September 24th - October 3rd. Tuntable fFalls community, Nim bin.
- Roof over Kooka and leech

On Friday 24th our previous WWOOF host, Jude, took us as far as Lismore (where she worked) and after four hours exploring the surprisingly large town (there's a park by the bus stop, a shop selling cheap chocolate halfway down an adjacent street) we caught a minibus that would take us the remaining distance inland to the small town of Nim bin. Initial impressions were that it was more like our expectations of Byron, all the shops down the main street painted psychadelic style, but judment would have to wait as it was only a couple of minutes before our next host, Satya, had collected us and we were on our way 10 K out of town to the community she lived on.

Called Tuntable Falls its a slight increase of scale from the last one, with around 200 households across 2000 acres. It's one of the oldest communities in Australia (established in 1973), is right next to Nightcap national park and on first impression seems to be mostly forest itself, the care bouncing all over the place as we traverse the rough trail, eventually to reach a garage where we move into a 4x4 to make the final push up the hill. A bit off the beaten track! A lovely place however, with three buildings perched on the climbing hill. The top was Satya's room, the middle her left-home childrens room in which we would be staying - one wall actually being part of the giant rock the structure is next to and the bottom the stone-wall living room/kitchen, leading on to the obligitory veranda with stunning views downwards. Despite the occasional loud noise of the wildlife it's a very peaecful place, exactly what we needed after a fortnight of loud children!

Due to its size there is perhaps less concensus, less of a shared vision, compared to the smaller community we had immediatly came from. Having a nose at notices pinned up outside the co-op office there was evidence of fierce debate between various factions of the community, the current hot topic seeming to be the insurance consequences of nobody owning their homes in a tradtional (i.e. legal) sense. However disagreemnt within such a large clusterning of people is inevitable really and agreement is probably still higher than in similiarly populated villages, a comparison made all the more valid when considering the community has many of the facilities the later would have, including a community hall, shop and even a small school...indeed overall there is much less 'different' in such surrounds as you might expect.

Except for the actual surrounds themselves of course. Thick forests, rivers, a creek we one day took avocado sandwichs and a boiled egg down to as a spur of the moment picnic...its all a long way from the urban street. More startling still is the abundance of wildlife that is simply there, unmoved or startled by the human presence, simpy going about its day. Bush Turkeys run across roofs and up roads (demonstrating their less than herculean intellect on our drive in one runs away from the car up the narrow vein of the trail for a good hundred metres before twigging that some sideways motions could be called for), Liz feels distraught if she is deprived of her daily pademelon (a type of marsupial - its not just kangaroos you know!), forearm sized black lizards called Land Mullets are literally everywhere we look, a Gekko the lengh of Liz's show fell out of some shelves as I brushed past them (guess what it fell next to), Snake sightings are nothing to get overly excited about (unless its the room length Carpet Snake, when impressed nods are required) and that's not even getting into the (noisey) birdlife - including one Kookaburra who lands on the veranda at least twice a day to be fed cheese...it's hard to turn him down! There's also the less pleasent - giant Marchflies, a hose of other flies, leechs, ticks and chocolate stealing rats...still such burdens seems light when weighed against the positives...and, really, where did you think such creatures lived?

As amazing as the place was it was also great that we spent a lot of time away from it, Satya was very involved and active in the local area (and beyond!) and I felt lucky to be able to see so much during our stay. This started on the day we arrived when not two hours after unloading our bags we found ourselves heading back into Nim bin to attend the lauch night of an art exhibit in which some pieces by Satya's daughter were featured. Listening to a short speech by the organiser and then passing an hour strolling around looking at an ace mixed-media series of works by local artists, free glass of wine in tow...how do you spend your evenings?

Our first weekend there conincided with the Nim bin country show, a very English feeling event that provided us with the opportunity to marvel at BOTH the largest lettice and best scone (plus a hundred other such achievments), watch lots of done-up horses slowly doing large circles and figure eights to small nods from a cowboy hat clad judge, realise the immense cutness of young Alpacas (No, not lamas!) and feel truely blessed after bearing witness to the dog and duck show, which considted of a dog herding three ducks over bridges and though tunnels. OK, so it was all a touch lame but it was also strangely enjoyable and did let us see a different side to the town.

