About Us

We are a family of four, hailing from Townsville, a sea-side city of 170,000 people on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia.  We are shrugging off the comforts of our easy existence in sub-tropical North Queensland to embrace the challenges of a simpler life on top of a mountain in a little place called Tembagapura situated in the midst of the West Papuan jungle.

The question, you may well ask (as did I) is…why?

John (husband to Kylie and Daddy to Ava and Grace) is taking on a role with US-based Freeport Indonesia at their Grasberg Mine which is situated up in the clouds, around 4,000 metres above sea-level in one of West Papua’s most remote areas.  And no, that’s not a typo, the mine is up so high that there are equatorial glaciers in the mountains above it…incredible stuff!

Grasberg mine is the world’s largest gold mine and third-largest copper mine and growing.  Freeport are currently expanding the mine at a cost of around $1billion per year and John will be looking after a decent chunk of the above-ground expansion construction works. He has typically worked overseas on a fly-in, fly-out basis, coming home to Australia every month or so, but this time it’s different…the whole family is relocating to Indonesia.

It will be a complete change of pace for us and an experience which we hope will be very rewarding on many fronts.  Our girls will attend the Mount Zaagkam International School (widely touted as the world’s most remote International School), study Bahasa Indonesian and become immersed in a culturally rich lifestyle.

We are also looking forward to using our new home as a base for many new life and travel experiences, all of which will be detailed on this blog for the benefit of our much-loved friends and family back home.

And so it begins…our little Aussie family’s adventure, in the jungle of West Papua…stay tuned for what may be a bit of a wild old ride!