Today we experienced the Penguin community for the first time and fell in love with their enthusiasm for people, life and all things sustainble.
We went to the Penguin Organic and Sustainability Festival at the newly-finished Sustainability Centre off Ironcliffe Road. Like many, we parked on the road and walked down a long, steep dirt road to get there, and as Costa was later to remark, “I got a real sense of place coming down the hill”. The centre is set at the bottom, nestled between creek beds and bush, and presents as a natural haven. What a perfect venue for this community to show its skills in creating a more sustainable world.
As this is something we’re working towards in our small way, it touched us to see so many others who shared the same aim. We saw Greg from the Sheffield hazelnut farm we visited last year and Harvey caught up with a couple from Paradise (near Sheffield) he met at the hazelnut field day at Hagley last weekend. But the best part of the day was seeing Costa again. Harvey met Costa, his hero, at Mt Penang Gardens for the Flora Festival about 18 months ago and was chuffed when Costa remembered him. He was thrilled to learn we were following our dream and had moved here permanently to start a hazelnut farm and was very taken with Noah’s understanding of gardening and signed a poster for him.
We wandered through the various information stalls, picked up some information and the boys had a ball in the kid’s tent checking out all the activities, the favourite being making their own hacky sacks with water balloons.
As we walked back up the hill to our car we started wondering if we should search for our farm here too. We’ll keep you posted.
