#1 "Working in a Kibbutz"
One of our focus trips when travelling overseas was to go to Israel and work in a Kibbutz , as many of the young Kiwis and Aussies did when travelling. Mainly because of the “new Jewish State” as an outcome from WW2 and the Holocaust.
Both Karin and I had read many books on the death camps and the migration of the Jewish people to Palestine post WW2. (One of these was by Leon Uris).
Karin had applied to join the “Bridge over Israel” after completing her final year of school but was declined due to her age. She was Jewish by descent.
Anyway, after working in shearing and pubs in England and Wales we booked our tickets to Israel. What a journey for that time. We had to go to Stanstead Airport. The security was mind boggling, with Israeli security forces, guns and all checking every passenger before boarding a flight direct to Tel Aviv.
Arriving in Tel Aviv at 10.30pm local time we came out to the main airport terminal to discover that all the buses to Tel Aviv had finished and only option was taxis!! We were harassed by Palestinian taxi drivers telling their colleagues that they were booked to take us to Eilat (about 1000 km from Tel Aviv!!!!!) We told them all to get lost and stayed the night in the airport. The next morning, we caught the bus to Tel Aviv and eventually ended up at one of Karin’s family for a few days.
We found our Kibbutz experience didn’t appeal as it was all about picking fruit. They asked what we could do, and we advised that we grew up on a dairy farm. They placed us in a Moshav Shitufi (a family based collective) which meant that we had our own accommodation and had all our meals with a host family. They were South African Jewish migrants, so we weren’t living with 100’s of young British and Antipodean travellers. We lived with the locals who really looked after us and took us all over Israel. We milked 360 cows 3 times a day and I also milked 1200 sheep twice a day.
While working in the sheep milking shed (the Dere in Hebrew) I asked how they shore their sheep. They advised that they placed them in the rotary turnstile and would take them out one by one, tie their legs so they wouldn’t move and shear them. I offered to show them the way in which the Kiwis shore their sheep, via the Bowen method.
So, after breakfast one fine sunny day a crowd gathered to see this kiwi show them how to shear their sheep without tying them up. I shore the first one in under 3 minutes using narrow gear, it really caught their interest. They then challenged me to shear 5 in 15 minutes. Accomplished that with ease.
Afterwards I offered to bring my gear back to Israel and shear all their sheep plus the sheep on Moshav’s around the Bakar Valley in Israel (near the Sea of Gallilee, Hagalil in Hebrew). However being a collective farm, they wouldn’t spend the money and the offer was declined.
Many months later when in Europe we met up with another volunteer from the Moshav collective in Holland and he said that one of the workers thought he knew how to do shear the sheep and after trying one or two gave up, too hard!!!
We had a wonderful experience including every bus trip there was normally a terrorist incident before or after our presence!!!
Anyway, back to UK and work in bars then…….
#2 Europe on $10.00 per day ....
While we were working and travelling in the UK and Wales (Cymru) we purchased a copy of the book written by Arthur Frommer “Europe on $10.00 per day”. This was a wonderful challenge and allowed us to add a month Eurail pass (first Class I might add, as I was older than the 27 year old upper limit for the 3rd class travel for three months!!) to our current savings and travel by train around Europe. We avoided the communist countries and Spain and Portugal as they all required visas. We couldn’t be bothered with the hassle.
So, off we went across the English Channel on a Hovercraft to Calais, catching the first train to Paris and ending up in the Gar Du Nord. We found cheap accommodation from the Frommer book and stayed there for a couple of nights. While looking at some fruit on the roadside stall we were reminded by the stall holder “please do not touch ze fruit”. Bit of a wakeup call.
Next step was to catch the train south to Italy to Florence (Firenze) where we saw the Pont De Vecchio, Michealangelo’s ‘David’; to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower and then Rome for five days. All we wanted to do was to get to a sunny spot to enjoy the first sun in 6 months after months in England. While travelling I noticed that many travellers were wearing badges on their hats. I started collecting all these (German/Austrian badges and wearing them on my hat! (something that was “out there” for a travelling Kiwi).
