Help required involves gardening, planting trees, soft landscaping, general maintenance in rural Wairarapa - NZ

New Zealand

Favourited 73 times

Host rating
Feedback
21
Last activity
06/01/2021
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Availability

2021

Min stay requested: at least a week

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What's this?

Details

Description
Hamish and I (Alastair) live on a lifestyle property in rural Wairarapa on land that has been in my family for over 40 years. We both work full time and in the weekends enjoy our friends and family nearby, our garden, our pets, and our animals on our surrounding 7 hectares of farmland.

We manage the farm with my father and my brother, sister-in-law and niece and nephew. We're starting to plant natives and wetlands on the farm to attract birds and other local wildlife, and are seeking help with the farm planting, as well as general farm work such as animal care and wood chopping, gardening and odd jobs like painting.
Types of help and learning opportunities
Gardening
DIY and building projects
General Maintenance
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Help around the house
Animal Care
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
Travellers will be able to spend time with me and Hamish and my family and friends who live nearby. New skills include gardening (including fruit and vegetables), planting, basic farming and building skills like painting. Practice English.
Help
Planting, general on-farm jobs including animal care, firewood chopping and stacking, gardening and odd jobs like painting.
Languages spoken
English: Fluent
Accommodation
The accommodation is in a separate guest house that is new, modern and sunny with views of the surrounding countryside.

The guest house has a self-contained bedroom, dining and living room, kitchenette and bathroom. The bedroom has a queen size bed and a day bed. The dining and living room has a dining table, a couch and TV. The kitchenette allows basic cooking and there's a 4-burner BBQ available along with outdoor areas for relaxing and eating.

Hamish works from another room in the guest house on weekdays and will share the kitchen and bathroom. Guests will have the space to themselves outside work hours and on the weekends.
What else ...
Our house is on the outskirts of Carterton with rural outlook and atmosphere, but close to the shops and transport links. Our place is 10 minutes from the railway station with trains to Wellington that take 90 minutes.
A little more information
- Internet access
- Limited internet access
- We have pets
- We are smokers
- Can host families
Space for parking camper vans
This host can provide space for campervans.
How many Workawayers can stay?
Two
Hours expected
Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week

Photos

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Alastair

Hamish

Martha & Rufus

Feedback left by and about host (21)

These are extra optional ratings when members leave feedback. The average rating left for each option is displayed.

Accuracy of profile:
(5.0)

Cultural exchange:
(4.9)

Communication:
(5.0)

27/08/2020

Left by host for Workawayer (Medea & Filip)

Hamish and I enjoyed hosting Media and Filip very much; it was fun getting to know them and they did great work for us.

Media and Filip are very socialiable and open; happy to spend time with us and share information about their lives and experiences. At the same time they were happy to respect boundaries at the times when we asked them to fend… read more

(Excellent )

03/04/2020

Left by Workawayer (Joanna & Dariusz) for host

We really enjoyed time we spent with Alastair and Hamish.
The work that we got gave us a lot of satisfaction.
We liked that our working time was well organized - every morning we were given a specific list of tasks to do. Our tasks were, for example, to stack the wood, clean windows, cut the grass, help in the kitchen, water the plants, make a… read more

(Excellent )

08/03/2020

Left by host for Workawayer (Joanna & Dariusz)

Hamish and I really enjoyed hosting Asia and Darek and would definitely recommend then to others. They’re both friendly and easy to talk to, were very willing to do the jobs we gave them, and did all the jobs to a really high standard.

Asia and Darek were easy company with lots of interesting things to talk about, in terms of where they’re from… read more

(Excellent )

24/02/2020

Left by Workawayer (Viktorija) for host

I had a great & memorable experience at Alastair's & Hamish's home. They share their wide knowledge generously and make you feel like a member of the family from the first sight. They are so thoughtful and generous, thinking of everything and ensuring I felt comfortable, too. The work was rewarding and interesting. It consisted of helping out in… read more

(Excellent )

22/02/2020

Left by host for Workawayer (Viktorija)

It was a pleasure to host Viktorija and we'd recommend her to other WorkAway hosts. Viktorija is living a really interesting life with so many varied experiences, so she's great company and has lots to talk about. She was also really easy-going and willing to do the jobs we had for her, which mostly consisted of gardening, weeding, planting - and… read more

(Excellent )

22/02/2020

Left by host for Workawayer (Eleanor)

It was a real pleasure to host Ellie at our place. We enjoyed her company and really appreciated the work she did for us. Ellis is engaging and easy going, hard-working, and awesome around the house with cooking and cleaning-up. She helped us with gardening, planting, potting-up and some small-scale building and carpentry, to which she brought… read more

(Excellent )

06/02/2020

Left by Workawayer (Eleanor) for host

I had a really awesome week staying with Hamish and Alastair. The jobs we had to do were varied, interesting and I learnt a few things to. It was a real joy contributing to their beautiful home. Post-work river swims, collecting veggies from the garden for dinner, delicious food and fun company made it a week to remember! Thanks guys!

