Building This
Nothing here was drawn up in advance. I started in 1989 with a track, a creek and a lot of regrowth, and I put things where the land allowed: paths along contours that already ran that way, buildings where the light and the drainage and the trees made room for them. That takes a lot longer than working to a drawing. It also means nothing had to be forced into place, and very little has had to be undone since.
Cyclone Rona came through in 1999 and took out a large part of the canopy. I have planted around 800 seedlings since, a few dozen at a time, and weeded and watered them through their first dry seasons. Much of the forest you walk through now is that planting.
Thirty years is also long enough to make plenty of mistakes. The things that fought the place have been taken out again, and what is left is what worked.
None of it is finished and none of it will be. A property in the Daintree is not something you complete, it is something you keep up with. Everything grows back, and after a fortnight of rain you can see everywhere you have let go.
I never set out to own a piece of country like this and I have not got used to it. Keeping it to myself was never the point, so the buildings go to guests I trust to treat the place as I would.