rtnight, no amount of lime green chemicals could mask the rather more earthy smell.

Meanwhile, still thinking about plumbing, Dad decided to build a tank-stand on the highest point of the property, so that we could collect rainwater and gravity-feed it back to the caravan rather than take the daily treks to the Kurrajong pump, filling buckets to supply all our water needs. My father had never built anything before except a Reader's Digest pergola, so the tank stand became a practice run, before he embarked on the only slightly more ambitious project of the house.

Trusty Reader's Digest had just the tank stand for the job. It suggested using old wood, because old wood had become seasoned, and therefore harder. Dad had a deep r

My parents are hippies. Not fake hippies, those pot-smoking pottery-dabbling champagne lefties who buy second-hand books on Glebe Point Road and keep a 'holiday place' just outside Byron Bay.

No, my parents are real hippies. They live on seven acres in the Blue Mountains, and they don't have electricity. My dad hand-built their house (no mean feat for a social worker). They live off rainwater. They heat their home by burning wood (from fallen trees, nothing chopped down on purpose). They grow their own organic veges, fruit and macadamia nuts, and used to keep silky bantem hens until the fox got them. They wear a lot of natural fibres, and have been known to support the tie-die 'artists' at the local markets. Mum knows a lot of people who know a lot about crystals. She also knows about permaculture, and is a one-woman bush regeneration machine. She manages her garden so that the native birds, wallabies and wombats can co-exist with the plants. At Christmas, my parents buy a native pine tree (generally a baby and pathetically spindly), decorate it with the about ooh, two baubles it can handle, then a few weeks later plant it in the yard with all the trees from previous Christmases.

Oh and my mother sang and played flute in a folk band throughout the 60s and 70s. She wore go-go boots, but not the cool shiny white kind. My mum wore the mustard-brown suede Peter Paul & Mary kind, with a matching skirt and vest. This is my heritage.

Our family moved to the Blue Mountains property at the worst possible time for me: I was sixteen, and heavily addicted to Cindy Lauper, INXS, novels by any of the Brontes, a boy at my school called Matthew M, and my hairdryer. We didn't just move to the bush, oh no, that wouldn't be enough for my parents. We moved to a block of land accessed by a kilometre-long dirt road, impassable in the rain. And while my father built the house (it took YEARS), we lived in a caravan. No electricity. No running water. No telephone.

And more to the point, no toilet. Toilets are hard to come-by when you don't have plumbing, and plumbing becomes difficult if you don't have a building in which to "plumb". And full bladders wait for no building projects or Council plans. We ordered a port-a-loo, and marked the order "urgent".

An aqua-and-yellow, chemically-enhanced, modern-day wonder of excrement containment, the port-a-loo arrived the day after we settled into the caravan. It was lowered from the delivery truck with all the pomp of a Sultan from a litter, to nestle among the pittosporum and wattle, and give the birds something special to talk about.

My little brother Adam ventured tentatively inside and found it more spacious than expected. "Yep," his voice echoed dully from the hollow plastic, "it's a Tardis."

The port-a-loo turned out to be quite the endurance-builder for our bladders. On summer mornings the temperature quickly passed 40 degrees inside, and the black seat absorbed heat like tar. The 'loo was only emptied every two weeks and by the end of the fortnight, no amount of lime green chemicals could mask the rather more earthy smell.

Meanwhile, still thinking about plumbing, Dad decided to build a tank-stand on the highest point of the property, so that we could collect rainwater and gravity-feed it back to the caravan rather than take the daily treks to the Kurrajong pump, filling buckets to supply all our water needs. My father had never built anything before except a Reader's Digest pergola, so the tank stand became a practice run, before he embarked on the only slightly more ambitious project of the house.

Trusty Reader's Digest had just the tank stand for the job. It suggested using old wood, because old wood had become seasoned, and therefore harder. Dad had a deep re

about crystals. She also knows about permaculture, and is a one-woman bush regeneration machine. She manages her garden so that the native birds, wallabies and wombats can co-exist with the plants. At Christmas, my parents buy a native pine tree (generally a baby and pathetically spindly), decorate it with the about ooh, two baubles it can handle, then a few weeks later plant it in the yard with all the trees from previous Christmases.

