Emile, whose project it was to put together the documentary of our relocation and fruitarian lifestyle, and David, his well trusted camera man, were with us from the 6th of December until the 19th, when they left us to drive back down to Sydney, for their scheduled flight out of here back to the US on the 23rd..

We've not yet heard from them since leaving, but our internet activity is down to a record minimum (access is via an ultraslow very flaky telephone line, dial up connection here on the farm), and I should really write them a short note to find out how their return trip and flight were..

Anyhows, on arrival they hired this convertible sports car at Sydney airport, but the deal was it had to be returned to the same airport, otherwise they perhaps may have stayed an extra day or 2 or so filming, and then flown down to sydney from cairns.. I didn't envy them leaving and driving down again in such a short space of time. they would have had to do a fair bit of night driving too, to make it in time.

in their convertible, they were able to get some road shots in too, filming us from both behind and in front, and a few overtaking sort of shots..surprisingly they only got pulled over twice by the police (both times in Queensland), and each time they were let off lightly with a warning, I suspect the attitude of the police may have been slightly harsher had they not been so presentable and more hippylike of appearance..

still, the good thing, for us, was that we were able to drive on and not get involved with the police stuff. I'm not a fan of police, despite no criminal record, and being such a good boy and all that, I still find their presence intimidating, and dislike their authorative tones they brandish.

Not sure if I mentioned it before, but Emile first heard of fruitarianism when he ran into Julian on some backpacker place somewhere in central or South America.. Julian, who I had met briefly in central Victoria, roughly 2 years previously, had been on a raw vegan diet, but been inspired to move to all fruit (there's an interview with him on my main blog).. Anyhow, Emile soon came up with the idea to make a doco about fruitarianism, and asked Julian if he would be willing to participate.. Julian decided he was slightly too camera shy, and put Emile in touch with me, and the rest is history.

I kind of would have liked to have gotten to know E & D better, but their focus was mainly on getting whatever footage they could, in order to later piece the mosaic together.. In fact, I believe, all up, they took well over 40 hours of film, and the thesis is only supposed to be an estimate of 20 minutes.. I'm certainly pleased that it's not I that is faced with the task of being the button monkey who has to edit it all together in some coherent sense, but very pleased that the doco is being made, and that we had 2 such open minded young guys that were up for the task!

On arrival here, at this place called fruitopia, we were greeted by Ian, already briefly mentioned in a previous post, and his dog Shelly. The farm was otherwise deserted, just days earlier, it had been buzzing with activity as roughly 25, 80/10/10 raw fooders, zoomed in on the place for some kind of, going to perhaps be a regular occurance, raw vegan gathering, organized I gather, by are old friend Harley, his partner Freelea, and a 3rd guy, Nick, the yoga guy..

Well, although they had disappeared from the scene, over the course of the next few days, the 801010'ers slowly began reappearing again.. The following day, a young american guy named Ryan strolled through together with Michelle (canadian, whose still here on a sort of wwoofing basis) and Chiharo, a cooked japanese traveller also wwoofing and unconnected to the raw vegan happening.. .

Shortly after, Harley, over the space of about a week, Freelea and Nick turned up, possibly not quite in that order, another guy named Venant, and Greg and his partner Claire.. We missed out on meeting Darrick who was also one of the guys I interviewed on my blog a while ago, although rumour has it he may be returning before he leaves Australian shores again.

Well, having so many raw vegans turn up eating such a high percentage fruit diet, was fodder for the camera, and E & D got in several hours of interviews with whoever was willing. Probably Harley being the most vocative, as he seems to be born into the whole public speaking thing. (Actually, several of the mentioned names turned up after E&D had left, but they still got their fair share of slightly differing raw food ideas.. Including a lengthy interview with Ian who, as mentioned in a previous post, is on his own version of a raw food diet, based on some guy named vonderplanet, or something somewhat similar.. He basically eats rotten fermented meat, sometimes road kills (kangaroos, possums etc), and probably mostly organic store bought, and allowed to rot.. Raw milk, eggs etc..

He's sort of being influenced by the french instincto movement too, and doesn't mind the occasional maggot, or worm infested piece of fruit.

I look at his way of eating as pretty bizarre, and am not surprised that his body got into the toxic state it did, leading him to seek medical intervention.. But he sees things differently, and somehow his body must have built up an immunity to the e-colis and salmonella that probably thrive within..

Actually though, he's a pretty good guy, and in many ways very open minded and nonjudgemental, so I enjoy his company, despite our current differences in dietary outlook.

Actually, too, I'm sort of beyond really making a big deal about what other people eat or don't eat. I understand that apart from spreading the message some, there is little I can do about others' choices, and understand too, that we are really each of us responsible only for our own actions..

Interestingly, Harley has a different stance on that one, and believes it's our responsibility to get out there and tell everyone that they are erring.

Partly I can see his point, and really admire the guy for doing what he does, and taking the approach he does.

Our slight differences toward diet, (i'm thinking now of the 801010ers and Kveta and I), sparked many long and interesting debates about what was right and what wasn't.. We believe they tend to overeat, over drink and push their bodies to extremes that ultimately aren't healthy, they believe we are undernourished, dehydrated, and lethargic, and are highly skepitcal as to whether a solely fruit diet can be maintained over an extended period of time..

I enjoyed the challenge of our discussions, and may write more of them at later dates..

I've moved away from the subject of the post.. Well.. I didn't really know where I was headed when I started writing..

