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Host rating
100 %
Last replied
23 Apr 2025
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100.0 %
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Details
Description
Join us on our 12-acre hillside property in South West Gippsland as we restore buildings, grow food, care for animals, and bring a long-neglected farm back to life. We’re looking for observant, motivated Workawayers who are keen to contribute to real projects, share daily life, and enjoy the peaceful beauty of rural Victoria. In return, you’ll enjoy great food, friendly company, and the chance to learn and live in a truly unique setting.
Hello! We’re Karen and Al, a couple in our late fifties who made a tree-change from Melbourne to this beautiful 12-acre property seven years ago. Nestled on a spur overlooking the stunning Moyarra Valley, we’re surrounded by rolling hills, big skies, and fresh country air. It’s a peaceful, inspiring place—but there’s always lots to do!
The property had been neglected for around 20 years before we arrived, so we’ve been gradually bringing it back to life. Our ongoing projects include the renovation and restoration of two houses, garden design and landscaping, fencing, and building a shelter for machinery. Day-to-day jobs vary, and may include helping with cooking, cleaning (including animal enclosures), weeding, and general property maintenance.
We share our space with a growing menagerie: chickens, guinea fowl, a peacock, miniature goats, Highland cattle, bees, livestock guardian dogs, a cat and kitten, and a number of large parrots who are very much part of our daily life. If you're interested, you're welcome to learn how to handle and care for them—there’s always animal grooming and feeding to be done.
We’ve both worked across a range of industries—music, sound engineering, IT project management, teaching, and running a fresh produce business. We’ve travelled widely and love exchanging stories, ideas, and skills with our guests. We also enjoy cooking, bread making, entertaining, and listening to music. We eat a meat-based diet and do our best to source our food ethically and locally. One of our goals is to grow all our own produce eventually. If you have any special dietary requirements (vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, lactose intolerance, etc.), just let us know when you first contact us—even if it’s already in your profile.
We really value people who are observant, show initiative, and have a good eye for detail. We ask that guests take an active role in the household—not just looking after their own things but contributing to the shared space and day-to-day life. Respect for our facilities, animals, equipment, and each other is really important to us.
Accommodation & Facilities
You may be staying in either of the houses on the property, but meals are shared and served in the main house, where we live. We eat well and cook everyday—our kitchen includes a cafe-quality coffee machine, and we love learning about new cuisines. We share meal prep, cooking, and clean-up duties with our guests.
Both houses have full, unlimited internet access, so if you need to work online while you're here, that’s totally doable.
Work Details
Workaway tasks are generally 25 hours per week, and we're flexible with how the hours are scheduled. All guests must have valid travel insurance in case of accidents. Please note we cannot offer paid work to support visa requirements, and we prefer non-smokers or light smokers only.
Getting Around
Our property is quite isolated and not serviced by public transport, so please make sure you’re happy with a peaceful, rural setting away from city life. We do regular trips to nearby towns and you're welcome to join us. A driver’s licence is definitely a plus here.
We’re around 20 minutes from Inverloch’s swimming and surf beaches, and close to beautiful walking trails, including the Great Southern Rail Trail. Phillip Island is about 50 minutes away, and Wilsons Promontory is 90 minutes by car. There are also plenty of great local cafes, a brewery, wineries, and distilleries to explore.
A Final Word
Please read our reviews and check the availability calendar before getting in touch. If you think you’d enjoy life on our property, we’d love to hear from you.
Warm regards,
Al & Karen
Types of help and learning opportunities
Charity Work
Art Projects
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Animal Care
Farmstay help
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Help around the house
General Maintenance
Interests
Movies & TV
Pets
Technology
Politics / Social justice
Events & social
Farming
Charity work
Cooking & food
Performing arts
Music
UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
We’ve both travelled widely and have been actively involved in community arts and social organisations over the years. Life on our property offers a chance to learn about sustainable hobby farming, caring for highland cattle and chickens, working with parrots (including behaviour and training), beekeeping, cooking, and exploring local food and wine.
There are also great opportunities to meet a variety of interesting people—from neighbouring farmers and brewers to local artists and musicians. Karen is involved in several volunteer projects as well, and Workawayers are welcome to lend a hand if they’re interested in giving back to the community.
Help
We’re looking for friendly, reliable helpers to get involved in a variety of tasks around the property. This includes setting up gardens, helping with basic building and renovation projects, general maintenance, cleaning, cooking, and caring for our animals.
No specific experience is necessary—what matters most is a willingness to learn, follow instructions, and treat our tools, equipment, and spaces with care and respect. Your safety (and ours) is a top priority.
Fluent English isn’t essential, but a positive attitude and a genuine willingness to communicate are! We value people who are hands-on, observant, and happy to contribute to the rhythm of daily life here.
Languages spoken
English: Fluent
Accommodation
Depending on how many guests we have at the time, accommodation is offered either in the main house or in our second house on the property.
