I took the students studying the masters subject I teach, Environmental Management for Tourism and Hospitality, to Currumbin Eco Village last Friday. A perfect day in all ways. The village is a strata title development in the beautiful Currumbin Valley, about seven minutes west of Currumbin Beach. To build here you need to have your plans approved by the Community - these will need to conform to their sustainability code. Each of the dwellings in the village harvests its own water, so the entire development is independent of town water. Oh and the guy with the dark hair and his back to us is Jerry - who was accompanying one of my students. But I coincidentally taught Jerry back at Uni of Newcastle about ten years ago...he didn't realise who the lecturer was taking the fieldtrip until he arrived. Jerry now lives in Ewingsdale which is adjacent to Byron Bay.
Lots of really interesting homes are at the eco village, including several like this one being built, made of straw bales. I'd love to see if we could construct some kind of structure from straw bales.
Most homes have a lush, productive vege garden, chooks, and of course water tanks. I think all homes also must have some level of solar energy capacity as well.
Another view of some of the homes. There are 144 lots to be sold all up in the village, I think there are about a third of those already sold and have dwellings on them. Even though the village is an intentional community and has fairly solid eco-credentials, it's quite mainstream - which is part of it's appeal for me. It demonstrates how you can live much more sustainably without departing too much from the way most people would still choose to live.
Sharing the ecovillage is a fairly large mob of eastern greys which have the run of the village (or should that be 'hop'). They rest under trampolines or the shade of a verandah, they graze in people's back yards...it's all very cool. I'm pretty amazed though that there haven't been any nasty conflicts between the big bucks and young kids. Anyway, this was my second visit and I left feeling just as inspired as my first trip. I think my students felt the same, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment