225 – Ecotourism over Yondah

Yondah Beach House wines … tasting notes.

https://twitter.com/TheAdelaideShow/status/942173922086158336

I marvel at couples like Michele Bain and Nick Cureton because not only do they work together through the day in a design agency, they then work after hours on an intensive project like creating ecotourism properties, like Yondah Beach House, that win major awards, all bound together with lots of travel between Adelaide and Yorke Peninsula. It sounds like a hard, long, and winding road, but it also sounds like something they NEED to do. So, tonight, we’ll crack open the front door and learn what drives this couple to create such beautiful spaces where other couples can go for some time out.

#Tourism is hard work but Nick and Michele from #Adelaide multi-award winners for @YondahBeach House on #YorkePeninsula, an #Ecotourism marvel that is nurturing #nature and pampering #tourists https://t.co/8f6ar83lwX @southaustralia @YPCouncil @BotGardensSA @EcotourismAus

— The Adelaide Show (@TheAdelaideShow) December 13, 2017

That movie Steve was mentioning was Esio Trot by Roald Dahl, not Rudyard Kipling.

I can only assume that there are many tired moments when you are exhausted, especially with commutes between here and Yorke Peninsula that push you to your limits but what are the moments that make you say – yes, this is what I must do?

Back in the mid 90s, you lived with three kids in a tiny two bedroom upstairs apartment in Adelaide’s CBD, is the ability to survive that experience what has enabled you to work so closely together for decades?

How did your “attic” living make you famous?

What brought Yondah into your lives?

We start getting into the seeds of ecotourism when we talk about boxthorn – something you removed from your property back in 2000.

Is that what makes tourism, ecotourism? The fact that you remediate the land, not just run properties off solar?

How important is ecotourism globally?

How well placed is South Australia to benefit?

How did you take the first steps of turning a house into a holiday destination?

How lucky were you with Trees For Life?

Tell us about the awards?

Nigel Dobson-Keeffe challenges the panel to pick the fake story from three stories from South Australia’s past.

March 1906
OIL ON YORKE’S PENINSULA
Capt. William Pleitner, who has just returned from an inspection of the property; of the Warrenben Oil Syndicate, situated at Cape Spencer, on Yorke’s Peninsula, reports favourably on the prospects of the, new venture. During the past few months he has made several visits to the Peninsula; coast, where borings for oil were being conducted in a cave washed by the tides. Ones or twice the weather was too rough for him to gain access to the cave. On his last visit lie managed to enter, and found many, indications of oil. A vein of rock about 6 in. wide was examined, and the smell of oil was strong. “Last week, when I entered the cave, the odour was almost overpowering, owing to the vein and walls of the cave having been opened to a depth of a few feet. I believe there is a great force of oil not far below the depth of the cave, because the rock all around consists of hard calcareous sand-stone, and if there was no great force beneath, the strong odour of oil and the gases could not penetrate through these strata.

Nov 1934
FATHER CHRISTMAS NEAR TRAGEDY
The dream of country children on York Peninsula were nearly dashed today when Father Christmas visited them by aeroplane in plane chartered by a city store. However Father Christmas’ first flight in South Australia ended in disaster when a rocker arm of the machine broke just after take off. The aeroplanes engine stopped and it plummeted towards the ground. Luckily the pilot managed to control the plane towards some low scrub and pull up slightly. It was reported the wheels of the aeroplane however clipped on the bushes and it flipped over into more bushes and low trees. Both the pilot and Father Christmas survived, shaked up and with only minor scratches and some bruises. The Aeroplane had planned to travel from Moonta to Maitland, and tomorrow was to be at Curramulka and Minlaton. The party will continue on road after having secured the services of a local farmer who had a truck available.

1874
Puss and the Death Adder
The Moonta paper tells that a few nights since a kitten belonging to Mrs. Bice, of Mattapara, dragged a big death adder into the house. Mrs. Bice heard something pulled along the floor of the room next the one in which she was sitting, and on going with the lamp to ascertain the cause, she was startled to see Pussy drawing the hideous, writhing reptile towards her. The kitten had hold of it by the neck, and tugged it along with apparent pride at having effected such a capture. Mrs. Bice seized the ore shovel and threw the vermin out of doors, where her dispatched it with an axe. Strangely enough the kitten was not bitten or did not appear to be so, for it continued as well as ever.

And our song this week is Her Time, Her Mind by Zac Eichner, selected by our musical curator, Todd Fischer.

This week we will be re-visiting one of our favourite featured artists from 2017, Zac Eichner, as he announces his first interstate headline tour. It’s called The Bridge Burns Tour and it features a whole new set up for Zac including live sax which he’s been teaching himself and multi-instrumental loops that will allow him to achieve the beautiful layered vocals and textures that stand out in his past releases.

Apparently Zac also has a lot of new live tracks in the works which he is super excited to share with everyone. If the few small snippets he sent me recently are anything to go by then I really think it will blow audiences away. 

For our interstate listeners, the tour kicks off on February the 8th at Woody’s Bar in Melbourne where he’ll be joined by fellow South Australian expat Luke Carlino. These two guys play a very similar style of music and both love their looping so they should complement each other perfectly.

The tour then moves onto Sydney with a house show in Camden on the 10th alongside a secret international act then Sunday the 11th is at The Record Crate where he’ll be supported by Deepsea Lights and Tru.

On the 14th and 15th of Feb he’ll swing down to Tassie to play shows at Baker’s Lane in Launceston then Irish Murphy’s in Hobart.

Last but certainly not least he’ll return home to play his final show at Happy Sally here in Adelaide on Friday the 16th. Here he’ll be joined by Ollie English who we featured on the podcast last week on Kuji Koo’s latest track.

Tickets will be available very soon through OzTix so jump onto Zac’s Facebook page for links to all the shows.

To celebrate, we’re going to play you his latest release Her Time, Her Mind which brings the same Chet Faker / Nick Murphy vibes with a little more energy than the songs on his past EP, Home. So sit back, take it in and if you love Zac’s music as much as we do then make sure you get along to one of his shows.