We packed our car full of Germans (as is the custom when heading to Hepburn for some Advanced Principles David Holmgren style) and set off, but not before taking a little detour to the airport to pick up a stranded Permaculture Pilgrimager (I told you it’s not a religion!!). Fashionably late as always we filled up on soup and set up tent in a dark paddock, my head nodded as I tried to cram in the last 10 pages of David’s book, 4 to go I succumbed to sleep.

The Advanced Principles course is well worth the trip, but as always my head was fairly bursting with knowledge at the end of the first day and I am still digesting it and working out how to apply it to life as I know it. Some people have all the luck, oh to have David Holmgren brains!

Whilst fascinating, the photographic opportunities at the primary school hall were not so scenic so I’ll leave you with some snaps from around David’s place at Melliodora. I won’t recommend the chook tractor tricycle as its inhabitants came to a sticky end at the paw of a Hepburn fox, but I promise if you visit Melliodora you will be dreaming of a tree house in ancient pear tree for years to come.