"ALL THE CRAZY THINGS IVE DONE TO DATE!" Australia Travelogue by Amelei

LIVED IN A TI PI FOR 2 YEARS
In the heart of the Australian bush is where this story of romance, love, betrayal and one woman who defied it all...her name....??? Amelei. Ha Ha Yeah the begining to my Hollywood sweeping saga!

I'm living in the middle of the city in a BoHo chic apartment working a really great job. I have everything i could possibly want. A great job, a loving partner, a wonderful house set up, a clear path with loads of direction! BUT for some reason I'm not happy and i cant figure out why.

I spend months on edge, anxious and lost. I cant settle and im in 2 worlds all the time. My partner is unsettled at the fact I'm so unsettled and it seems there is this repetitive circle of complete unsettleness.

I need change. I need to get out of the city. I feel suffocated, i cant breathe, I'm drowning, I'm flipping out- am i going insane???? Ahhhh!!

One night i have a dream.....

In this deep state of lucid dreaming, i am watching myself, in an envirionment that feels so familiar and secure yet so foreign to where i am now. I watch myself closely - i am so happy and fullfilled, so content with ....nothing!

The dream awoke something deep inside me, i cannot explain the feeling but it was like a weight had been lifted, finally after months of absolute chaos!

I talk to Emrynn my partner, about this dream. I said 'We have to go. We have to move and get out of here.'

Strangely enough 4 weeks later we had moved deep into the heart of the Australian bush- with nothing!

We met a man who Lent us his TiPi and we set up camp.

It took some time to really settle into our new 'chosen' lifestyle, given that we had moved straight from the inner city of Brisbane, but each and every day proved to be a wonderful challenge for both of us.

We would walk 1/2 Kilometre to fetch water in 2 buckets to bring back to the 'camp site'. This was tiresome but none the less meditative. It truly brings you back to your grass roots, where everyday you are concious only of survival. There is no other *** assosiated in your day like, meetings, deadlines, performance. We were out there simply BEING and surviving. We were bought back to the very begining of human instinct. Nothing else mattered.

Washing was done in town, we had no car but we we bought a bicycle. To town we would ride, 5km's each way to do our washing and sell our vegitables that we grew around the camp site. .

We bought chickens and a rooster ( out morning alarm clock), followed by ducks and other assorted animals.( Like a 10 foot carpet snake that decided to introduce itself to our campsite).

I did market stalls on the weekend and with this money i went and studied massage and nutrition.

From there i started a massage buisness and swapped massages in the local community for food, labor and other wares. In no time at all i was in undated with work.

I remember one lady came and asked if she could have 3 massages for a claw foot bath!! Oh what luxury! So the claw foot bath had come and was delivered to the TiPi site and another guy that came for a massage gave me a second hand hot water system and set it up for us so we had hot water, running water. Another had a small tank that he swapped for 2 massages and soon enough we had enough running water (gravity fed), hot showers, the ducks and chooks were happy and then came Delilah our pet cow ( and milking cow).

We did this for 2 years until we decided that maybe it was time to buy a bus.......

"As a child I understood how to give, I have forgotten this grace since I have become civilised."

Luther Standing Bear
(Ota Kte, Mochunozhin)
(1868-1939) Oglala Sioux chief

“I am going to venture that the man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its
meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures, and acknowledging unity with the universe of things
was infusing into his being the true essence of civilisation.”

(Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux chief)

On the property with OSKAR

Next through saving our pennies from, Emrynns odd jobs, i had picked up paid work in a childcare and the weekend market stalls, we bought our first baby- a 40 foot Denning coach- our new home of homes!

How exciting. There is such a long long story about how we did get this bus and i will share and update at a later date.

We worked around the clock to make our new bus a 'home'. It was in need of a lot of TLC but we were up to the challenge.

We gave Oskar a new hardwood floor, which i might add , looked very very suave! Next was installing a kitchen with a gas oven, fridge, airconditioning ect ect.

The claw bath was installed also connecting to the tank.

We were by now living with a complete reclused nutcase on his land, who we adored but he also infuriated us.

We met Zage through the local community and lovingly he asked if we would like to stay with him on his land for a while and help him tend to his garden etc in exchange for letting us stay.

This seemed a perfect option for all of us an so we moved to this beautiful Piece of land , living right on the creek ( no long walks). We had a section to ourselves and he rarely came into this space. It all seemed so wonderful!!

Zage was a dreamer a philosoper and suffered paranoia, quite severly. He kept thinking that i was stealing things from him and it got to the point where he would not allow friends to come around. This saddened us greatly!

We loved his out there visions but in the end we found his paranoia too much to handle and we decided the best thing to do was to move camp and wish him well.

Unfortunately we left on not so good terms and he refused to talk to us anymore.

So the bus started one early autumn morning and with a big roar we decided to move to the other side of the mountain, deeper into the heart ot the Australian bush and further and further away from civilisation! And so the journey continues.........

Black Elk
Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, 1863-1950

"You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round...
The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours...
Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves."

