Under a hotter Sun; Tucabia;

How do you pronounce “Tucabia”?The dirt road passing our property is called the Tucabia road. Further on is the tiny, sleepy township of Tucabia.

We had heard from neighbours that somewhere out there were Swiss people living.

We went to the Tucabia post office to inquire where these people might live. Like mentioned before we were not really sure if they were Swiss or Swedish. When we arrived at the post office we could not believe our eyes.We had never seen a post office like that.

The weatherboard house was dilapidated to the stage of collapse. To get into the post office we had to walk over an array of household items laying around, old rusty iron sheets, washing which probably had fallen from the line aeon's ago, old bikes without wheels, rusty bits that by the look of it must have been ones a car or two.
The floor in the post office was badly sagging and by the look of it someone had the misfortune to have fallen with a foot through a rotten piece of flooring, as still the heel of a black shoe was sticking out of the hole.

After we reassembled our shocked faces we called out for the lady of the house, as nobody was around. After a while a friendly, comfortable looking lady presented herself as the postmistress. We asked her about the Swiss people we were told lived somewhere in this area.

She looked us up and down and said there was a new family living along the Tucabia road. They are really weird people. It is said they have only one entrance door in their house because they are afraid of snakes. And then she let out a roar of laughter she had not heard of something so hilarious for a while and with a little sniff practically as an excuse, foreigners.

After we got the hint what and about whom she was talking, we said that we were actually the people she was telling us about. She swallowed once, but caught her equilibrium very quickly. Accentuating her answer with a vague hand gesture said there are some Swedish people living out there somewhere. She did not know exactly where so we left it at that. We will never know if we missed something, we never met the Swedish-Swiss people.

Tucabia is a sleepy village isolated like everything around it. It is very flat and sandy, has already a tiny whiff of the sea. The houses are far and wide nestling on acreage. Only a few tall, stately gumtrees dot the landscape.
Some of the tall Eucalyptus have big, black ants nests attached which are cleverly used by Kookaburras as nesting places. Around Tucabia is bush…bush ..bush…it is a village in the bush. (bush is the word used to describe woodland.
The road a straight, narrow ribbon leads the way up and down along bushland towards the coast and the small holiday village of Wooli.
On our way we encountered a forest completely ring barked. The skeletal trees a cemetery of ghostly, ancient giants, limbs broken, numb and powerless under a deep blue, innocent sky. Yet the trees even in their battlefield status have not lost all their purpose. Lots of birds and small animals still find shelter and nesting places in the hollows of the trees.

Coarse ferns, scrub and tough blady grass still provide shelter and hiding places for lizards and other animals. Small saplings raise intimidatingly their vulnerability towards the light. The bush looks rough and unkempt, primeval and still there is serenity to it that a groomed and landscaped ground can never achieve.

A wooden chapel stands lonesome on the side of the road oblivious to its neglect.
Cherishes now the only occupants, the spirit of its long dead worshippers.

The landscape is bare where in earlier times the trees have been ring barked to make room for more farmland.

Now only rusty, holed iron sheets bear witness to a lively homestead that occupied the site and oddly, completely intact stone steps lead up to nowhere.

A small tumbledown shed ,its roof caved in, are the sad looking leftovers.

Tough, hardwood fences, silvery from sun, wind and rain hang on for a while longer and still display the craftsmanship and hard work of people long gone. They give suddenly way to a tangle of never mended wire fences.
Ground hugging Banksias with their golden candles held up high grow in dense profusion along the road. The road is a narrow ribbon of bitumen with on both sides half a car space of dirt road. You have to drive half on the bitumen and half on the dirt track; if you don’t follow this rule you’re pushed out completely into the dirt and further down into a ditch, as the oncoming cars pass with astonishing speed in the middle of the road which they abandon quickly to hug the other half of the dirt road leaving only a cloud of dust.

The road wends its way up and down, along grazing land, the odd homestead, bush and more bush then suddenly you arrive on top and from there you have a breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean, like a glorious gift presented to you. The horizon merges sky and sea tantalized by transparent sunlight. Born of the sun and lives by the light fits perfectly here, so Alphonse Daudet said this about the Provence. Golden, sandy beaches hug green blue water, sparkling, inviting and besieging, we have arrived in paradise.

Photo TS

Under a hotter Sun; We found and bought a property;

The next day he picked us up again to inspect a few more properties.
This property was also heavily timbered and very steep. The house was build of brick and new. Inside it was not finished. It looked all very neat and tidy. Nobody was at home. I felt sorry for this family. The new house was not yet finished and they already had to sell it. One could see that they cherished their home. This property was not viable it was to small to make a living.
We drove further and further, all through bushland. Then suddenly the road became stonier, narrower and steeper.

An old Queenslander came into view. An elderly lady came out to wait for us. The house was quite pretty in its patina. It hadn't see a paintbrush probably for ever. Its white paint was only a shimmer on the grey, silvery wood. Inside it needed a big, big renovation. The floorboards were broken and one could see the dirt floor underneath. The floorboards had also shrunk away from the wall so there was a big gap all around the room. It didn't seem to bother the people living there. That wouldn't matter to us either. We could live with the odd snake, lizard or spider making itself at home in our living room, if the grazing land is good!! Two sisters, getting on in years, living in the same house as their ancestors had.

