3rd february 2010..

Well, Fruiopia certainly gets its fair share of visitors. Currently, in addition to ourselves, (Kveta & I), and Ian & his dog shelly, there's also MIchelle still staying here (she's canadian, been here more or less since the raw 801010 retreat that finished just prior to our arival in December), there's also a guy named Paul who's staying here, and yesterday, Darrick, who I interviewed on my blog not so distantly, arrived..

Paul is this 60 year old well traveled dude, former follower of Osho, and mostly living around the Byron area, originally from Ireland..

Actually, turns out he knows a couple of friends of mine from a while back.. Ben, the french instincto, who I've crossed paths with a couple of times, and Asakti, also a former Osho follower.. I'm informed both Ben and Askati who once adamantly stuck to raw, are not eating some cooked stuff too.. (Spoke briefly on the phone with Ben in November I think it was.. maybe October, or September or earlier too though.. no longer sure.. he was back in France, visiting his mother and friends.. mostly he's been living in recent years on Koh Tao in Thailand.. Where he and his partner have built a house that I believe is now up for sale.. Not sure where he is now, and what his plans are)..

Ben and I met here in Australia.. in fact, not too far from where I now sit.. at my old loved haunt, Mary Farms, where I hung out for in all around 1.5 years, some 12 years or so ago.. At the time there was this big rainbow gathering there, with several hundred people. One morning, Ben had decided to give an impromptu talk on instinctive eating, and I was among his small audience.. After he'd finished, I introduced myself, and he replied something like" Ahh, Mango, I know of a Mango also living in the Pyranees".. and I said to him, "yes, that would be me", and Ben patiently tried to explain that the other mango lived in the pyranees in France, and I insisted that that guy he was refering to, was in fact myself.. As it was.. (I had recently left France to visit Australia, and had arrived on a rarely given 4 year visa, so the mango in the pyranees he knew of, was in fact yours truly).

Anyhow, back to Fruitopia, and who's currently here.. Yes, Paul.. he's been here for a little under a week now I believe, and I gather plans to stick around for a couple of months or so.. He's a friend of Clintons, and already visited the place on numerous occasions, i gather doing a far bit of work here too. He's into raw foods I think. Including eggs at times too, I believe. I still haven't had that much of a chat with him, but seems like a good guy to be around.

Darrick, who's been globetrotting for the past 3 years or so, has also just travelled up from Byron Bay.. He was here in December for the 80/10/10 gathering, but left just before we arrived here, so this is the first time we've met outside of the internet.. He brought with him 2 once frozen, mostly thawed, durian he'd bought in Cairns at an asian store, and generously shared them with Kveta and I.. very nice.. far superior to the frozen durian you get in some woolworth stores here (they seem to defrost and refreeze them or something, and always taste like they are passed their prime.. not enough turnover i guess, unlike sydney that would take them from the freezer in the morning and be pretty sure they would all be gone by late afternoon..)

One of his reasons for getting here is to sample the akee, but the rain still seems to have stopped play.. Yesterday morning I checked the trees, but only found one that was open and ready, and when I got back, we discovered it was mostly rotten already.. there're a lot of green ones the rain and wind has knocked off the trees already, and although still a fair few fruit on the trees, many are stung and blackened, and very few appear to be ripening.. Still.. today the sun is shining, and sky's relatively clear, so maybe that'll give them a kick start again..

Darrick tells us that a guy named Robert Lockhardt will be visiting us on Thursday here.. I'm told he's a 65 year old fruitarian who can do walking hand stands.. Apparently he has some land just south of Port Douglas, and grows his own jackfruits and stuff.. Darrick tells me he's up for being interviewed on my blog when he gets here, so maybe another interview on it's way.. Also, Sandrine, one of the last people I interviewed has given me the email of another practising fruitarian in Europe that I can interview.. due to our dodgy internet connect, I've not followed up on that one yet..

3rd February. 2010

Yesterday we finally caught up with that guy, Dave, in Malanda, who had negotiated with us previously concerning the possibility of house sitting his place there.. We had been forever holding out that it may work out, but when we arrived unnanounced on his doorstep (we had no way of getting in touch with him as he never got back to us with his new number after his old phone had been lost), he just told us he had changed his plans..

Quite rude, we thought.. no apologies for not ringing us and letting us know (his last message to us had been that we would meet up that same day or shortly after, and discuss the possibility further, and then suddenly no further communication).. So all we could do was turn the car around, and leave.. (The Malanda house is about 1 hours drive from our Mareeba home)

So we are still very much in the same situation as previously..

However, we did check out a couple of real estates after visiting Dave, and one place had a property we drove out to have a look at.. Just outside of Milla Milla (which in some aboriginal tongue, I'm told, means rain rain, due to the heavy rainfalls it gets).. anyhow, we both loved the place.. nice big house, very private, nice land with a beautiful view in all directions and great soil.. several well established fruit trees on it already, 2 loaded avocado trees and several citrus things.. one passion fruit vine looking a little neglected but baring fruit still.. Definite privacy for naturism.. big sun room. Apparantly Quiet area with no visible neighbours..

The property is available for around $200 a week, which is sort of a little over what we are looking for, but rentals for under $200 a week are saddly few and far between.

Anyhow.. down to the real drawbacks.. No furniture.. well that's basically a minor issue, as it'd be easy to get hold of a matress which is all we'd need to get started, and other bits and pieces could slowly be gotten hold of.. However, the real issue would be that the lease is only really short term.. The owners are away, travelling, apparantly around australia, and are scheduled back in less than a year and a half from now.. but that's just a vague plan that could and likely will change, so they could theoretically return in 2 weeks, and suddenly we would be in exactly the same position, but only be under even more pressure to find a place quicker.. also there is a lot of grass needs mowing regularly, and although a sit on lawn mower is provided, if there are any problems with it, it would be up to us to get it fixed, which would be a potential added expense we could basically do without..

for these basic reason, i think we have already decided to give the place a miss.. a long term lease would be a different issue, where we felt the land was truly ours for a while ,and could get more trees in the ground..

So another no-goer..

We drove home, and discovered a small country house that sells persimmons, so bought a couple of kilos..

Oh, almost forgot to mention that we had another swim at Malanda Falls before heading home, and a picnic of pawpaw and passionfruit.. great spot!

It's Helena's birthday today. Happy birthday Helena (she's my sister!)..

peace,
mango.