Think I'll end now.

Peace,
Mango

Well, we left our sydney abode as planned, on the 9th December.. Emile and David, the US doco makers, had arrived in Australia, 2 or 3 days before that, and had had time to film a little of our then suburban surroundings, plus various bits of our habitual lifestyle, followed by packing and final steps toward fleeing the nest, including goodbyes to our neighbours, who all expressed their well wishes, and many, apparent surprise when questioned on their thoughts that we just lived on fruit alone, often acting as if it was complete news to them, despite us having many times mentioned it in passing.. I guess having the camera in ones face makes one more willing to take note..

Anyhow, the day before departure, Emile, (whose project is to knock this documentary together as part of his thesis at Standford), invested in 2 cheapo, but adequate mobile phones , and a couple of equally fitting pay as you go plans, such that for the journey up, we would be able to communicate if need be, while driving our 2 cars.. (they had hired a car at sydney airport, for the duration of their short 3 week stay here)..

We left Sydney, I think it was a Wednesday morning, crossing over the Harbour bridge for hopefully the final time, and headed northbound into the relative uncertainty of the unknown..

The journey was mostly pretty noneventful, with our main focus on getting up here.. However, we did stop off on a few places, like tropical fruitworld, (the big avocado), and a couple of other "big" places.. Emile and David forever tangling themselves in wires to capture the moment on tape, which meant spontaneity often had to take a back seat..

Sleeping, for us, me and Kveta, Kveta and I, was mostly done in roadside lay overs off the motor way.. in our once trusty sturdy tent.. (alas, on arrival here, all 6 poles just splintered on us, rendering the tent useless, until we possibly find replacement poles, which we haven't put that great an effort into yet)..

we'd often talk with people, other travellers, as we pulled over, and whenever they were able, the film crew were there to film the interplay of words..

The car was pretty full, with pretty much most of what we needed and desired to take with us, and the only thing we left behind was kvetas wheelchair, which I don't think had been used once since I've been here.. That was left with our neighbour Brian, who stored it in his spare bedroom, and I guess Kveta may pick it up some time in 2010, possibly in conjunction with a European flight back to the CR to visit her family..

Anyhows.. the journey took us roughly 6 days, and roughly 2700, 2800 kms.. Which is sort of what we'd estimated..

On arriving in Cairns, we more or less immediately headed up to Mareeba, where we managed to find this place we're currently staying at.. It's called Fruitopia, and is currently owned by a guy named Clinton who probably spends most of his time down in Adelaide where I gather he owns an organic fruit stall of sorts, with possibly a mish-mash of other stuff that one might expect in most health food stalls..

He wasn't here on arrival, but we were greeted by the caretaker, Ian, a pretty nice guy on a pretty weird diet.. He was suffering at the time with a rather infected throat complaint, rendering it unable for him to really swallow anything, including liquids.. He was quite welcoming despite his clearly dehydrated weakened state, and we were able to set up camp at the back of one of the houses.. However, once we'd done that, I soon realised the state of the tent poles, and gave up all hopes of somehow gluing it back together, so we ended up moving in to one of the rooms of one of the houses, where we're still living, surrounded by all the stuff from the car which has been emptied out around us.

(After much thought about what the right thing to do was, Ian finally opted on getting medical help for his throat, and after a quick ambulance trip into cairns hospital and a short sharp treatment of antibiotics coupled with some syringe type throatal intervention, he was soon back able to swallow and slowly regaining his vitality.. - More on his choice of diet later...)

Anyhows, we are still living in the same room. Clearly it's not exactly what we were looking for, and just a temporary place to be for us, as we put out the message, when we can, to whom we can, that we are looking for our own private piece of paradise..

We have certain criteria about the place we ultimately desire to be living, and trust that the path to it's hideaway is being manifested as I write. Kvetas mother, having countless times read our fortune in the tarot cards, is without doubt that it awaits us as eagerly as we it..

I've written down a manifestation sheet of what we are looking for:

LAND - ASAP (Please!!) With:

1. Some well established fruit trees.
2, Room for plenty more.
3. Backing on to state forest.
4. Creek, or Dam, or both, with easy access.
5. Gravity feed water. (not reliant on the national water grid with it's fluoride and more chemical poisonings)
6. Flat smooth ground, not rough or too stony.
7. Close to friendly fruit (tree) growers (for easy access to food we aren't growing ourselves).
8. Good soil. Ideal for growing whatever fruits we wish..
9. No Feral pigs, and no swarms of biting insects.
10. Tropical climate with altitude enough to avoid the tsunami.
11. Simple old style, 2 bedroom (or more), house, with a nice covered wooden decking looking on to the garden.
12. Phone line with broadband access.
13. Garage or carport.
14. Privacy for practise of naturism, and free of noise pollution.
15. Easily affordable, or FREE.

OK.. I guess there is room for some degree of flexibility, and not all the wrinkles need to be ironed out immediately, but that's basically what we are looking for, and after already searching around for the past couple of weeks, and getting the message out there, we do realise that this is one of the more difficult manifestations we've requested, so understand too our need to practise patience, and attempt to remain positive.

We don't by any means have money to buy such a piece of property, so we're looking initially toward rental, but we're also open to things coming to somehow manifest the money one might need in order to invest in such an ideal place.

There is no greed, we feel that such living is everyones birthright, and we attempt to wait as patiently as capable in order for it to be returned to us.

I have heaps more to write, but that'll have to wait for another day..

hugs,
mango.