Oh beautiful Nimbin!

One long drive and its midnight.
I'm sitting trying to stay awake while Emrynn drives deep into the belly of the forest.

I am sitting in the front seat of Oskar exhausted from the long drive over many mountains, many plateus, many winding beautiful dirt roads.

To be quite honest we dont have any plans we have just packed up, escaped from Zages phycosis, and are heading somehwere.

Emrynn is singing and i am making a half ass attempt to join in to keep my mind alert! I feel a complete wash of content happiness. In that moment i could not wish for anything more.... everything is so silent, for the first time in my life, i have slowed down and become silent. My mind is silent and is not scattered with all these crazy thoughts. It is just as it is- in that moment, right NOW. I wished i could stay this way forever!

Its 1am when we finally arrive in Nimbin, tired,hungry but somewhat energised.

We climb to the back of the bus after parking in the local camp ground and fall asleep like 2 content kittens. I dream again. I see many people all together talking. I cannot make out their words, a muffled sound and a calidescope of colour.

Morning dawns and we sit outside on the grass drinking.

I have never seen Emrynn's face light up so much. He too has found something i think we both have been searching for for so long. We opened the subconcious to the possibilities, we took the quantum leap, and faith in each other and we are here now, sitting in a camping ground in the middle of no where, with no idea about what we were going to do, where we were going to go and how we were going to manage it all- but we had faith! That was the driving force that kept us going.......

After cleaning up somewhat we walked into the town centre of Nimbin. WOW!

Emrynn and i just looked at each other with stunned amazement! This place was unlike anything we had ever seen. It seemed to me to be one huge art canvas, equipped with all sotrs of misfits, drop outs, philosophers and drifters.
We walk to the Rainbow Cafe and order food. We sit out the back and observe the chaos around us. An elderly man comes up to our table and asks us the routine question ' Ganga man, you want some ganga?' to which i reply ' 'Thank you but no thank you.' Emrynn sulks.
We finnish our food and i walk over to a notice board to have a peek at whats on offer in this small town. Emrynn wanders off up the road to lose himself in the maddness.

I notice a sign there, that offers accomodation in exchange for working on an organic farm. I get to thinking....

I find Emrynn in a cloud of smoke giggling away to himself- I crack up laughing and he embraces me in his arms and says ' this sh!t is potent'..... together we walk off from the Hemp Bar and find our way back to the bus after a quick stop off at the herbalist and Nimbin Emporium.

That night i lay out my plan to Emrynn who can do nothing but lye on his back in giggling fits and say ' Babe i cant go anywhere right now, lets go in the morning.....'

The following morning we woke early in a daze of excitement. I made a quick phone call and we headed in the bus to the hippie commune!

"We first knew you a feeble plant which wanted a little earth whereon to grow. We gave it to you; and afterward, when we could have trod you under our feet, we watered and protected you; and now you have grown to be a mighty tree, whose top reaches the clouds, and whose branches overspread the whole land, whilst we, who were the tall pines of the forest, have become a feeble plant and need your protection."

A lazy sunday morning and seedy once again
Cant get comfortable in this deep state of alcohol poisoning
They call it- hungover!

The room is a blurry haze of urban squalor
Beatnicks hide away in vacant nothingness
I awake to the familiar crusty dungeon of luted cigarette trays, half smoked joints, red wine stains- love stains....

The white cotton sheets wrap around my dancing hips....you lay beside me reeking of some underground hippy love.....

Your arm rests carelessly across my naked chest, holding gently all that is woman.....You are breathing softly, breathing the Nag Champa that smokes this mystified woman. Engulfed in free love- ideals of urban alternatives!

The urban jungle awakens from its sleepy hollow. Neon lights engulf my senses. The putrid smell of togetherness oozes out every crevice of this concrete mayhem.

A single, lonely light bulb strays above me- i open my eyes, blury eyed, mystified.... i awake to my inner being. I pull away to find my legs- somewhere down there. It's 3am and the night echos loneliness.

Comfortably numb, explicitly naked, i gather composure and drag myself to your windows edge. Ah!! the moon is rising- Poetry is alive! Escaping the dusty bottom shelf- it lives and breathes again!

I roll a joint...Inhale...exhale- breathe- closing my eyes and moving to that ....dreamy...state...my own little samahdi- stoned!

Stoned in the morning light, 'I' have escaped teh dusty shelves, 'I', live and breathe!

The room loses its grunge appeal as i light my last inner candle...a soft glow emerges, the after glow becomes me....

A lonely voice reads a while...the early morning fog escapes me, radio forever announcing its departure. The beads on my tin door sway a little- the purple light radiates warmth...I sing to my loved ones, soft , low and appealing- No-one is listening...this is all my dream....

You lay there naked in your indian garb... you're trying too hard for me...i crawl back into you...you smell of me...you are me...i sip my chai and dream of far away places- an escape from my own mental institution....places to fly away to and places to land safely....but most importantly places to call home.....

Amelei- Minyon Falls 2001