Rocketfuelled
Reuben Whitehouse

Wwoof 3.08.08

Rocketfuelled is now located out of NSW for a month or two whilst the Lady and I partake in a little Wwoofing. Full-time design work has become part-time whilst the other half of the day is spent helping the fine people up here at ‘Swananda’ return a 100 acre plot into it’s original state as native Rainforest.

This will happen for a 3 month period, starting 1 month ago: We wake up to green views of the surrounding valley (we’re located atop a ridge), enjoy a decent breakfast which invariably includes fruit picked fresh from the garden and head down to a small gully-complete-with-waterfall where we wreak havoc on all the destructive non-native Lantarna weed; pulling it out, snapping it up and making piles out of it which are left to rot. In the weed’s place, we plant native trees – baby seedlings which have been cultivated at the nursery up here at the house, seeded from the remaining native trees on the property. Eventually, these trees will form a forest canopy which will keep the sun-loving weeds out and allow the forest to self-seed, ongoing.

When planting trees it’s good to note that you’re doing one of the most lasting jobs that you’ll ever turn your hands to. How often is it that you’ll help plant / create / nurture something that will probably last for over 100 years? Very cool.

In addition to the planting / weeding work we’ve been helping to plant the vegetable garden, build wooden bridges out of the trunks of Camphor Laurels, gather seeds, remove old fencing, learn about cooking with vegetables and heaps more good stuff. We also drink some pretty bloody good wine in the evenings.

It’s 8am now. We’re off to the gully for 3 hours. Then we’ll come back, sneak in a bit of design work and then (hopefully) spot a Whale off the headland at Cabarita Beach (a decent surf spot) before dark. Too awesome.