Community # 2

Satya’s house, built 36years ago by her and her ex-husband with little or no building knowledge, and no way of transporting materials up the slopes and through the vegetation except by foot - is on three levels of separate small buildings. The main and most-recently built one was reached by going past the stand-alone purple-painted compost toilet and up a wooden staircase to the verandah, looking out over the opposite thickly-forested slop. This housed the large kitchen-cum-dining room-cum-office. Through the back door of this building and up a little rocky slope was our cave room - her son’s old room - a small, dark little room, with most of one wall incorporating part of a gigantic boulder which also formed part of it’s support on the hillside. Hard to describe, but I have a picture somewhere! Anyway, it was perfect to sleep in due to lack of sunlight, and the view through the window was simply trees. The final building, the oldest one, was reached up a steep wooden staircase, now Satya’s bedroom but once the tiny house where she, her husband and daughter once lived before the other buildings where constructed.

the blue-cave-room

It was an amazing house - the verandah being the best part. The view was all trees and sky, the only noises birdsong, the rustle of bush turkeys and the hums of bees and flies; at night its crickets, the unbelievably loud and continuous croak of frogs and the odd owl. In the morning’s a local kookaburra, trained by Satya’s son, would often come and perch on the edge of the verandah to be fed tidbits of cheese. A basically harmless snake was residing on the roof while we there, while others of perhaps more or less venom darted away in front of us as we walked about the gardens. Pademelons (wallaby-type creatures, who were so numerous that I was quite disappointed the one day that I didn‘t see at least one) hop and bush turkeys strut through the extensive, rambling gardens, including a veggie garden reach by passing through a gap in a towering clump of bamboo. The solar-heated shower and bath was situated through here too, in another 36-year-old hand-constructed building - while it was slightly like showering in a garden shed, the views through the windows were unbeatable. The intimacy with nature was incredible, the silence, which wasn’t silence at all, but a more soothing noise than the city hubbub, the utter peace of being able to sit on the verandah and stare across in greenery, was fantastic. We could see why Satya was such a peaceful, low-key person (we had been worried, because of the Nimbin thing and our experience in Kin Kin that she’d be a little too wacky for us) - she was by far the least intense host we’ve had; silences didn’t feel awkward, and we felt very free and unrushed. To be honest we didn’t seem to get round to much work, either!

tamed kookaburra

Our first night Satya was going to an art opening for the Spring Exhibition at the hall back in Nimbin where a few of her daughter’s pieces were being exhibited, and we were invited along. One thing I didn’t expect to be doing - in Nimbin of all places - was to be wandering around a small art exhibition with everything from screenprints and etchings to carving and weaving, clutching a glass of wine on a Friday night.

Then again I didn’t expect to spent my Saturday first at a country show and then at a weaving festival! Satya again seemed less-than-concerned about our WWOOFing hours, and instead too us back to Nimbin in the faithful van - me in the back this time - to the Nimbin Show, a quaintly small country show with a frankly unsettling folk group, best cake/scone/jam and largest/most obscenely shaped vegetable competitions, dressage events, an exhibition of alpacas and - of course - a dog and duck show. It diverted our attention for about an hour, but after that we explored the erm, one main street of Nimbin a little more, stepping into the eccentric Nimbin Museum (where a kombivan still resides where it crashed - in the front wall), with random history tidbits and lots of pro-marijuana literature. Then we went along to school grounds to meet Satya at the miniscule - three tipis, one chai tent, about twenty women and their assorted barefoot children - Weave’n’Mend festival. It was slightly surreal, but also very cool - it was a tiny little festival, a glorified weaving circle, offering workshops for $5, but it definitely counts as Festival Number 1 of 2010 for me. We didn’t venture to weave anything, but sitting in the cushions in the chai tent watching the women work was interesting enough. This is Nimbin, the cool, independent, alternative side, rather than the ratty dealers on the mainstreet and the backpackers who flock to the area to get high in relative legal safety. And there’s no way we’d ever have seen it if we hadn’t been Woofing (or, more precisely, if we hadn’t been WWOOFing with Satya).
Sunday was a designated day off for WWOOFers, according to Satya, but since we weren’t exactly overworked we helped unload some building supplies from her friend’s van - supplies to repalce the room on her bedroom, the main project for which we there, but which wouldn’t end up getting underway until Wednesday. Then we went on an exploratory walk (where we ran into several stocky black lizards known as ‘land mullets‘, which had just come out of hibernation), checking out the Tuntable hub and reading notices on the communal board which revealed some of the problems and debates happening in the community, one being that residents don’t own their own homes, only the materials they’re made of. Residents pay rates, which they can halve by foing work in the community, from sorting mail to train clearing; only ratepayers in the black can vote, at the monthly ‘tribal meetings’, and there is a voluntary board each year which holds it’s own meetings and oversees the running of the place, approve new residents etc. There are no political or religious requirements for being a member of Tuntable, but an alternative/greenie bent definitely helps.

Our first real work came four days after we arrived, with the painting of the concrete roofing sheets for Satya’s new roof. This took us the best part of a day and a half, with 5 sheets all needing two coats on both sides. Paint Paint Paint. Then the rain started - a downpour with clouds and thunder rolling into the valley and lighting flashing intermittently. Not great for roof-replacing and sure enough the builder cancelled, but the next day we still managed the not exactly easy task of wrestling the concrete sheets and roof struts up the steep, slippery slope from the shed to Satya’s bedroom. Then as a reward we all packed up a picnic and went down to the creek to sit on the rocks in the sunshine with out feet in the water. This is the life!

The day of the roof replacement was a long, hectic one, but we were hardly complaining since we'd barely worked the rest of the week! The builder came and we were at his disposal, dragging the concrete sheets about, passing them up to him (a tricky job) on the roof, banging in nails, and carrying/dragging wooden struts up the slippery slope. Nik and Satya both got up on the roof to help bang in sheets, but to be honest it looked kind of crowded and... well, I think it's obvious that I would have somehow managed to fall off, isn't it? It was all finished in one day, impressively - just in time for the rain to recommence with a vengeance the following day.

During our time with Satya we also hiked up into the forest on the slopes of Tuntable valley to the annual forest camp, where volunteers from the community help clear trails etc., in return for the rates-work levy. There were a few people actually camped up there, and after a leechy walk (for nik anyway, who collected one of the way up and a grand total of 3 on the way down!), we arrived in their camp to sit under their tarp-sheltered cooking area, drink tea, and check out the mobile sawmill and millers at work down one of the tracks. We had expected to help in some way, either by wielding machetes or helping drag logs about, but for some reason we didn't, and no one seemed to care too much! Satya also took us to the Murwillumbah Unity Festival, a more modern, music-orientated event than Nimbin's, but still small with only one outdoor stage and a makeshift dance tent inside a cattle shelter! It rained (as it should, at festivals, as every Brit knows) most of the day, but this didn't stop a lot of barefoot dancing in the mud (not us, I'm afraid, we left that to the ageing and not-so ageing hippier types) and wandering from chai tent to foodstall. It was unexpectedly fun - and we also got to experience the long-tressed western-tribal songstress Deya Dova in full performance mode. She headlined, and drew a mixed crowd of teeange guys (for obvious reasons), ageing hippies, and the unlabelled - all equally enthralled by her. It wasn't really my cup of tea, but an experience none the less!

the forestry camp

We left Satya's after ten days, dropping in on the Community Tribal Meeting she was attending on our way into Nimbin. That too was an experience - we could see how things could get done pretty slowly on the community! Then a quick cup of chai with Satya at the Nimbin Cafe, and we were back on the bus heading to Byron and beyond...

Nimbin. Tut