Arrival at Permaculture Gold Coast

The primary reason for our trip is the study of Permaculture. Shawn's involvement with this 'movement' (for lack of a better term) has been ongoing for several years; he spent 3 months in Australia in late 2010 at a Permaculture internship. Permaculture as an entity is pretty new to me, but many of the basic principles are quite familiar. It is basically a way of living that attempts to work with natural systems in order to produce food, goods and other needs of humans. It is about community, low-impact technology and working with nature instead of against it. (I will no doubt be including much more on Permaculture as this blog develops; in the meantime, do a google search and see what comes up.)

Our "plan," so much as there is one, is to visit and work on several renowned Permaculture demonstration sites across Australia (where the movement was born), New Zealand and possibly elsewhere in the world as opportunities present themselves. As a start, we are visiting a relatively new site, Permaculture Gold Coast, which was co-founded by an Aussie friend of Shawn's, and who invited us here. It is a site focused on Urban Permaculture, and has made some interesting inroads into community involvement. For example, a great deal of the garden work is done using unemployed people who are on the "work for the dole" program. They also receive many compost inputs from the community including wood chips from municipal maintenance, lake weeds removed form the local river/canal system, and coffee grounds from coffee shops. These materials are then used for compost to grow food, thus staying out of the waste stream. Win-win.

Sine we don't have a phone on this trip, Shawn's only method to contact our host, Charles, is via email or facebook. So we are not entirely confident that he is aware of our impending arrival. Fortunately there is free wi fi on the train. We also chatted with a helpful local who gave us some advice on ground transportation to where we need to get to from  the train station. (And his advice was spot-on: the timing and cost of the cab ride was as he told us.)

Permaculture Gold Coast is on a busy road. There is a Toyota dealer across the street. There is a large front fence, painted a cheery red, with hand lettered signs and graphics. We drag our bags into the yard, and are faced with a veritable jungle, along with 3 "chicken tractors" and numerous large piles of gravel and broken asphalt. There is no clear pathway to the main building, so we leave our bags near the chickens and wind our way between rich-looking raised garden beds, around trees and through a vine-covered arbor. We can see people in the "house" as we approach-- it looks like a small class is going on. Charles catches sight of Shawn through the doorway and pauses his teaching to greet us warmly.

Charles shows us around, bags are fetched and put into the room in which we will be staying. The house itself is a bit ramshackle; bare concrete floors, glass missing in many windows. Our room is bare with one large half-glassed window in the front, and a higher half-glassed window on one side. The walls are painted blue and the floor a cheery pink. Ants march along the walls from the wormwood bush that is poking in through the front window. There is indoor plumbing, but no hot water. I admit, I am freaking out a little bit at this point, though I knew we would be living 'rough.'

Our window on the lower left 

Me at the front gate

We met Cam and Mel, two Uni students who rent rooms here. They are warm and friendly, and very helpful in procuring some things that we will need in order to make our stay more comfortable. By evening, we have a boxspring and mattress scavenged from the "store room", and I have found a broom to sweep the floor. Cam took us to a couple of local stores in search of a mosquito net for the bed, and we get the last one at Anaconda, a big camp-store. Our lodgings are looking very cozy by bedtime.