Crystal Waters

We arrived at the Eco Village, Crystal Waters a few days ago.The drive here from Brisbane

was spectacular! Rolling hills covered in lots of green trees, shrubs, and grass. Crystal Waters is home to around 250 people, with 85 plots. This place reminds me of camp in a way. Everything seems so much closer to nature here, they seems to know where real happiness is found. We have gotten tours of the Crystal Waters areas and were able to see the horses, cows, some chickens, plenty of gardens, some cool houses, of course lots of natures, and best of all, lots of kangaroos! Since there are no dogs or cats here, the kangaroos and wallabys just hang out on the lawns and hop around through the forest. They are very cute, but I am sure they would just beat us up if we got too close! I have been finding it really interesting to learn about how these people are using sustainable ways and working with their environment. All the houses have rain barrels, and the community uses water from the nearby creeks and rivers. There are also lots of solar panels. Even their different toilets and waste management systems are more beneficial and helpful for the environment. A lot of what Crystal Waters has done in their communitry can be brought back to ours as well. As we have talked a lot in this trip, it is just a "DUH" moment. Washington is a great place for solar panles. Even a small rain barrel would be useful for watering a garden, because we all know that it rains enough there, so we would definitely have rain collected for the summer! There is a lot of compost and recycling too. If more people back home were to compost and do a better job of recycling, they would dispose of less garbage. All of these ideas and more, duh! We need to get on it. Simple changes can have a great great impact on the world. We just need to show the people around us how to do it.