Currumbin EcoVillage field trip with my masters students

  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.

The Lizard Palace

 This is a bit of a dream come true. Not since my oh-so-tolerant parents allowed me to have a couple of fibro pits (yes I do have some concerns about spending much of my youth breathing in the asbestos fibres of my lizard pits, but a GP told me once that the asbestos used in the sheeting was not so troublesome, so I like to believe that) in which I kept blue tongues, land mullet, bearded dragons and freshwater turtles, have I had outdoor lizard enclosures. But with the forebearance of an amazing partner, Stevie, and the skill of Shane (not forgetting the involvement of Kevin and Antonin and Claire), I now have an almost complete set of three lizard enclosures that together make up my Lizard Palace.

 Shane was able to re-use the steel piping that we pulled out of the area that has now become the middle deck, and use it to create a frame onto which he and Claire riveted some lovely spanking new corrugated iron.

 Claire and Shane (and Bluey) proudly standing in front of their masterpiece. We still have to make it predator proof by attaching bird wire to it, but hopefully that should be done by the end of the week (it's off to Bunnings I go tomorrow after work).

And Claire and I did some landscaping this afternoon and created the first habitat - for my pair of blotched blue tongues which will be liberated into here once we have completed predator proofing it. I hope to get some other species of blue tongues (I already have my western blue tongue babies but they are too small to put in one of these enclosures just yet).

Brush turkey baby investigates Larnook

                                                      source of image: ozanimals.com
As I was turning into the driveway a few weeks ago I noticed a small brown bird scuttle into the rainforest garden at our entry. It was too short and plump for a buff banded rail and so I wondered whether it might have been a baby brush turkey. But I had more important things to think about like what were we having for dinner and should I wait until 6pm before I open that bottle of chardonnay, and so promptly forgot all about it. That was until a few days later when the bubba bird was seen again scratching around the front garden at the entry to the house. This time it stayed much longer in view and I could definitely identify it as a baby brush turkey. Now I had mixed feelings about this. I was kinda stoked that this little baby had found its way here and was now part of the fauna, but did we really want a brush turkey setting up camp here, as they can be very destructive to gardens when they rake together huge mounds of vegetation and mulch. But such activity would be a year or two off I would think, and anything could happen in the meantime. Which, it appears, it has. We made quite a few sightings of the little bird over a period of about a week, but alas, it hasn't been seen now for a few weeks. This means it may have wandered away or it has ended up in the gut of some predator, such as one of our carpet pythons. It wouldn't have made much of an impression in the pythons we have seen lately around the place, and remember, we have snakes here that eat adult chooks. Let's hope that the little fella is scratching happily somewhere else in Larnook.

Kev and Antonin

 This is Antonin enjoying the magnolia we bought him to plant at Larnook as a bit of a reverse souvenir of the guys' stay with us. The variety is called Coco and that is what we called Antonin from time to time while he stayed with us (it's a long story)...anyway when we saw this tree we knew we had to buy it for our own Coco.

 Kimba still proves to be a hit with our Helpers. I think this was the first time that Antonin had held a snake and initially he was a little apprehensive, but he was soon charmed by our gorgeous Kimba the woma python.

 Kev was a little more relaxed as he had met Kimba on the first day that he and Antonin arrived at Larnook.

So after just over three weeks with us, the boys washed and cleaned their van and headed off the next morning to Byron for a couple of days before heading northwards, hoping to get up as far as Cairns in the six months they have left in Australia. Adieu, boys.

This and that

 Kev and Antonin fitted in very well at Larnook and were a delight to have staying with us. They worked hard, they laughed a lot and they even surprised us a few times by making dinner when we weren't expecting them to. HelpX is an excellent means by which people like us can open up our place and our lives and share what we have here with young travellers from all over the world. I really enjoy the fact that it is based on reciprocal exchange - we provide the accommodation and meals and the Helpers provide in exchange, their skills and capacity for work. We've hosted close to 40 Helpers now, with I would think about 60% at least from France, as were Kev and Antonin, from Marseilles and Cannes.

 Last weekend brought another visitor, Russell, from London. We met Russell a couple of times when we were in Sydney just before the end of the year (he's a friend and colleague of a friend/colleague of mine, Gordon, who is a professor in geography at University of Wollongong. Russell is also a geographer who works in the area of sustainability and interior climates. I had invited Russell up to Larnook last weekend and so he flew up last Friday to the Gold Coast where he gave a guest lecture to my masters students on his research. We overnighted in Coolangatta and then we were met by Shane who drove up to get us and return us to Larnook. Russell enjoyed himself and on Sunday we meandered around the Lismore car boot markets where we bought plants for Kev and Antonin, Russell and also Claire, who is another (French of course) Helper who arrived last Wednesday, to plant in our garden.  So Russell is looking very proud of himself after planting a ruby ginger.

