“I was born in Papua New Guinea. Living in a village, life is just different, you are around a lot of animals, you don’t have showers, flushing toilets or convenient things like we do here. You live off the land and the river systems, the food you plant in the ground, the fish you catch.
Everything just revolves around the garden. You plant bananas, mangoes and paw paw, taro coconut and stuff like that, then harvesting it to not only eat but also share with each other. You also use the materials for bags, cooking materials, clothing, medicine and jewellery. We all lived in one big house.
I only lived there until I was 8 so it was quite a short-lived stint. It was fun and I was very happy then. We moved quite a lot because of Dad’s work.
Later I got sent to boarding school in Adelaide and I didn’t like it there. I hated the cold weather; it was too cold especially when you are used to being in the tropics. Lang was the reason I stayed in SA. It was pretty exciting when we moved to Kangaroo Island.
We moved to Vivonne first and it was just awesome, the best lifestyle ever, and just such a great community, friends, gardens, beach. I was so care free. Now we are on the farm.
The women on the island are inspirational, I find every woman on the island is amazing. It takes quite a lot for a woman to live on a rural island.
You’ve got to be pretty good with your own company if you live far out west like me.
There is so much land, freedom, space, fresh air, beautiful scenery. But the community, it’s just so tight. Not just the whole island but every region has its own community as well. You go to Vivonne and you got your community there—same with Kingscote, American River etcetera. Everyone has almost the same interests. We all care for and want to look after the land in some way, look after each other, eat healthy and all express so much creativity. Those kinds of things remind me of the most important things I was brought up with.”