Oh and my mother sang and played flute in a folk band throughout the 60s and 70s. She wore go-go boots, but not the cool shiny white kind. My mum wore the mustard-brown suede Peter Paul & Mary kind, with a matching skirt and vest. This is my heritage.

Our family moved to the Blue Mountains property at the worst possible time for me: I was sixteen, and heavily addicted to Cindy Lauper, INXS, novels by any of the Brontes, a boy at my school called Matthew M, and my hairdryer. We didn't just move to the bush, oh no, that wouldn't be enough for my parents. We moved to a block of land accessed by a kilometre-long dirt road, impassable in the rain. And while my father built the house (it took YEARS), we lived in a caravan. No electricity. No running water. No telephone.

And more to the point, no toilet. Toilets are hard to come-by when you don't have plumbing, and plumbing becomes difficult if you don't have a building in which to "plumb". And full bladders wait for no building projects or Council plans. We ordered a port-a-loo, and marked the order "urgent".

An aqua-and-yellow, chemically-enhanced, modern-day wonder of excrement containment, the port-a-loo arrived the day after we settled into the caravan. It was lowered from the delivery truck with all the pomp of a Sultan from a litter, to nestle among the pittosporum and wattle, and give the birds something special to talk about.

My little brother Adam ventured tentatively inside and found it more spacious than expected. "Yep," his voice echoed dully from the hollow plastic, "it's a Tardis."

The port-a-loo turned out to be quite the endurance-builder for our bladders. On summer mornings the temperature quickly passed 40 degrees inside, and the black seat absorbed heat like tar. The 'loo was only emptied every two weeks and by the end of the fortnight, no amount of lime green chemicals could mask the rather more earthy smell.

Meanwhile, still thinking about plumbing, Dad decided to build a tank-stand on the highest point of the property, so that we could collect rainwater and gravity-feed it back to the caravan rather than take the daily treks to the Kurrajong pump, filling buckets to supply all our water needs. My father had never built anything before except a Reader's Digest pergola, so the tank stand became a practice run, before he embarked on the only slightly more ambitious project of the house.

Trusty Reader's Digest had just the tank stand for the job. It suggested using old wood, because old wood had become seasoned, and therefore harder. Dad had a deep r

ossible time for me: I was sixteen, and heavily addicted to Cindy Lauper, INXS, novels by any of the Brontes, a boy at my school called Matthew M, and my hairdryer. We didn't just move to the bush, oh no, that wouldn't be enough for my parents. We moved to a block of land accessed by a kilometre-long dirt road, impassable in the rain. And while my father built the house (it took YEARS), we lived in a caravan. No electricity. No running water. No telephone.

And more to the point, no toilet. Toilets are hard to come-by when you don't have plumbing, and plumbing becomes difficult if you don't have a building in which to "plumb". And full bladders wait for no building projects or Council plans. We ordered a port-a-loo, and marked the order "urgent".

An aqua-and-yellow, chemically-enhanced, modern-day wonder of excrement containment, the port-a-loo arrived the day after we settled into the caravan. It was lowered from the delivery truck with all the pomp of a Sultan from a litter, to nestle among the pittosporum and wattle, and give the birds something special to talk about.

My little brother Adam ventured tentatively inside and found it more spacious than expected. "Yep," his voice echoed dully from the hollow plastic, "it's a Tardis."

The port-a-loo turned out to be quite the endurance-builder for our bladders. On summer mornings the temperature quickly passed 40 degrees inside, and the black seat absorbed heat like tar. The 'loo was only emptied every two weeks and by the end of the fortnight, no amount of lime green chemicals could mask the rather more earthy smell.

Meanwhile, still thinking about plumbing, Dad decided to build a tank-stand on the highest point of the property, so that we could collect rainwater and gravity-feed it back to the caravan rather than take the daily treks to the Kurrajong pump, filling buckets to supply all our water needs. My father had never built anything before except a Reader's Digest pergola, so the tank stand became a practice run, before he embarked on the only slightly more ambitious project of the house.

Trusty Reader's Digest had just the tank stand for the job. It suggested using old wood, because old wood had become seasoned, and therefore harder. Dad had a deep r

p>An aqua-and-yellow, chemically-enhanced, modern-day wonder of excrement containment, the port-a-loo arrived the day after we settled into the caravan. It was lowered from the delivery truck with all the pomp of a Sultan from a litter, to nestle among the pittosporum and wattle, and give the birds something special to talk about.

