I was born and lived the first seven years of my life near Tumbarumba, in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains on a farm with my parents, sisters Jenny and Kath, and my brother John. A love of the “bush” was instilled from a very early age. Even though I then lived in Sydney until I was sixteen, I maintained a close connection with the outdoors through scouts and regular visits to stay with relatives on farms.
After finishing school and dipping my toe in the waters of University for a short time, I “dropped out” and went off to see the world and pursue a different kind of education. I spent the next thirty years living in communes, ashrams, monasteries, share houses, youth hostels, tents, and tee pees in many different countries. I worked at many and varied jobs including seismic surveying in outback Australia, operating a tractor on a large vegetable farm in USA, making hamburgers at a fast food outlet in Amsterdam, and taxi driving in Sydney. I met many wonderful people and had lots of great adventures along the way.
In the late 1980’s I left city life behind for good and moved to the far north coast of NSW with my girlfriend. To make ends meet and to open up creative potential I started making windchimes, musical instruments, and timber furniture. The windchime business took off and within a few short years I was struggling to keep up with demand from galleries and craft shops around Australia.
Eventually the puff went out of the windchime industry and I reinvented myself as a nerd providing IT tech support for a large Adult Community Education College, public schools, and TAFE Colleges across the North Coast. I also provided computer education classes from beginner level to Certificate IV for over ten years.
It was during this time that I met the love of my life, Dee in one of my computer classes over twelve years ago. Our time together has been a wonderful, adventure packed, roller-coaster ride filled with thrills and spills, highs and lows, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. She provokes, challenges, and encourages me to be the best me I can be, and she laughs at my jokes. Can’t ask for much more than that, can you?
Since we have been together, while rekindling my love of travelling and camping I seem to have started a major fire of love for it with Dee. We have been on many amazing journeys through outback NSW, SA, and QLD refining our “rig” all the time. Photos of some of our trips can be found here.
Often it seems that when a seemingly major negative drama happens in your life it provides just the right courage and motivation to make the big changes in your life that reset your course into an exciting new direction. This is exactly what happened to us. We bought a wonderful caravan called “The Wombat”, sold our house and most of our possessions, and hit the frog and toad on a Journey Into The Unknown.
As we travel around this beautiful country I have the great fortune to be able to pursue my interest in visiting new places and meeting new people, my pleasure in bushwalking and my passion in photography. All of this with my lover and best friend by my side.