ABOUT US
THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE ADVENTURE:
We are William (Bill) and Satsuki (May) Calder and we hail from the Caboolture area of South East Queensland. For the last 21 years we have been developing a very successful hydroponic farming business, supplying Australia’s largest supermarket chain.
Bill has experience in a wide variety of fields,
- accommodation (running first biz while still at school)
- mechanicing (qualified but don’t even change spark plugs these days),
- fishing (prawn trawlers, easier to buy from the co-op now though),
- flogging encyclopedias (how long ago was that, but made quite a bit of money from it)
- shooting people (qualified, and can justify on the grounds they were shooting back, and was government trained),
- cheffing (qualified but too many drunks and prima donnas in that game, wasn’t sure which would become)
- greenhouse builder (some pretty innovative products were designed by us over the few years we did this)
- control systems (developed for our own use, complex horticultural controls run out of a simple PC)
- website development (had our first up about 18 years ago)
- and hopefully as a good parent having raised 2 great kids with their feet firmly on the ground
- and of course successful and sustainable farming.
May has been involved in the toy business in her early working life, with stints in retail and teaching. For the last 26 years she has very capably handled all the administration for Fancyleaf, our hydroponic farm, and of course has been half of the parenting team referred to above.
After all this time building a successful business, which anyone who has done that, knows requires a lot of commitment, it is time to think about other things in life and to have a look at this great country before they won’t let you anymore. (Don’t get me started on our current politicians, we are in dire need of a benevolent dictator I think !) So we have decided to travel and take it a bit easier than we have in the past.
The chosen mode is to convert a tourist coach to a very comfortable motorhome and go where the detroit diesel may take us.. Please feel free to browse this site, many people are telling us they have learnt a lot from our efforts, others say they have found some inspiration here. If that is the case, excellent !