The main house has a guest room with a queen-size bed and a private bathroom. The second house, which is part of our ongoing renovation project, has two finished queen bedrooms with a shared bathroom upstairs. The kitchen and living area downstairs are fully completed and comfortable, while some renovation work continues in other parts of the house—so it’s part home, part project!
Both houses have full, unlimited broadband internet, making it easy to stay connected or work online if needed.
What else ...
Gippsland is a beautiful and diverse region with plenty to explore—beaches, cafes, wineries, bushwalking trails, surfing spots, and more. While having your own transport is a bonus, it’s not essential—we’re happy to assist with local trips when possible. We also have kayaks available for those keen to paddle around the nearby coastal inlet.
This is a non-smoking household, and while we welcome guests from all walks of life, we prefer no heavy smokers.
We follow a mostly meat-based diet but are happy to cater for vegetarian, vegan, or other dietary needs—just let us know in advance.
Please also note that our large parrots are very much part of daily life, as are our friendly livestock guardian dogs—so guests must be comfortable sharing space with animals!
A little more information
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
Can host digital nomads
Unlimited broadband available throughout both houses. A number of different work spaces available.
Space for parking camper vans
We have capacity for travellers with their own accommodation but it can be very weather dependant. Send us a message if you are interested and we can let you know.
How many Workawayers can stay?
More than two
Feedback (28)
Photos
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Accuracy of profile:
(4.9)
Cultural exchange:
(4.9)
Communication:
(5.0)
We stayed for 5 weeks and our main tasks were feeding the birds, painting at the other house and cutting the firewood.
Karen is one of the organisers of interesting music events that we got to attend and help out with.
Al was generous to lend us their tools for converting our van and… read more
Heather worked with Al on a lot of the renovation things we were doing and Alex spent a lot of time in the kitchen where he is very at home. Heather's renovation work was always well done with care and attention to detail and… read more
Simon also took a lot of lovely photographs of our property and animals which he kindly shared… read more
We wish him well with his new life here in Australia!
Sarah was happy to take on any tasks and… read more
He seemed to enjoy the manual work we needed him to do as well as spending time with the dogs and was also very helpful in the kitchen. We cooked some traditional German dishes as… read more
Esmee willingly… read more
Not only does the property boast fantastic views all around and have gorgeous starry nights —, but Karen and Al are also such wonderful people. The weather didn’t… read more
He was very easy going,… read more
Karen and Al were very patient and kind. Despite the fact that my English is not good, I felt very welcome. Thanks for that! The work was different every day. Some painting, building the park beaches or gardening. I could feed the animals every morning,… read more
We… read more
The two are really good, easy going humans, caring hosts, great sense of humor and we always had good conversations, shared a couple of beers and great brekkies & dinners! Karen's food is simply amazing and made for all… read more
We undertook a wide variety of projects while she was here and she turned her hand to everything from painting and sanding chairs and windows to driving the excavator and gardening.
The house was… read more
Karen and Al also put a lot of effort into making the holidays like Christmas… read more
We really enjoyed having her here and would highly recommend her to any future hosts.
They happily helped with meal… read more
Tom loves to cook and he is very good at it so them being vegan was really… read more
Nothing was too much trouble and… read more
Their work ethic is fantastic and everything we asked them to do was done to a… read more
It has been a pleasure meeting Karen and Al. We spent two very comfortable weeks with them, the tasks to be carried out are easy and entertaining. Karen is a great cook, we really enjoyed her meals and the conversations. Not suitable if you are on a diet!… read more
They are very nice, patient.
They explained a lot of things to me about the animals, about the garden.
I loved cooking with Karen (the meals are amazing), she gave me lots of tips. She shares… read more
Mylene was very self motivated and did heaps of things around the place from cleaning, gardening and cooking to animal care… read more
Nothing was too much trouble for them and they were happy to tackle any projects they we had to do including gardening, path building and the design of our vegetable garden fencing. They also helped with all the meal prep and cleaning up… read more
Karen and Al were very good at matching work to the skillset of volunteers staying. Our days were filled with work that we had pleasure doing. We built raised garden beds, split wood, built a brick walkway,… read more
They also helped sew lots of pouches and liners for animals… read more
they have a lot of lovely animals and are both very fun and easy going.
Karen welcomed me over the Christmas holidays at her family reunion wich was very lovely and kind to do!
The work was nice honest work mostly outside and often including animals wich I usually enjoyed.
But be careful about Karen!
She is… read more
I would highly recommend… read more
They were so welcoming, they made me feel like home from the first day, I loved so much to be surrounded by all their animals, especially Polar, this amazing dog I fell in love with !!!
After the work outside, it was so pleasant to cook and talk about… read more
He was great with all the animals and has a positive and upbeat attitude. We would highly recommend him to any host.
Our animals have never had so much attention and the garden around the… read more