We immediatly flipped back to the other, ti-dyed, side as we went to have a more in-depth look at the main street. The joke about the town is that after the Aquarius festival happened there back in 1973 (a happening that apparently 'launched hippy culture in Australia') a proportion of the red-eyed punters simply never went home and the nagging reality is born out by the general aesthetic (COLOURFUL!) and feel of the centre. It's a fair point that much of it is aimed at the tourst dollar, several tour busses deposit the trigger happy each day, but there seems a more genuine undercurrent than cynicism might propose, though the true spirit of the place is probably within the 50ish communties that surround it. Still, it was a fun place to poke around and the Nim bim museum certainly holds a unique place in my memory, I've certainly never seen so chaotic or brightly decorated a place and I expect it'll certainly be a while before I'm somehwere else that upon having a VW camper drive through it simply leaves the vehicle where it stopped and incorporates it into the place. Saves on rebuilding I guess.

A small while later we met up with Satya at, where else, the 'Weave and Mend Festival' which was happening in the local school grounds. It was pretty small, three ti-pis for the camping hardcore (I expect the organisers), a tent where chai and some basic food was on offer and a circle of people, well, weaving. You could swing by for two hour long lessons or just wander down to enjoy the slight absurdity of it all. A touch perculiar, but cool in its own fashion, that small things like this seem to happen week in week out (and more precisely because there's lots of the type of people who want to organise them) is in my opinion the key to the towns feel, as well as its vitality. Saying that, experienced in the festival field though I may be I'm afraid four nights of weaving madness is more than I could handle. Tsl, must be getting old.

One day saw us drive over to Lismore, the third time we've randomly found ourselves there. We baked in the heat, ate biscuits and then headed back.

...Work! We did that too, though really not a massive ammount, indeed at times I did feel like we weren't doing enough, though Satya seemed happy with what we did and I suppose thats the measure that matters. On the Saturday we did a trio of small tasks about the place - moved a mattress, sweeped the stone steps and gave two coats of green paint to a wooden bridge. Sunday was our day off, we went for a brief wander about the community and pretty much failed to do anything more noteworthy than that.

Across the week our main objective was to replace the roof on Satya's room, this was the original structure so all considered it had held up pretty well (including surviving a direct hit from a tree in the 90s) over thirty years so was due a treat. Obviously Liz and myselfs building skills are minimal, so rather than let us randomly at it (which I maintain would have been comical) a profesional was called for, he was meant to come on the Wednesday but due to a rainy delay didn't make it until Friday. In the meantime we painted five concrette sheets and hefted them, as well as a dozen beams, up to the top of the hill next to the structure...a task not helped either by the seemingly obtuse angle of the hill nor the muddy surfaces tendancy to crumble away (in a moist manner) beneath our feet. Never mind though, falling flat on your arse is very funny after all.

On the Friday, after a brief warmup cutting a piece out of an old, unused, very rusted water tank, we got stuck into the roofing job proper. Obviously our role was very subservatory, chiefly consiting of moving materials from A to B, B frequently being the roof...needless to say a couple of days worth of storms hadn't helped the footing situation and much of our time seem to be spent sliding in some fashion. Occasionally I escaped from the marshy earth onto the roof itself to do manly things with a hammer (Liz wisely remained below.) We finished just before the heavens opened once more, all in all it was an interesting days work and I felt it helped justify the small ammount done some other days.

On the Thursday we treked up to the community forest camp, a pleasent half hour walk up through the forest. This is a week long occurance, with some people staying the distance, some a few nights and some just coming and going within the same day, with the idea being to do some work maintaing the trails amongst other things. When we were there these 'other things' chiefly consisted of logging...so not much we could do to help really! Still, cool to see a bit of an activity I don't think I've focused more than a passing brain cell on before...I now know mobile saw mills are rather impressive. Go me.

(It was even worth the memorable sight of three leechs dropping off my right ankle upon our return to the house, so bloated with my blood they could barely move...great...oh well, at least I can claim to have given blood in this country!)

On our last full day we went to the Unity Festival an hours drive north in the tonge-twisting town of Murwillumbah. While this was in reality more of a town show than a proper festival there was a stage with music and as assortment of familiar food vendors so I'm claiming it as my sole festival of 2010...it even had the decency to pour down all day to make me feel right at home! We saw some music, not a whole lot engaging really though some decent African drumming in the middle of the day...plus I brought a crepe. Good day.

The morning of our departure came, we spent a few hours at the community tribal meeting (where it became clear why decisions take so long when everybody has a say!) before a farewell cup of chai in Nim bin, then onboard the shuttle back full circle to Byron. All over very fast again, the frustratingly typical proof of a good time had.