Changing your life and going off the grid

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Meet residents from one central Victorian off-the-grid community that is still going strong after nearly 50 years.

Back in 1967 two people purchased a block of land in the central Victorian bushland with the dream of creating an alternative lifestyle.

Nearly 50 years later it is still going strong; more than 35 households on separate lots living off the grid in the 121 hectares that make up the Chewton Bushlands near Castlemaine.

How to get the kids to leave home

Empty-nesters Kylie Groen and Jim Kourkoulakos have lived in the area for the last five years and joked living off the grid was the sure-fire way to get kids to move out of the family home.

"Within six months they will skedaddle like rats up a water pipe, because they can't cope with the environment," laughed Ms Groen.

She said, in the first year their family moved from inner-city Melbourne to the Chewton Bushlands in search of affordable housing, their two teenage boys hated it.

With an old solar system they described as an old truck battery capable of delivering 600 watts, the two community workers admit the first year was tough, with power often running out.

"If you calculate four people trying to use a computer or trying to put on a television and some lights, by 9:30pm everything would just die and stop," Ms Groen said.

She still remembered the first night waking up after a "massive panic attack", clinging to Jim.

"Oh my God, what have we done? We're living in a house with no electricity, there's no water, it's mud brick, it's really rudimentary, like it's really rustic," she laughed.

Five years later, with a bigger, more powerful system, they both said they wouldn't change the way they live for anything.

"We made a really brilliant decision in terms of community and a sense of place, a sense of belonging," Ms Groen said.

Their three-and-a-half kilowatt solar system, four kilowatt inverter, and a "whizz-bang" generator that they use for about 15 days each winter, enables them to run most appliances at once.

"It's pretty much a set-and-forget system," Mr Kourkoulakos said.

But it came with a $30,000 price tag they describe as a "fairly substantial investment".

"You have to be rich to be a bloody hippy," Ms Groen said.

But Mr Kourkoulakos said it needed to be put in context, explaining people can spend $30,000 on a new car or more than $500,000 on a unit in Melbourne.

"We're on six acres and we spent a lot less than that," he said.

"[Our house] was $365,000 plus a brand new solar system for $30,000," Mr Kourkoulakos said.

"For under $400,000 we're going to live comfortably for the next 20-odd years off this solar system," Ms Groen said.

Kid off the grid

Uma Dingemans, 13, does not mind being one of the few children living in the quiet serenity of the Chewton Bushlands.

"I see all my friends at school everyday, so it's not like I'm without childhood contact," she said.

She also visits her father every second weekend in nearby Castlemaine, where she relishes sitting in front of the heater, making toast and using the electric kettle.

"I seem to drink a lot of tea when I'm at his house," she laughed.

She admitted that the first few years of living off the grid were a "bit difficult", and it was a "bit weird" having to live by candlelight in the absence of solar panels.

"Reading was a challenge because you've got to hold the candle and then you don't want to make your book catch on fire," she said.

"I didn't really read that much and read through the day because you don't want to burn books that much."

But, six years later after moving from the nearby town of Castlemaine, Uma enjoys living off the grid.

"I really like it up here; it's really pretty and it's just nice," she said.

"It's really easy to get used to being patient.

"It's not going to kill you."

The later addition of solar panels, batteries and a generator have made life easier and Uma and her mother use portable gas bottles for cooking and hot water.

But unlike many properties that use a septic system, their toilet is a compost system located outside the house.

"I just avoid doing that at night, it's just so cold," Uma said.

Despite the distance, the toilet and the time it takes to wait for the hot water to heat up, Uma said she had adjusted to the slower pace of living pretty quickly.

"I do enjoy the environmental sustainability behind it ... and there's no poles everywhere," Uma said.

But it is the quietness she relishes the most.

"After a long day at school with kids yelling all the time and bells and announcements and teachers giving you all this information, it's really nice to have complete quiet," she said.

Even though she hopes to eventually move to Melbourne to pursue tertiary studies she said she could see herself living like this when older.

"You're not constantly bombarded with the news — everything happening all the time — and there's not traffic going past all the time," she said.

"You can just really turn off from the world at night and just relax here."

Listen to the generator

After not being able to afford a house deposit in inner-city Melbourne, Tim Purdie and Hannah Nicholas moved to the Mornington Peninsula and then to the Chewton Bushlands in search of some land with wildlife on it.

Initially it was more the bush that drew them to their house rather than the prospect of living off the grid.

"Looking back we were quite naive in the work and additional things that you do need to do living off the grid," Ms Nicholas said.

They did not realise that part of the deal was no rubbish collection.

"We've had some pretty crazy adventures with going down to the tip with both our heads out the window going, 'Oh my god, it stinks, why did we leave it for two months?'" Mr Purdie said.

But they have adapted and, after four years, have become used to the slower, more sustainable way of living.

"You do have to change your behaviour," Ms Nicholas said.

"For us we had to get rid of our electric kettle, our electric toaster, my hair dryer."

Mr Purdie recalls trudging out in the early morning to start the generator dressed in sheepskin boots when Hannah needed to dry her hair.

"It would be like minus three degrees in the morning and I'd still be in my pyjamas and Hannah would be like, 'I'm running late I've got to get the hairdryer going,'" he said.

"As soon as we moved here we found that anything with an element in it was too much for our solar system and we'd have to put the generator on," Mr Purdie said.

But the keen coffee drinkers have made sure the coffee machine remains, and are in the process of updating their system.

Their "tiny" 1.5 kilowatt-solar power system and 14-year-old lead acid batteries are backed up by gas bottles for cooking, and a generator that is on three to four hours a day so they can maintain their power.

With the cost of a new system averaging $20,000 – $30,000 the couple are looking at changing to new gel batteries or lithium batteries for a fraction of the cost.

Even though Ms Purdie has worked in environmental sector for 10 years, she said prior to living off the grid they did not realise how much electricity they used.

"You go to iron a shirt and you turn the iron on and the generator goes from this nice little hum to this crazy roar," Mr Purdie said.

In addition to learning to make changes to their lives and not take things for granted, the couple have also have also come to appreciate the diverse, creative and environmentally aware community they live in.

"People think, 'Oh you're in some kind of hippy commune?' and I'm like, 'No we're not, everyone is actually very independent but we all come together when we need to,'" Mr Purdie said.

The sense of community is brought together through occasional curry nights, film nights and the annual Christmas party; people work together to offer each other support, especially through fire season with the creation of a community fire tree to help with communication.

"There is this real community feel but there's also equally a respect of people's privacy and independence," Mr Purdie said.

Topics: sustainable-living, community-and-society, chewton-3451