Building Paradise by David Macfarlane

Author:David Macfarlane [Macfarlane, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ecological houses, Great Barrier Reef, BT, BIO026000, book
ISBN: 9781743050705
Publisher: Wakefield Press
Published: 2012-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between

his work and his play,

his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body,

his information and his recreation,

his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which.

He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does,

leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing.

To him he’s always doing both.

James Michener

There’s a never-ending list of things to do, even when there are no guests, but I always try to have one day off a week. If the conditions are suitable, I snorkel or scuba dive straight off the beach. And it’s well worth the effort kayaking across to Woodcutters Bay, especially on sunrise, when the smooth estuary is an animated mirror, and the birds sing like happy children.

In the evenings, if the tide is high and the moon bright, I sometimes visit Palm Bay or Long Island Resort at Happy Bay for dinner. The journey there and back, scooting along the moonlit water, is nearly always the highlight of the evening.

John and Jenny, the friendly couple who manage Palm Bay, occasionally come down for the night. They appreciate escaping to Paradise Bay when they have the opportunity, because despite Palm Bay’s relatively small size, they have more than a dozen staff and cater for up to fifty guests, so it’s not an easy place to manage. In fact it’s just the sort of business I want to avoid developing at Paradise Bay. It’s too big to be personalised or environmentally friendly, but too small to have the facilities and economies of scale of a large resort.

After Kirsty and Katy have moved on I don’t find it difficult to attract good staff again. The young international backpackers I usually employ are attracted by the romantic notion of working on an island, and probably, to some extent, by my enthusiasm and love for the place.

But working in the heat and humidity can often be unbearable, especially for anyone from Europe. Although the temperature rarely rises above thirty-five Celsius, it’s oppressively humid during the hottest months. The walk from a bedroom to the bathroom at six in the morning is usually enough to make anyone break out in a heavy sweat.

And of course the wildlife can be intimidating. Apart from the occasional snake, there are large goannas over a metre long that sometimes run up to you if they suspect you’ve got food, native rats the size of small cats, cane toads big enough to trip over, green tree frogs that inhabit the toilet bowls, spiders the size of a man’s hand, giant cockroaches, vicious biting green ants, screeching fruit bats as big as eagles, angry bush turkeys that run around like headless chickens, a couple of smelly old billygoats that occasionally wander through the site, at least one howling dingo (rarely seen but often heard on a full moon), a large razorback feral pig, and dozens of wallabies. There’s also a jealous kangaroo that might leap out from behind a tree and attack when you’re least expecting it.

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