The Passive Housewives of the Southern Highlands

Do Not Enter’s written on the door way
Why can’t everyone just go away?
Except you
You can stay

What do you think of my treehouse?
It’s where I sit and talk really loud
Usually
I’m all by myself

I’m the captain but you can be the deputy
I’m really glad you think I’m so funny
I don’t think I’m ever gonna let you leave

Alex G. Treehouse

As kids, everyone dreams of building a tree house. Of rope ladders and string lights, hideaways and tire swings. Of magic and adventure. Maybe a mini fridge. As far as I can remember, I never had one – a tree house, I mean. Nor a mini fridge.

I can remember playing in large cardboard boxes, left over from a move or the delivery of an appliance. On the inside, buttons and screens and keyboards drawn in markers and me, of course, pretend-playing in my tiny cardboard house for hours.

Later, we would dig holes into the neighbours’ muddy yard, large enough to house a small person or two, and in our imagination as big as an underground castle. My own children had a massive play house on stilts, in our backyard, custom-made out of left-over wooden display shelves from the bakery. I always imagined myself moving in there one day, with my books and a comfy chair and a typewriter on a small, rickety table. Instead, when the children had moved on and out, we cut off the stilts and turned the whole thing to a storage shed.

Fifty years later, and here I am at last: my very own treehouse, at least for the next couple of days. A beautiful deck, wrapped around the trunks of an old pepper tree. Fairy lights twinkling magically. A comfy chair (albeit still a bit wet from last night’s rain), a small wooden table (not rickety at all, though. Probably designer and very expensive!) and the peace and quiet I need to write.

Taking a break from adventure, it is the nature that surrounds me that I seek and enjoy. The shade-giving branches of the tree, as old as me, swaying gently in the warm summer breeze. The chorus of the cicadas, an ebb and flow of cacophony. In the afternoon summer heat, a lazy bird song here and there. The perfect place to reconnect back into nature and replenish my soul, just like the welcome flyer tells me to.

The Pepper Tree treehouse is a passive house one hour and a half south of Sydney – which, at the time of booking, meant nothing to me. I just liked the unique design of unpredictable lines and corners, and the twinkling fairy lights wrapped around the tree in the centre of it all. Which looked so pretty upon arrival the first night, its countless lights reflected in the wet wooden boards of the treehouse deck.

In the morning, a freshly brewed cup of coffee and the view of a mountain in front of me, I leaf through one of the architecture design magazines, and learn about the many awards this place has won and the meaning of “passive house”. Inspired by all this talk of drastically lower energy use, I soon retreat to the lounge to watch a bit of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Passive it the word. (I also come across a photo of my sustainable, award-winning classroom in the magazine, by the way. This discovery could explain the sudden lack of energy).

Later I go walk down the hill into the town of Unanderra. On my way, there are a few things I see but don’t really understand: mango and lemon trees covered with giant hair nets, the nameless lush green hills behind me and the hideous sight of what looks The Scouring of the Shire and Mordor combined in front of me.

There are plenty of resources one can consult, to gather information on a place you have never been to before: travel guides, the internet, people.

While standing at the bus stop across Woollies in the town centre, successfully having accomplished my mission of needing two things from the supermarket (a toothbrush and mosquito spray) and buying 15 instead (three different chocolate biscuits, hummus dip, carrots for hummus dip, crackers for hummus dip, six coke cans warm and one cold one), I decide to pop into Sue’s Beauty Spot to get a pedicure. And an answer to all the questions I had regarding this town, and then some:

That the fruits and vegetables grow well here in the Southern Highlands—not only mangoes but also figs, limes, lemons, and more—were it not for those pesky birds (hence the nets). People who live here, she tells me, like growing their own produce. And the space and climate allows for it.

That the mountain in front of my kitchen window is called Mount Kembla. Later, I read that local Aboriginal legends describe Mount Kembla and Mount Keira as sisters, with the five islands (Wollongong) being daughters of the wind. The Illawarra Aborigines inhabited this region for over 20,000 years until the arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney in 1788 and the subsequent British Invasion of Australia. By 1846, the number of Aboriginal people in the Illawarra region had dwindled from about 3000 to only 98. Sue doesn’t delve into that history. Instead she tells me that many of her older customers voted No in The Voice referendum.

Mount Kembla played a crucial role in coal mining during the 19th century. The massive factory plant in the distance is a steel plant built in the sixties, attracting numerous immigrant workers in the 50s and 60s to the area. Once a small and laid-back beach town, Unanderra is now considered a suburb of Wollongong, or The Gong, the larger neighboring city with a university. The steel plant no longer holds the title of the biggest employer; instead, it’s the university and Health Services.

Sue tells me that she came to this region when she was three, and her parents found work at the local steel plant soon thereafter. That the switch from living in the Swinging London, England to the Sleepy Southern Highlands had been hard at first. She shares with me me that she has two German Shepherd rescue dogs and enjoys going to Costco four times a year to stock up on things. She is not a fan of Donald Trump, but many of her older customers are. Sue expresses concerns that he might start World War III and emphasizes how blessed we are to live in the beautiful country of Australia (even though this summer has been unusually wet). She notes that my feet are very tight from too much walking.

Tight-footed and heavy hearted, I leave Sue’s Beauty Spot a little while later to catch the bus up the hill to my beautiful treehouse in the lower foothills of Mount Kembla. The world seems to be spinning faster and faster, and I want time to stop for just a little while. I turn on the air conditioning for the heat and the fairy lights for the magic. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll watch another episode of Desperate Housewives.