After our previous WWOOFing trip, Growing Greener Pastures, my wife and I settled down for a couple of years and devoted our free time to turning a dream of mine into a reality: producing an original play. (To learn more, please check out my Writing section.) Following the success of this theatrical endeavor, we literally picked up and left town a week later; but this time, it wasn’t on a 16,000 mile road trip, it was on a 16-hour flight to Oceania!

From late November of 2017 until mid-February of 2018, we lived and worked—as we had in the United States—on organic farms across New Zealand’s northern and southern islands. Flying into Auckland, NZ’s most populated city, we had no idea of the adventures in store, the friends we’d make, or the amazing memories to be had along the way. And when we reached journey’s end, we flew from Christchurch to Brisbane, Australia, where our plans took an unexpected turn for the better.

While we volunteered on four WWOOF farms, explored exotic locales, visited a Maori village, hiked breathtaking trails, served at Krishna temples, and walked through major metropolitan areas, we again documented our journey for folks back home. This next travel blog, titled Destiny Down Under, encompasses both a continuity and extension of the intentional life choices embodied in our first departure from the norm. From these seeds grew ideas and opportunities we could’ve never imagined . . .

* Those with a particular interest in H. P. Lovecraft—or more specifically, my novella “If Only Skin Deep” from Forbidden Knowledge—will enjoy our posts from December 7th, (Whakarewarewa), January 17th (Welcome to Fenton Farm), January 21st (Down on the Farm), January 26th (Blight Energy Storm), January 30th (The Cool Little Town), January 31st (Gales and Games), and February 6th (Ticket to Ride: The Southern Alps).

The December post highlights our visit to Whakarewarewa, a Maori “Living Village” in Rotorua, NZ. The other posts cover our time in Hokitika, while we WWOOFed on the Blight’s family farm.