Nadia and Sam sat for us in Canberra two years in a row and have since moved to a community settlement called Korinderie Ridge in the bush near Evans Head with their two children Lola and Thomas. Lola was born while they were at the house in Ainslie and Thomas is a later acquisition.
They are happy here in their house in the bush which Sam has built with his own hands. We visited them 15 months ago when the house was half way finished. They are now living in it though there is still quite a few things to finish off.
Looking up at the house. It is on the top of the block with the land terracing down towards the trees.
A view from the deck. The ocean is there, a tiny bit, on the horizon.
The community consists of 14 allotments (full quota is 18) sharing the total land of 500 acres. Each shareholder applies to use a parcel of the land to build on and they need to be accepted by all the members.
Here are Sam and Nadia, as good looking as ever, with Thomas, Andrew and Maxi.
We are having a lovely time here with them. Some people from the community are coming over for dinner and games tonight. One man is one of the last of the founding members and he has been here 40 years. He married three years later and they raised three children here. What is truly astonishing is that two of their sons have bought in and live here with their families. The grown-up daughter is still living with the parents but is planning to move to a property nearby where she is growing ti trees. There is a wide range of ages here, from young couples with small children to retirees. They have a regular working parties in which members participate as they can and are capable of contributing.
Here we are, eight of us partaking of a lovely chicken curry dinner, followed by a cake from Henry's in Lismore - pistacchio, marzipan and cherry - brought by one of the guests. All the guests were from within this community. All good company, friendly and welcoming. We played Quiddler in 4 teams of 2 people.
On Saturday, there was a working bee including some burning of piles of dead wood that had been collected.
One of the biggest fires near the house.
A closer view of the fire.
The hut for occasional visitors, called The Hilton. I imagine woofers who often come to The Ridge also use it from time to time.
The communal area with (yet another) pizza oven. During the summer months there is a weekly Friday night dinner for those that feel sociable. During the earlier sunsets in the winter months, the weekly social gathering takes place on Sunday afternoons with an early dinner.
After spending three idyllic days here enjoying Nadia and Sam's hospitality, it was sadly time to take to the road again.
The road in and out is pretty steep in places, with concrete replacing dirt there.
We would not fancy trying to navigate the road in wet conditions with Winnie's front wheel drive.
We thoroughly enjoyed our stay. The community here is of a different type, and seems more to our liking, than the one we had tried for two years and left, at Fullerton Cove in Newcastle. But the isolation here does not really appeal to us, as it does to the nature loving, environmentally sensitive residents who have established a lively, active community here. We will, we hope, return here as guests in the future.
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