It’s important to say at the start that we know nothing. We’re the kind of people that follow our noses. Sometimes it works out and sometimes we make mistakes, but we’re almost always game to try things. This is how we ended up in lockdown with an 80kilo (176lb) mastiff with less than ideal manners. His name is Bodhi, we found him on gumtree and decided we had to have him. He arrived at 10 months old and had been passed around a few places. He’s changed our lives in lots of ways and everything now revolves in some way around him. This is not his story - I have another substack on the way for that. Don’t worry though, our furry friends will feature heavily in the telling of this tale…
In 2021 a pair of actors did the unthinkable… we bought a house. The weird economics of the pandemic had created an opportunity and we took advantage. Given our limited budget the choice was between the following. A one bedroom apartment somewhere on the outskirts of Sydneys inner west, or a tree change to either the Blue Mountains (100kms west), Wollongong (similar distance south), or the Central Coast (similar distance north). We chose the mountains. We were able to buy a compact three bed in the leafy suburb of Bullaburra on Dharug country. It means blue skies or clear skies - perhaps that’s the same thing. A classic first home, it needed some fixing up and a few modifications to make it suitable for us and our pack of animals. Our greatest accomplishments have all been in the garden where we’ve been successfully growing all sorts. Our neighbours told us early on to protect our harvest so we built a little cage around our veggie patch that has successfully repelled everything apart from the slugs and bush rats. We’ve grown pumpkins, broccoli, kale, lettuce, peas, potatoes, tomatoes, purple cauliflower, zucchini and even watermelon! All from zero gardening experience.
So the question becomes - why would you leave such a beautiful place and travel 4,000 kms to build a new home?
Some things are just inevitable.
We had always had a suspicion that we would end up in Western Australia. If you’ve ever been there you’ll understand somewhat. I’d always imagined myself an old man looking at the sunset over the Indian Ocean, infused with content and fairly insufferable. But the thought was to do it in our fifties or sixties, or whenever we were done with the chilly mountain winters. My partner is from Fremantle, the port city of Perth known for its arty boho scene. Although she has been away for twenty years now, the call of home and family is strong. For me it makes little difference as my family is mostly a plane ride and it turns out my mother will be joining us out west in due course.
To put it simply, we have the chance of a life with our families, we have a chance at more space, we have a chance to build the perfect home for ourselves. It’s hard to not take that chance - and as I said, we’re the types to follow our noses.
Throughout the course of the next couple of years or however long it takes us to move and build, we want to share our experience so that others might be able to do it better, or at least have a window into a different way of doing things.
Next time on The Road Out West, I’m going to write a little intro to earth ships for the uninitiated, plus a little more about us, thanks for reading and please stay tuned…