The Faraway Tree House

 

I arrived at Cairns airport after a three-hour direct flight, jumped into my hire car, a cute little Hyandai Getz, and drove the short 25 kilometres into the mountain ranges behind Cairns to Kuranda, the Village in the Rain Forest. Checked into the Kuranda Hotel and enjoyed my first cold beer of the day. Later I went for a stroll up the main street of Kuranda and passed the Faraway Tree Building which I remembered from the real estate website as being the location of the two strata-titled flats for sale in town. As I looked around the building, a voice from above bailed me up. No, it wasn't God but Marshall, one of the tenants, who works at "The Ark" and who wasted no time in familiarising me with all the local gossip and introducing me to the only owner-occupiers in the building, the retired couple Pat & George Mcfarlane."   [continue reading here]

I wrote this over eighteen years ago, and since then have kept up my interest in the little Village in the Rain Forest in the hills behind Cairns.

 

Can't get enough? Join Michael Portillo in his TV series Great Australian Railway Journeys

 

After twenty-nine years at "Riverbend" - it may be a full thirty years by the time it's sold - I'll be definitely down-down-down-downsizing. No more carpentry or testing my plumbing skills, no more power tools or sitting for hours on a ride-on, and no more woodsplitting so as not to shiver through another cold winter. All I want is a room with a view (and room for my books) in a place that's either warm or hot but never cold.

 

Click here for a close-up map
For more information on Kuranda, go to www.kuranda.org

 

I had looked at 14 Barang Street which last month sold for $420,000, and then at a two-bedroom unit at 9/40 Coondoo Street which also sold last month for $207,000, which left a one-bedroom in the same Faraway Tree House, Unit 12, for sale at $187,000, but now also 'Under Offer'.

During my visit in 2003 I befriended the retired couple Pat & George Mcfarlane who lived in Unit 10 which they bought in 1992 for $96,000. The unit for sale at the time was the two-bedroom Unit 11 which then sold in 2004 for $93,000 (after having been bought twelve years earlier for $96,000; the real estate market in the tropical north is fickle; one big cyclone or one big Wet and everyone goes back to the Deep South!)

Plan of the Faraway Tree House, Level A = Shops; Level B = Home units
For past sale prices, click here

Unit 1 sold Sep'09 $286,000; Dec'04 $115,000; Sep'02 $500,000 Unit 2 sold Oct'15 $100,000; Aug'05 $89,750 Unit 3 sold Jun'06 $71,000 Unit 4 sold Jun'06 $71,000 Unit 5 sold Jul'97 $200,000 Unit 6 sold Jul'97 $200,000 Unit 7 sold Jul'97 $200,000 Unit 8 sold Jan'05 $90,000 Unit 9 sold Feb'22 $207,000; Jan'17 $159,000; Aug'02 $90,000 Unit 10 sold Oct'92 $96,000 Unit 11 sold Sep'04 $93,000; Oct'92 $96,000 Unit 12 sold Apr'22 $187,000; Dec'17 $185,000; Nov'17 $170,000; May'16 $159,000; Feb'07 $160,000; Sep'92 $93,000 for sale May'22 at $269,000; reduced Jun'22 to $239,000 Unit 13 sold May'08 $140,000; Aug'95 $120,000 Unit 14 sold Sep'07 $185,000; Aug'02 $107,000

Such small pied-à-terre is ideal, and I'll keep my eyes on the Faraway Tree House. Someone might head south in the next twelve months which is how long it will take to sell "Riverbend" once I've put my mind to it.

Googlemap Riverbend

 

P.S. If you want to know what a property is worth, realestateview.com.au is a good starting point.

 

Full steam ahead!

 

The old Steampacket Hotel, a derelict old building left to rot ever since the new Steampacket Hotel opened on the Kings Highway, has just been sold for $1,601,000 - click here. It last changed hands in July 2012 for $240,000. The owners couldn't have made that much profit selling beer.

Googlemap Riverbend

 

The New Rulers of the World

 

When American Vice-President Dick Cheney said that the 'war on terrorism' could last for fifty years or more, his words evoked George Orwell's great prophetic work, 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'. We are to live with the threat and illusion of endless war, it seems, in order to justify increased social control and state repression, while great power pursues its goal of global supremacy. Washington is transformed into 'chief city of Airstrip One' and every problem is blamed on the 'enemy', the evil Goldstein, as Orwell called him. He could be Osama bin Laden, or his successors, the 'axis of evil'."

 

 

So begins the Introduction to John Pilger's book "The New Rulers of the World", a must-read for anyone interested in debunking the myth of globalisation.

Googlemap Riverbend

 

I've just discovered Daniel Kehlmann

 

Born in 1975 in Munich, Daniel Kehlmann found his way all the way to Batemans Bay where I found the eight-hour audio recording of his book "Measuring the World" in my favourite op-shop. What a find!

"Measuring the World" recreates the parallel but contrasting lives of two geniuses of the German Enlightenment - the naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt and the mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss. Towards the end of the 18th century, these two brilliant young Germans set out to measure the world.

Humboldt, a Prussian aristocrat schooled for greatness, negotiates savannah and jungle, climbs the highest mountain then known to man, counts head lice on the heads of the natives, and explores every hole in the ground.

Gauss, a man born in poverty who will be recognised as the greatest mathematician since Newton, does not even need to leave his home in Göttingen to know that space is curved. He can run prime numbers in his head, cannot imagine a life without women and yet jumps out of bed on his wedding night to jot down a mathematical formula.

 

For the German original, click here

 

And while I'm still listening to the audio book, I've already ordered the paperback (it's also available at archive.org) and the movie in German.

 

 

What a find!

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Do You Want Fries With That?

 

My Canberra real estate spy with a religious bend - he calls himself FRIAR but that's probably part of his spycraft - made another dead letter drop, this time to tell me about what is probably the most stunning property on the Clyde River, built sometime in the 90s and owned by the couple who used to own the Batemans Bay and other McDonald's franchises.

It went online only three days ago, with the agents Ray White keeping its location secret, suggesting that "Address [is] available on request", but every local knows where it is and anyone coming up the river can see it on the starboard side. If you don't have a boat, simply click here.

 

The property's address is 116 Snapper Point Road, Batemans Bay, located at red marker

 

The advertisement gives no price and invites "Expressions of Interest", but the clipping from the Canberra Times suggests a price guide of $5 million which would smash the current sale record for Batemans Bay.

Googlemap Riverbend

 

P.S. If you want to know what a property is worth, realestateview.com.au is a good starting point.

P.P.S. Well, 116 Snapper Point Road was not snapped up; instead, it has been taken off the market again.