Proudly they showed us their pump for their water supply for the house. The pump was located outside an old timber shed. We wanted to see the creek where the water came from. We had to walk to the creek. The creek, at the moment was very low, ran deep down between two steep embankments. In the creek was a dead cow. She must have been there for days as she was fairly blown up! We said no to this property. The water supply was not good enough. there was no town water and we would have to rely on that creek or on rain water both not enough reliable sources. "The girls" also put the price up as soon as they heard we were from Switzerland.

The next property Tom wanted to show us was out at Nymboida. It is a pretty place. Rural, with a beautiful, rather wild, fast flowing river with the same name. It would be a nice place to live and still not to far out from Grafton. The property was hilly grassland, interspersed with tall and stately Eucalyptus trees. Some of these huge trees had black, solid looking ants nests attached to their massive branches. The kookaburras use these as nesting place to rear their babies. We had to traverse the river and their was just a makeshift bridge. The last big flood, not that long ago had torn away the bridge. A new one had to be build. Actually, when we came nearer to the house we had to go over a second bridge which was also badly damaged and in real need to be replaced.
This was a bit a worry because without a bridge one isn't able to get out of the place.
The house was alright nearly new. There was nothing to speak of what one could call a garden. Outside was one of these old coppers which were used in earlier days to boil laundry items like big sheets, towels and underwear. Nearby was also a big wood pile. I don't know for what the copper was used. While we were talking with the owners, Peter and I, in the same instant saw a really huge, red belly Blacksnake slithering out from under the woodpile and quickly disappearing under the copper. No one else saw this little manoeuvre. We were so new and green, we had just enough, when we saw this huge snake. All we wanted was get going once more over those rickety bridges and arrive safely on the other side.
While Peter and I were looking at properties. the girls were "adopted" by Ella and Reg.
They had a very good time. Attached to the caravan park was also an animal sanctuary
sheltering Kangaroos, Wallabies and all sorts of birds. The girls were taught how to ride a horse, feed the animals. Reg had all three of them constantly in tow. They even taught him some Swiss words.

Around the park was a beautiful garden with flowering bushes and very tall Banana plants. I was amazed when I learned that the Banana is actually classified as a herb. Lilli saw this big hand of Bananas, beautiful yellow, nestling between the biggest leaves. She couldn’t belief that nobody took it down. When she showed the Banana bunch to Reg he cut it down for her and gave her the whole lot. Full of pride she brought it to us. The Bananas were the kind that are called “ladies finger“. It is a short fat banana but with a very special sweetness not at all like the normal bananas one could by in Switzerland.

Tom showed us one more place in South Grafton. It was a grazing property. It was beautiful, undulating with a view on the River. There was no house on it. It wouldn't be to far to go shopping and also very important not to far for the girls to catch the bus to their school. Peter and I liked the place. Back at the caravan park we talked to Reg about this place. He said he would come with us and have a look at it and tell us what he thinks of it.

The next day he took us out to Southgate and we showed him the property. He said it was very nice to look at, but we wouldn't be able to make a living with this property. He explained about the grasses that grew there. He said, look the soil is not good enough it is not fertile. The grass growing here is not nutritious enough for the cattle. It would be alright if there would be flats with good alluvial soil so you have both. We were a bit disappointed with his judgement but we listened to him and abandoned the thought of buying that property.

Reg said he had heard through the grapevine, that a good property on the lower Clarence comes on to the market for sale. It was the last big property to be sold in one lot on the lower Clarence. It was not yet official. He introduced us to Ray from Ross Alford Real Estate who was selling this property.
The next day, Ray picket us up at the caravan park and drove with us north towards Maclean to see this property. This time we stayed in the coastal area. After about 30 km he left the highway and drove into a small road that was not paved. The sign said Tucabia. There were not many houses. All farm- or grazing land. Some planted with corn or sugarcane. In between grassland with cattle grazing.

The property had fertilelow lying flats bordered by the Coldstream River. Gently undulating grassland and on top at the entrance scrub, bush and trees excellent as shelter for the animals and also high ground in time of floods. Ray himself, a grazier, told us what we had to look out for.
The old weatherboard house stood halfway between the river and the bush.
Peter liked this property straight away. I was not sure, to me everything looked fairly derelict, unkempt, not pretty. My fantasies were not fuelled by this place. It was a little bit like, this can’t be the place we want. We haven’t come all this way to buy something like this! I stood there bewildered, speechless, while Peter beamed and nodded enthusiastically to Ray’s explanations.
The next day Reg came with us to inspect it and gave his verdict. He said it was a very good place and if the prices were right we always could make a decent living. So, this was it then our dream place. After the decision was made to buy this place, it was like a bubble had burst, my woolly head cleared and I decided to stand with both legs firmly planted on the ground.