of our former HelpX guests, sometimes years after they leave Australia.
The cultural exchange for us is every bit as valuable as the work component of a HelpX stay as most foreign language speakers we have stay with us are here in Australia to improve their English. We've never had a problem communicating even though we don't speak a second language.
Nevertheless, sometimes the communication barrier presents an occasional humorous and rarely, a not so humorous moment. For example, when you send a HelpX worker to the shed to get a wheelbarrow and they come back with a rake or when you ask them to prune a bush and they prune it to the ground.
In every case though the incorrect performance of the task is innocent and needs to be viewed from the context of our role as educators.
Our guests always seem to enjoy their stay with us, if the references they write on our profile are any indication, and the same goes for us. We're often very sad when they move on to their next host but, as any good parent knows, kids have to go out and take the opportunity of new life experiences, so we gratefully say goodby and wish them well in their travels and in their future lives.
Just one final point. Many helpX hosts are just suburban mums and dads with young kids and pets. You don't need to be on a bigger property to enjoy the benefits of a cultural HelpX exchange.
The young man in the image above is Romain from France, a great worker and just an all-round nice guy. Romain was with us for a week in early November 2022.
He had just completed a degree in Business Marketing back home in France before arriving in Australia and was using HelpX to save money, gain new experiences and to improve his English.
There are a few organizations similar to HelpX.
Others include WWoofers (World Wide Opportunities on
Organic Farms), Workaway and Worldpackers.
All these require work in return for accommodation and in most cases provision of food can be negotiated.
A couple of others providing free accommodation but not food include Global Freeloaders and Couch Surfing.
Please consider joining and adding your Handheld Panorama Photos to the Group - HANDHELD PANORAMAS
Tags: Romain X 2 Dragon's Walk Raintrees Native and Rainforest Gardens Diamond Beach Mid North Coast NSW Romain Werth November 2022 France HelpX Help Exchange IPhone Panorama Iphonephotography shotoniphone iPhone Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max iPhone 13 Pro Max Panorama Widescreen Garden Landscapes Livistona australis Cabbage Palm Romain Middle Arm Creek repeated subject panorama
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