How did we find our way to “living the dream” on our own block of land?
You could say that we jumped in the car and kept driving till we got there, but that would be the outer shell of the truth. The more interesting story that I’d like to tell includes some of the inner lessons that enabled us to reach a point of readiness to grab the opportunity when it came along.
This story begins back in Melbourne about 20 years ago. Vicky and I were living in a rental, share house in a bushy outer suburb, called Warrandyte, situated along the Yarra River. At the time we were stressing over finances, which was nothing new. What was new to us, however, was permaculture and a series of books called, “The Ringing Cedars” series. Their combined influence enabled us to see that we’d been trying to gain security by getting enough money. We believed that if we just got enough money we would feel secure. Upon reflection we realised that we saw money as the means to obtain the essentials of survival like food, clothing and shelter. It is a way to get these things but not the only way. We realised that if we learned to build, make clothing and grow food ourselves we wouldn’t have to depend on money for these things. We would remove the middleman.
From that point on we applied ourselves to learning building, handcrafts and gardening. Importantly, we didn’t let the fact that we were renting stop us from creating vege plots, chook houses and even planting fruit trees. We knew we’d eventually have to leave them behind but we thought it would be worth it for the skills that we developed and that we’d get to take along with us . Others would get to eat the fruit but we had a deep trust that more fruit would be waiting for us somewhere in the future. Most importantly we recognized that if we stayed in the mind-set of waiting to get some land before we could experience the feeling and the “being” of land custodianship, we may never get there. A common approach is to “get” something that enables you to “do” something in order to “be” something. We decided to reverse it. Be land custodians by doing custodianship and arrive at our land.
We had a couple of good years there before the notice came in the mail that the owners were selling the house and we needed to move out. It was with a slightly sardonic smile that I noticed on the big “For Sale” placard out the front, a picture of the chicken coop that I’d built, as a selling point, amongst a collage of other photos.
Not long after that we were invited to stay on an elderly man’s permaculture property to help him out with his extensive fruit tree orchard. It felt like God letting us know we were on the right track.
One thing led to another until eventually we found ourselves living in a small community with 2 other families on a 15 acre property in the Yarra Valley. By this time Vicky and I had had a daughter, Grace, who was now about 2 years old. We still didn’t have our own land but the opportunities to live the lifestyle we enjoyed just kept arising and we kept growing in our knowledge and experience.
If you can imagine a crew of 3 idealistic hippy families wanting to live in community together then you can probably also imagine that we were not always in accord with regulations when it came to things like……. living in legally habitable buildings, for example. There was one legal dwelling on the property and also two other sheds that we inhabited. We didn’t mind living in them, but apparently one of the neighbours did, because one day we received a visit from the council building inspector. We were ordered to cease inhabiting our abode but we weren’t about to give up on our dream of living on the land in community so we searched for a solution.
This is when we stumbled upon the concept of Tiny House living. This would enable us to circumnavigate certain building codes. With the council breathing down our necks, we had all the motivation we needed to get cracking on designing and building our own tiny house. We called it “The Tall Tiny”. We gleaned a lot of great ideas online from other tiny house builders and were so grateful for all of the inspiration that we decided to share our journey on a Facebook page. We also got to meet Bryce from the Youtube channel, “Living Big in a Tiny House” and he was keen to do an episode on our house. The video went online 7 years ago and has received 2.3 million views in that time. I mention this, not only to boast, but also because that video played a crucial role in having us find Bindarrabi, the community in which our block, “Headwaters Haven” is situated. In permaculture there is a principle that says, “the problem is the solution”. Looking back on how this chapter of our life unfolded I am reminded to always look for the opportunity in what might seem like a crisis. What is emerging from the emergency? What message is in the mess? What’s the silver lini……..OK, you get the point.
It was a combination of things that had us move on from this small community after 8 years living there. Originally it was the intention of the community collective to co-own the property, but council regulations and title laws made that very difficult. In the end, two of the three families left. We were very fortunate to receive back the money that we’d invested in the property, and this became our nest egg that enabled us to buy into Bindarrabi. We had previously entertained dreams of settling in Queensland further in the future but had wanted to stay in Victoria for the duration of Grace’s schooling because she was going to a Waldorf school which we valued immensely, having both previously completed the Waldorf teacher training. Then Covid came and after two years of lockdowns, on-screen-at-home-schooling, no idea of how much longer this would continue, and no place of our own, we decided to take a leap of faith and go in search of a new home in Queensland.
Because of border closures we were unable to get beyond the border into Queensland so we camped out at our friends’ property near Coffs Harbour. We were enjoying the location so much that we started exploring Northern New South Wales as an option. We decided to post on off-grid-living Facebook pages stating who we were and what we were looking for and how much we had to spend. We only got a handful of responses and nothing solid. It was then that we had the idea of including a link to the “Living Big in a Tiny House” video. It beautifully illustrated who we were and what we were about. Most importantly, it showed that we were people of action who were walking their talk when it came to alternative lifestyle choices. The response was overwhelming. It literally took us two days to respond to all of the messages and to sort out the true leads from the rest. Included in the messages was one from a resident of Bindarrabi. We arranged a visit and after a 3 day stay, we applied for membership. It was a quick decision but If you ever come and visit, you’ll understand why.
We are now coming up to our 4th year anniversary at Headwaters Haven and our intention with this blog is to share our adventures of “loving living a hand-made life” with you. We hope you join us for the ride and maybe come and visit us sometime.
Headwaters Haven 