One has to imagine the bigger location of where we are staying before I invite you in. This is Mt Dromedary, it's two humps visible on this day. When we arrive it is shrouded in mist and cloud, like many of the hills in Hobart. That adds to the magic, I guess. Our residence is to the right of this mountains slope, 265 ft above sea level.
If you caught my blog from a few days ago, you would have seen the bus in which my friends reside. It's a well set up and comfortable tiny home nestled amongst the trees. Here is a photo from the other side, for those who enjoyed the post the other day.
Directly up the hill from the bus, a short scrabble through shrub and trees if about 500 metres or a drive up a steep and rocky slope, is my friends meditation hut, or 'kuti' as she calls it.
My friends are Vipassana meditators and teachers, and often do long silent retreats on their own. That's why the kuti was built. Last year she spent a month up here in silence.
It's deep enough in the forest that she wouldn't have seen a soul. Staying here is quiet and peaceful.
They made the place in three weeks of large wooden pallets. It's insulated and thus warm or cool inside, and heated in winter by a wood burner. It's lined with tin, and has two water tanks on each side. It rains a lot - water supply on the mountain isn't an issue.
The inside has a single bed (in which I sleep - my husband rolls out a mattress on the floor) and a meditation platform, a bookshelf and a chest for clothes. It's simple and more than adequate to live for a month whilst going within. Cooking is done on a hiking gas stove, although for our stay we join them at the bus for meals and make tea on the jetboil.
Please excuse my mess below - we are travelling by, so have spread out a little.
Of course, we leave it neat. Tidy kuti, tidy mind.
In the morning there's either the silent fog and sentinel trees cut through with birdsong or a clear view to distant mountains. Parrots, shrike thrushs and the like reel the day in on a thread of song.
There are also pademelons (small marsupials we don't get on the Australian mainland) and wombats, and large bullants we keep a keen eye out for after one hangs earnestly off Jamie's toe.
I love how they have used some of the many rocks on the mountain to make the front deck. There's even fossils, a reminder that once this mountain was under sea.
I feel so honoured to stay here. Infused with peace, it's far superior to any grand hotel. It's simple living at it's very best, tender heartedly made from found items to be a place of retreat and mindful existence. It will rot one day into the mountain like all good shacks in Tassie, but for now, it's our little home.
With Love,
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