Whilst at Pisa a gentleman came up to me and got close and said in a raised voice “Do you speak English” to which I replied, “Very well in fact” and that we were from NZ. He responded to say that he was also from NZ and of course we asked “where in NZ are you from?”
He responded that he was from a small town called Hawera. We said to him that my wife was from Hawera (small world). When he introduced himself with the surname of Crosby, I said that I had flown with a “John Crosby” in the RNZAF. He responded that that was his son!!! He also said “you are supposed to be travelling in Israel”. A very small world, no mobile phones then.
On with our adventure to Rome for five days where we visited the Coliseum (no waiting lines; the Sistine Chapel), no waiting there either and only about 50-60 people inside, so plenty of space to explore.
On to Brindisi on the east coast of Italy to catch the ferry to Corfu. We met a funny Brazillian named Eduardo. He was going to Corfu to go to the topless beach on the Island!!
Lovely sunny days. We spent five days exploring the island before catching the ferry back to Brindisi and on to Venice (Still on $10.00 per day).
While we were in Europe, we always ate a breakfast of coffee and a pastry in the morning and nothing during the day until late afternoon, when we enjoyed a lovely local dinner.
We went to Dachau in Germany, Munich and up the Rhine overnight to Amsterdam where we saw Anne Frank’s place. We also read in the book that we had to have a Reistaffel, an Indonesian dish in a section of Amsterdam inhabited by “Dutch East Indies migrants”. On the way walking, as we always did, we happened to pass through the “Red Light District”, wow that was an eye opener. Some of our Dutch friends from our Israel experience, were dismayed that we went anywhere near there from a safety perspective!! Ignorance is bliss ….
Anyway, back to London and still cold, so we stayed three days and caught the next flight to LA enroute to NZ. Both of us had lost a lot of weight and enjoyed the “Adventure”.
James Davey
September 2023
One of our focus trips when travelling overseas was to go to Israel and work in a Kibbutz , as many of the young Kiwis and Aussies did when travelling. Mainly because of the “new Jewish State” as an outcome from WW2 and the Holocaust.
Both Karin and I had read many books on the death camps and the migration of the Jewish people to Palestine post WW2. (One of these was by Leon Uris).
Karin had applied to join the “Bridge over Israel” after completing her final year of school but was declined due to her age. She was Jewish by descent.
Anyway, after working in shearing and pubs in England and Wales we booked our tickets to Israel. What a journey for that time. We had to go to Stanstead Airport. The security was mind boggling, with Israeli security forces, guns and all checking every passenger before boarding a flight direct to Tel Aviv.
Arriving in Tel Aviv at 10.30pm local time we came out to the main airport terminal to discover that all the buses to Tel Aviv had finished and only option was taxis!! We were harassed by Palestinian taxi drivers telling their colleagues that they were booked to take us to Eilat (about 1000 km from Tel Aviv!!!!!) We told them all to get lost and stayed the night in the airport. The next morning, we caught the bus to Tel Aviv and eventually ended up at one of Karin’s family for a few days.
We found our Kibbutz experience didn’t appeal as it was all about picking fruit. They asked what we could do, and we advised that we grew up on a dairy farm. They placed us in a Moshav Shitufi (a family based collective) which meant that we had our own accommodation and had all our meals with a host family. They were South African Jewish migrants, so we weren’t living with 100’s of young British and Antipodean travellers. We lived with the locals who really looked after us and took us all over Israel. We milked 360 cows 3 times a day and I also milked 1200 sheep twice a day.
While working in the sheep milking shed (the Dere in Hebrew) I asked how they shore their sheep. They advised that they placed them in the rotary turnstile and would take them out one by one, tie their legs so they wouldn’t move and shear them. I offered to show them the way in which the Kiwis shore their sheep, via the Bowen method.