 The weekend before last Shane and Steve spotted this lovely carpet python in our shed so I invited it to slide around my neck and shoulders to give the guys a closer look.

 One of the excellent projects that the boys (though much of the initial lantana clearing was the work of Kevin) completed was installing this bench seat on the side of our hill as you head down to the creek. Kevin had spent quite a few days removing the lantana from this area (and almost fell off the side of the slope in the process - he would have fallen completely off, had a pile of lantana that he had already cut not slowed him down. He ripped his pants open on some barbed wire in the process so he was very lucky not to be hurt). Anyway once the lantana had been removed it opened up a lovely view down over the creek so I suggested to the guys they dig out a platform, line it with pavers and place one of our bench seats on it. So once this had all been achieved last Sunday we had an official seat inauguration ceremony complete with ribbon cutting and sparkling wine drinking. So Antonin and Kev cut the ribbon while Claire, Russell, Shane and Steve look on.

Another view of the seat looking down towards the creek. I will enjoy sitting here reading and taking in the lovely view.

Easter at Larnook

 Easter at Larnook is a time of year that Steve and I eagerly look forward to. The weather is usually lovely and mild, the four day holiday means that you can really start to relax, and, we get to share it with good friends. This year was no different. Our friends, Graeme and Simeon arrived on Thursday in their kombi, from the Central Coast, bearing a huge wicker basket filled with all kind of delectable goodies, which we still haven't finished enjoying. Warwick arrived on Friday afternoon and soon slid into the spa with a glass of champagne. We had a fun night but then Warwick had to drive to the Gold Coast airport for his flight home to Melborne the next morning.

 Leaving Steve to have the house to himself and get on with making costumes for Metropolitan Players (Newcastle) production of Phantom of the Opera, I took Simeon and Graeme along with Kev and Antonin to one of our favourite places, Bald Rock, just north of Tenterfield. It is a bit of a hike, and three hours there and back didn't really suit (French) Kev's tummy, as he gets car sick, but the Rock itself is worth it. The walk to the rock takes about 40 minutes and it's a delightful stroll through eucalypt forest strewn with huge boulders of granite.

 Once on the rock itself the sense of scale becomes apparent and we spent a good hour or so clambering over it, having lunch, and watching colonies of Cunningham's Skinks, bask in the sunshine. The day was mostly cloudy so the view wasn't as spectacular as when we visited last August with our friend, Ryan, but the softer light revealed the colours of the rock much more readily.

 Two Kevs on a Rock

 Easter Sunday was lots of fun - and we had a full house, with the arrival of Glen and Vaughan for lunch. Lots of champagne drinking (thanks Antonin for the champagne cocktail), great food, followed by an easter egg hunt inside the house and a game of bocce outside in the gentle rain. One of the intense pleasures for Steve and I is to welcome so many old and new friends into our place at Larnook and enjoy the great times that are created. Oh and we had a game of hide and go seek on the Friday night (inside the house) which was a hoot, as well.

Kev and Antonin having a friendly hit on Graeme and Sim's totem tennis they brought up with them, in the late afternoon Larnook light.

Meet Antonin and Kevin, HelpXers from France

 Kevin and Antonin have been with us for a bit over a week and have fitted in very easily and very well to the Larnook lifestyle. They are great fun and wonderful workers. Here they are preparing for a French dinner party we hosted on Saturday night. They cooked a tasty savoury loaf and a quiche lorraine.

 Steve set up the table, creating a French flag out of three individual table cloths and Glen found some suitable vin blanc and vin rouge in Lismore. Jason and Dale and of course Shane, Steve and I, completed the table. We had a fabby night, and in the words of Calixte, our French son, we all got a little bit silly.

 So silly, in fact, that the boys didn't wake from their bed until 11am. I then took them up to Border Ranges National Park, which had been closed for the past six weeks or so because of the damage that had been caused by the cyclone event we experienced back then. As I was driving up to the park I started wondering whether in fact the walking track I wanted to take the boys on would actually be open. A ranger vehicle driving out of the Barr Mountain picnic area from which the track starts, pulled us over and the friendly ranger told us that indeed the walking track was well and truly closed. So we continued driving to the Pinnacle Lookout, from which you can gain a brilliant view over the Wollumbin crater. And I took a couple of pics of the boys (Antonin on the left, my namesake, Kevin, on the right - yes, Kevin is a reasonably common boy's name in France, apparently).

We kept driving westward until we got to Sheepstation Creek camping area, from which a number of walking tracks slither through the bush. Because it was getting a little late, we chose a short track to Brushbox Falls, which was quite lovely. A couple of goannas and a very cheeky yellow eared honeyeater topped the day off. And then it was home through a big storm via Kyogle.