We moved out into the subtropical wilderness of Australia, completely off-grid, suddenly without electricity at the flick of a switch, or water at the turn of a tap, no sewage system at all and no telephone either – even mobiles (cell phones) were out of range – oh, yes, and we didn’t have a house.

We brought with us a caravan which provided small office space and half a kitchen, not counting the fridge because we could not run it continuously – so add a fridge to the list of things we did without.

As Greg is a programmer and I’m a writer, computers are essential to us both and need protection from the weather, whereas we personally are waterproof. So, the caravan contained an office for each of us and we got to sleep in a tent.

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Despite getting regular rains, water was a concern. The creeks were flowing when we moved onto the land, but we knew that they would completely dry up for six months of each year, so we needed to store enough water to see us through the Dry Season when the creeks beds would contain nothing but dust.

The very first water we collected was rainwater that came off the caravan annex roof. It came to 20 liters (about 5 gallons). We used it for drinking and cooking and were careful not to waste any, so our first showers were in the rain.

We were still brand new out there and thought it not at all a bad start. The tent roof gave us more catchment area, and collect rain it did. We would soon learn that tents don’t stay rainproof and really aren’t meant for continual use in the tropics. But before then, Greg set fire to it…

(Definitely more Wilderness Stories coming – watch this space).

Cheers everyone! 😀

Allyson