When David Holmgren and Bill Mollison developed permaculture in the 1970s it was an attempt to reduce the growing environmental and social crises of modern life. Their concept emphasised designing low consumption, low pollution and highly productive human settlements. Nearly forty years later, we wanted to know what permaculture-on-the-move might look like. In November 2013, we set off on a journey to find out.
When we decided to travel up the east coast of Australia by bicycle with our two sons (aged eleven years and fourteen months) and our Jack Russell terrier, we had no idea how far north we would end up. When we loaded our panniers onto our bikes and set off from our home in central Victoria we wanted to achieve several things: expand our knowledge of freely obtainable foods in Australia; spend little money; live simply and outdoors; and produce no waste.