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April 2003
More from down under in Wongan Hills | |
|  | | Kevin and Sarah Watts in Wongan Hills |
| | Kevin and Sarah Watts said goodbye to Staffordshire and moved to Australia to start a new life down under.
Now Sarah has sent us an update of how the Watts family have settled into life in Wongan Hills.. |
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| | I have now lived in Wongan Hills for a few months and I have encountered many differences but none more noticeable than housing designs and gardening.
In England, the gardening was my husband’s domain, as he held more interest in the garden than I did. Things have changed dramatically since we moved to our new home as we have to be "waterwise" or as the Aussies say "wardawise".
As we live in a drought effected part of Australia (as is most of Oz at the moment), we are only allowed to water our gardens twice a week between 6pm-8am. As water usage amounts are restricted, we have to look at the type of plants we want to grow, preferably drought tolerant.
The town of Wongan Hills has many well-kept gardens with bourganvillea bushes that come in beautiful shades of white, pink and red as they love the dry sandy conditions of this area, as do hibiscus bushes. Along with these flowering bushes, I have taken a strong interest in growing and propagating succulent plants.
We have the very knowledgeable Karen, who owns the local gardening centre who is there for good advice on how to grow these unusual plants that come in all shapes and sizes and need very little warda to survive. Perfect for a "waterwise" garden.
Housing in the country is very different over here in that many homes are bungalows or as they call them "single storey" dwellings. Many have lovely wraparound verandas that provide an outdoor area for entertaining and general living. With the climate being so much warmer the Australian’s lifestyle can naturally be more outdoor orientated. At the end of the day there is nothing nicer than having a ‘cold tinny outside on the veranda’ just before striking up the BBQ.
Out in the country you will find a lot of timber framed homes, fibre board and also steel framed homes with the majority having tin or colourbond roofs. As rain is infrequent you will find that many people have water tanks in their back yards for water collection off their house guttering.
I have some friends who live about 12km from a town called Calingiri (about ½ hour away from Wongan Hills). They live out in the sticks and have two water tanks in their back garden, a concrete ground level tank that is supplied by a windmill generated well that is situated about 6km from the house. When they have powercuts, which is frequent in these parts, they then use the water tank on stilts to provide gravity driven water for their house. A few weeks ago, we had a big storm that cut off their electricity for 5 days!! It is times like this that their water tanks proved a necessity for their day-to-day living.
These are just two subjects that are different from life in Uttoxeter and as the months are passing I am adapting to new ways of country living here in Wongan Hills, Western Australia.
Sarah Watts
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