225 – Ecotourism over Yondah

Yondah Beach House wines … tasting notes.

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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.

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.