My little brother Adam ventured tentatively inside and found it more spacious than expected. "Yep," his voice echoed dully from the hollow plastic, "it's a Tardis."

The port-a-loo turned out to be quite the endurance-builder for our bladders. On summer mornings the temperature quickly passed 40 degrees inside, and the black seat absorbed heat like tar. The 'loo was only emptied every two weeks and by the end of the fortnight, no amount of lime green chemicals could mask the rather more earthy smell.

Meanwhile, still thinking about plumbing, Dad decided to build a tank-stand on the highest point of the property, so that we could collect rainwater and gravity-feed it back to the caravan rather than take the daily treks to the Kurrajong pump, filling buckets to supply all our water needs. My father had never built anything before except a Reader's Digest pergola, so the tank stand became a practice run, before he embarked on the only slightly more ambitious project of the house.

Trusty Reader's Digest had just the tank stand for the job. It suggested using old wood, because old wood had become seasoned, and therefore harder. Dad had a deep r

rtnight, no amount of lime green chemicals could mask the rather more earthy smell.

Meanwhile, still thinking about plumbing, Dad decided to build a tank-stand on the highest point of the property, so that we could collect rainwater and gravity-feed it back to the caravan rather than take the daily treks to the Kurrajong pump, filling buckets to supply all our water needs. My father had never built anything before except a Reader's Digest pergola, so the tank stand became a practice run, before he embarked on the only slightly more ambitious project of the house.

Trusty Reader's Digest had just the tank stand for the job. It suggested using old wood, because old wood had become seasoned, and therefore harder. Dad had a deep respect for Reader's Digest, and followed its instructions to the letter. At a garage sale, he and Mum picked up some floorboards from a century-old farmhouse being knocked down. "Seasoned wood," they boasted as they leaned on the boards like experts, "it's much better you know."

The tank stand was meticulously built, and photographs were taken to mark the occasion. Since we didn't yet have a roof with which to collect rainwater, we ordered a load of water from a local carrier, and on a steamy summer afternoon he arrived to fill the tank with its inaugural load.

As it arrived, I was sketching flowers on a hillside, and Adam sat beside me being annoying as only younger brothers can be, and playing with the ants. We heard the water-man talking to our parents. "Nice looking tank stand. I reckon that's one of the best I've seen," he said, and we rolled our eyes at the gratified guffaws and remarks like, "yes, well, seasoned wood and all that," that came from Mum and Dad. The pump spluttered into motion, and with a heavy swish, our new tank began to fill with water. About 20 minutes passed, me drawing, Adam redirecting ant trails. I traced the outline of a flannel flower.

CRACK!

Something remarkably like a cannon retort went off in the bush. Its echo reverberated around the valley for several seconds longer than seemed possible and when it ended, there was quiet.

Total quiet. The cicadas, the bell-birds, everything in the bush was shocked into silence.

Then out of the strange silence came the sound of laughter. Soft chuckles, then throaty giggles, then raucous, uncontrollable laughter. The laughter had a maniacal, hysterical edge, and it was truly frightening.

We ran towards the laughter and came across what looked like a recently-deserted battlefield. And apparently, the battle had been fierce. Dad's tank stand was snapped neatly in two. Below it was a river of carnage: flattened lamandra, squashed grasses and shrubs became a trail of destruction. And at the bottom of the hill was the metal water-tank, scrunched up like a giant, crushed soft-drink can.

Standing in the middle of the destruction, my parents were still in fits of laughter. "Has anyone seen my nail punch?" giggled Dad, "It's about so long and it's rusty brown, sort of looks like a stick. I left it on the tank stand." He gestured vaguely to the litter of sticks and twigs and trees and grasses and dissolved into another spasm of disturbing laughter.

Later, we discovered the problem. Seems the "seasoned wood" was riddled with dry-rot. (A tip for seasoned-wood seekers: lightly tap the wood on the ground. If it doesn't bounce, it could have dry-rot, so don't use it to hold up 1000 gallons of water.)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Author Naomi Hulbert is founder and managing director of Urashima Writing Services, an Australian company that provides writing, editing, translation and training services to clients in the corporate sector. Naomi is an experienced journalist, author, radio broadcaster, ghost