Thursday, December 13, 2012

Living off the grid


Teah the dog at the dam playing with the kids

Laundry and bathroom

Farrants Hill, New South Wales, home of Elizabeth's sister Angelique and where we spent some family time. Angelique lives in the bush and mostly off the grid (not connected to a power company at all) - solar hot water, rainwater tanks, composting toilet etc. I found living here really interesting in a house powered by solar and backed up by batteries for night time. Even my GPS did not know how to get here; the last several km Matilda (the GPS) would keep repeating 'at the first opportunity do a U- turn' and would display a visual showing the car stranded in the bush. The house has most of the mod cons including a television and computer.
Composting Toilet
Bath Time















We stayed in a caravan on the property surrounded by free range chickens, really free range having the run of the place most of the day. We offered to help where we could and one of my jobs was putting out the two goats. This worked great the first time, Lilly & Liquorice following me down to a grazing area where I clipped them on to a rope so they didn't go any futher and start eating other plants and trees trying to grow. The next time I tried was just after they had been to the vet for some tests. They were a little on the skittish side, especially Liquorice, and after over an hour of trying to coax, chase and trick her into letting me get the rope on her I conceded defeat and had to put them back in their pen until mother Angelique came home.












Teah getting dry
Besides the several pythons that made their presence known it was really fun to live off the grid and enjoy the simple life for a while.


4 comments:

  1. It wasn't your android GPS was it? No pics of the snakes??

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    Replies
    1. Matilda is a proper Garmin GPS. There easier to watch while driving :-) Bugger, I never thought to take pictures at the time.

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  2. Pretty awesome, do you reckon you and eliz could do it in our Perth hills? :-)

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  3. Its appealing. Living in suburbia is going to be difficult from now on after this year. We both really love mountains and forests all around us and will feel very hemmed in. Our current plan is to find ways to keep travelling.

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