Kaeo Northland

Hi, we are Simmie (35) from Hungary and Ray (36) from New Zealand. Our little family currently lives on an 80ha farm in Northland, 10 minutes from Matauri Bay and 20 minutes from Kerikeri (the place belongs to Kaeo region by territory). We are just on the way if you are planning to visit or are coming back from visiting Cape Reinga and/or 90 Mile Beach.

Ray is managing the whole farm as contract milker and is doing twice-a-day milking with the 180 cows and Simmie is responsible for the admin work for our company through which we operate the farm for the owners, who pop in every now and then. But mainly for a while now Simmie is a full time mum to our 1,5-year-old and our half-year-old daughters. We also have Ray's 7-year-old daughter with us every second weekend and half the school holidays. We have an 8-year-old farm dog, Hunter.

Simmie used to be an assistant director in theatre and on movie shootings, and she used to travel to several different countries mainly throughout Europe (but got to the American, African and Asian continent as well) before residing in NZ in 2022, a lot of times staying at places thanks to Workaway (and other similar) opportunities, meeting lovely families who welcomed her in their homes, getting a taste of life of various organisations, and B&Bs.

Ray has spent most of his life in the farm sector in different positions in New Zealand and roughly 4 years in Australia. He loves fishing, hunting, riding motorbike, boating. He was planning on starting backpacking, living the van life throughout NZ, leaving this particular farm where we are at, when Simmie, as a backpacker showed up here.

After Simmie spent a few days on the farm, we started planning traveling together, because why not?! :) We bought a 7m bus together that we wanted to build up ourselves to our taste and needs while Ray's contract lasted on the farm. And then... one day...

If you are interested in the rest of our story so far, we are happy to share it with you when we meet. :)

We are visiting Simmie’s family in Hungary from mid-May until mid-June (26 days) and we need someone to take care of our dog and house-sit, keeping the house clean, water our three house plants, and may mow the lawn.