Steve and I drove up early on the Saturday morning - I finished work the night before at 10pm, so there was no way we were going to drive up that night! We decided to trust the Pommie GPS lady and she brought us in over a steep hill, with one of the worst sealed roads I've ever been on! It had enormous ditches dug right through the road, so big that we had to steer the car side-on to avoid the front end scraping! I was told later that it had only been sealed 6 years ago, which is no sooner than our road at home!
We arrived before 8:30am and walked around the 'village green' area, checking out the Sourdough Bakery (and buying 3 loaves) and meeting the other course participants as well as the teachers, Evan and Morag. After introductions, we drove up to our bunkhouse to unpack, then back down to the green. Once everybody had arrived, Evan set off on a walking tour, on the way to their house.
Looking back towards the village green, carpeted by Tipuanas. (We call them Racehorse trees here!)
We headed up a hill beside a house built to hire out to different groups – we didn't get a look inside as another group was using it, but it was a partial rammed earth building – the layers of earth quite obvious. Evan then led us on up the hill to the crest, where the original Crystal Waters was conceived, before they decided to all have separate house blocks.
There was some nice mosaics on the floor, and the letter boxes and community notices were all housed here. Not far away from there was the Carousel; the children's room – originally an old round yard cleverly redesigned to become a great all-weather play space!
The Carousel - outside
Inside - behind the door you can see the original slots for the rails...
Outside was a well-situated composting toilet.