(Excellent )

05/01/2020

Left by host for Workawayer (GUILLAUME)

It was a real pleasure to host Guillaume. He was very engaging and easy to get along with, as well as eager and hard working.

Guillaume did a range of jobs for us, but mostly gardening and landscaping-type activities. He dug several large holes for trees to be planted in, including some very difficult holes where he had to dig through tree roots… read more

(Excellent )

03/01/2020

Left by Workawayer (GUILLAUME) for host

Alastair and Hamish are genuinely nice people easygoing thoughful and always caring.
They made a wonderful home of the family property
I learned a lot about proper gardening with these 2 who have a green thumb.
Except that i didn’t know chokes and rabbits were good natural fertilizers.
Their garden is already looking great and is gonna get better… read more

(Excellent )

14/09/2019

Left by host for Workawayer (Eduardo)

It was a real pleasure to host Eduardo and we would recommend him to other WorkAway hosts.

Eduardo is a really interesting and engaging guy, and very easy to get along with. We spent quite a bit of time together working or sharing meals and it was great to get to know Eduardo more. We found him willing to share things about his own country and… read more

(Excellent )

13/09/2019

Left by Workawayer (Eduardo) for host

It was a very mindful experience staying with Alastair and Hamish. They are great hosts and do manage to take care of a cozy and diverse rural area, even having both other jobs, sometimes out of the property.

I stayed 10 days there during the winter, which was my first experience on Workaway. Activities were quite varied, so a good opportunity to… read more

(Excellent )

16/08/2019

Left by Workawayer (Kevin & Claire) for host

Our recent stay with Hamish and Alistair was truly a great New Zealand experience that we thoroughly enjoyed!

- The work consisted mostly of gardening which was varied to keep it interesting. Alistair and Hamish were very flexible and trusting over the hours- we could pretty much work around the weather and work more hours in a day to work less… read more

(Excellent )

06/08/2019

Left by host for Workawayer (Kevin & Claire)

It’s been brilliant having Claire and Kevin with us for the last few weeks. They’ve been great company and got stuck into the jobs we had for them.

One job consisted of double-digging a big new garden bed - no mean feat and tackled with gusto. They also showed their carpentry skills by building us some awesome new shelves, and their culinary… read more

(Excellent )

21/05/2019

Left by Workawayer (Marina & Ivan) for host

It was a really pleasure for us to stay at Hamish and Alastair’s home. They felt us feel at during our two weeks stay there. It was our first workaway experience and it couldn’t be better.
From I wrote them to arrange the stay, they were very helpful and friendly with us.
They understood our personal situation (Ivan can works just from midday)… read more

(Excellent )

19/05/2019

Left by host for Workawayer (Marina & Ivan)

It was a real pleasure to host Marina and Ivan and I would recommend them to any other WorkAway host.

Marina and Ivan were very willing workers who worked hard and achieved a lot in their two weeks with us. Marina has existing plant knowledge and they both had gardening and landscaping skills, so they were a real asset outside. They also… read more

(Excellent )

13/05/2019

Left by host for Workawayer (Theresa)

We were very pleased to have met and hosted Tess. She was very easy to have around, did everything to a high standard, was engaging and personable, and was great company.
She was enthusiastic, did all the job we asked he to do willingly, and was interested to learn about us and our families.
She was great with the kids in our extended family and… read more

(Excellent )

11/05/2019

Left by Workawayer (Theresa) for host

I had a really great time with Hamish and Alastair! They are such nice, open-minded and warm-hearted persons, who treated me like a member of their family. I could not have wished better hosts! The house and the area surround is really awesome. So it was a pleasure for me, to help them in their beautiful garden. Unfortunately Alastair was very… read more

(Excellent )

17/04/2019

Left by Workawayer (Daria & Connor) for host

Alistair and Hamish were excellent hosts, very caring and great cooks!
The flat they provided was brilliant, it had a nice large bedroom with a kitchen unit. The work was very varied, physical at times but rewarding and we were given clear easy to follow instructions. They also have two adorable friendly cats which you can't help but fall in love… read more

(Excellent )

15/04/2019

Left by host for Workawayer (Daria & Connor)

It was a real pleasure hosting Daria and Connor. They're interesting and engaging people who are easy to be around. They were both very keen workers and did a great job for us on a variety of tasks, including painting, gardening and fencing. They observed all the house rules and left the accommodation is a very clean and tidy state. I would… read more

(Excellent )

23/12/2018

Left by host for Workawayer (Bert & Yentl)

It was a real pleasure hosting Bert and Yentl and I would recommend them to any host.

Bert and Yentl are interesting and pleasant, forthcoming with details about their own country and background, and interested in us and New Zealand in general. They were very thoughtful guests and kept the accommodation very clean and tidy. We had a good balance… read more

(Excellent )

21/12/2018

Left by Workawayer (Bert & Yentl) for host

We stayed with Alastair and Hamish for 2 weeks. From the first moment, they made us feel like home. They're very nice and gentle people.
There was a big variety of jobs for us to do (building bridge, gardening, cutting gorse ...), so the work never bored us.
The room we got was amazing. Very clean and spacious. We also got our own seperate kitchen… read more

(Excellent )

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