So, after breakfast one fine sunny day a crowd gathered to see this kiwi show them how to shear their sheep without tying them up. I shore the first one in under 3 minutes using narrow gear, it really caught their interest. They then challenged me to shear 5 in 15 minutes. Accomplished that with ease.
Afterwards I offered to bring my gear back to Israel and shear all their sheep plus the sheep on Moshav’s around the Bakar Valley in Israel (near the Sea of Gallilee, Hagalil in Hebrew). However being a collective farm, they wouldn’t spend the money and the offer was declined.
Many months later when in Europe we met up with another volunteer from the Moshav collective in Holland and he said that one of the workers thought he knew how to do shear the sheep and after trying one or two gave up, too hard!!!
We had a wonderful experience including every bus trip there was normally a terrorist incident before or after our presence!!!
Anyway, back to UK and work in bars then…….
#2 Europe on $10.00 per day ....
While we were working and travelling in the UK and Wales (Cymru) we purchased a copy of the book written by Arthur Frommer “Europe on $10.00 per day”. This was a wonderful challenge and allowed us to add a month Eurail pass (first Class I might add, as I was older than the 27 year old upper limit for the 3rd class travel for three months!!) to our current savings and travel by train around Europe. We avoided the communist countries and Spain and Portugal as they all required visas. We couldn’t be bothered with the hassle.
So, off we went across the English Channel on a Hovercraft to Calais, catching the first train to Paris and ending up in the Gar Du Nord. We found cheap accommodation from the Frommer book and stayed there for a couple of nights. While looking at some fruit on the roadside stall we were reminded by the stall holder “please do not touch ze fruit”. Bit of a wakeup call.
Next step was to catch the train south to Italy to Florence (Firenze) where we saw the Pont De Vecchio, Michealangelo’s ‘David’; to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower and then Rome for five days. All we wanted to do was to get to a sunny spot to enjoy the first sun in 6 months after months in England. While travelling I noticed that many travellers were wearing badges on their hats. I started collecting all these (German/Austrian badges and wearing them on my hat! (something that was “out there” for a travelling Kiwi).
Whilst at Pisa a gentleman came up to me and got close and said in a raised voice “Do you speak English” to which I replied, “Very well in fact” and that we were from NZ. He responded to say that he was also from NZ and of course we asked “where in NZ are you from?”
He responded that he was from a small town called Hawera. We said to him that my wife was from Hawera (small world). When he introduced himself with the surname of Crosby, I said that I had flown with a “John Crosby” in the RNZAF. He responded that that was his son!!! He also said “you are supposed to be travelling in Israel”. A very small world, no mobile phones then.
On with our adventure to Rome for five days where we visited the Coliseum (no waiting lines; the Sistine Chapel), no waiting there either and only about 50-60 people inside, so plenty of space to explore.
On to Brindisi on the east coast of Italy to catch the ferry to Corfu. We met a funny Brazillian named Eduardo. He was going to Corfu to go to the topless beach on the Island!!
Lovely sunny days. We spent five days exploring the island before catching the ferry back to Brindisi and on to Venice (Still on $10.00 per day).
While we were in Europe, we always ate a breakfast of coffee and a pastry in the morning and nothing during the day until late afternoon, when we enjoyed a lovely local dinner.
We went to Dachau in Germany, Munich and up the Rhine overnight to Amsterdam where we saw Anne Frank’s place. We also read in the book that we had to have a Reistaffel, an Indonesian dish in a section of Amsterdam inhabited by “Dutch East Indies migrants”. On the way walking, as we always did, we happened to pass through the “Red Light District”, wow that was an eye opener. Some of our Dutch friends from our Israel experience, were dismayed that we went anywhere near there from a safety perspective!! Ignorance is bliss ….
Anyway, back to London and still cold, so we stayed three days and caught the next flight to LA enroute to NZ. Both of us had lost a lot of weight and enjoyed the “Adventure”.
James Davey
September 2023
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