The nice people at the GRASS ROOTS Magazine have helped to track down for me a "grassified" advertisement which almost changed my life all those many years ago in 1985 when I had just come back from my last overseas assignment in Greece.
There I was, tucked away in a tiny flat in McMahons Point, working twice as hard (which I didn't mind!) but earning only half as much (which I did mind!) of what I used to earn in Greece when looking after a fleet of ships carrying commodities to Saudi Arabia. Living just around the corner from the Bridge made it even more tempting to want to jump off it! But what was the alternative? An alternative lifestyle?
Then I picked up a GRASS ROOTS Magazine at the local newsagency and in it found a "grassified" advertisement by Two Waters Farm. It pressed all the buttons: get away from it all, live a simpler life, new friends ...
Unlike the advertisement above which appeared (again) some months later, the one I read (and which GRASS ROOTS' friendly Emma Jameison may still locate) sounded even more evocative and was signed off by a Uta Langer to whom I wrote and who replied and who shortly afterwards stood on my doorstep, having hitchhiked from Tabulam to Lismore from where she had taken the train to Sydney to renew her passport at the German Consulate. Between one (former) German and another, we hit it off well and the thought grew stronger to move to Two Waters Farm.
Of course, those were the days before the internet and so the only way to check it out was to go there. What delayed my reconnaissance long enough was her warning that this was serious 4-wheel-drive country and I would not be able to drive all the way to it in my then NISSAN Stanza.
As I wrote, it delayed me long enough for something else to turn up - see here - because, as the saying goes, "Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans". Perhaps, more to the point, I should've remembered the first rule of holes, "If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!", because more recent "diggings" revealed an even deeper hole than I would have been able to get myself out of later.
Driving away from Two Waters Farm
A Derek Crawford uploaded these clips on YouTube
The (then?) owner of the property lives (lived?) here and here
which at one time - before or after this video? - was advertised for sale here
Driving out of Two Waters Farm for the last time
The narrator and videomaker is - I think - this guy
Never mind the prefix "funny"; what about the offending apostrophe in "Water's"? Another road almost travelled! I stopped digging just in time.
P.S. In recent years, more shares in the Two Waters Farm co-operative have come up for sale here and here and here and here and here (which is Lot 10, I think, which is the property in the above videos, I think), and Lot 3 here and here and here and here and here and Lot 8 here and Lot 9 here and here and here and Lot 11 here and here and here. Many dreams have been dreamed and many dreams have been shattered.
