Alex Turner-CohenAlexTurnerCohen
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DECEMBER 31, 202010:19AM
Matthew McConaughey is lending a bit of his star power to Unyoked, a Sydney start-up popularising off-grid short-stay cabins in remote wilderness areas.
They may not be living in underground concrete bunkers, but city-slickers are turning Doomsday prepping mainstream by living off-grid in a 2020-inspired phenomenon known as “COVID flight”.
While it’s too early to calculate the scale of this exodus from the city, some property agents have observed clear trends already with many Aussies fleeing to regional areas, with more than ever choosing to live off the grid.
Survivalist expert Dr Bradley Garrett, from the University College Dublin, believes Australia is in the throes of a second “doom boom”.
During the Cold War, people burrowed underground into impregnable concrete bunkers to survive nuclear bombs – a practice he considers the first “doom boom”. But now, with climate change and global pandemics a more realistic threat, off-grid properties have increasingly captured the interest of the Australian public.
He’s dubbed off-grid houses the modern-day Aussie bunker.
RELATED: Aussies flee to countryside to escape virus
Off-grid houses like this one (belonging to Mike Stone) are a ‘modern day Aussie bunker’. Picture: Alex Turner-CohenSource:news.com.au
Solar panels and water tanks are two crucial elements in an off-gridder’s arsenal. Picture: Alex Turner-CohenSource:news.com.au
“The bunker mentality is about resiliency,” Dr Garrett says. “So anyone who’s spending a lot of time thinking about going off-grid, digging their own well, going onto septic and disconnecting from infrastructure so that they can become more self-sufficient – that is completely a bunker mentality.”
He has other names for these bunkers – “architectures of dread”, “doomsteads” and “doom dens”. And people are fleeing to them in droves. “Social scientists actually have a term for this,” Dr Garrett says. “It’s called COVID flight.”
A report by property analysis firm CoreLogic found that regional migration was flourishing during COVID-19, especially in Victoria as city slickers in locked-down Melbourne tried to get out of the city.
By June 2020, Australia’s regional property market had increased by 3.4 per cent while its capital city counterpart had only grown by 1 per cent.
Considering an economic recession has swept through the world with an intensity and ferocity that hasn’t been seen since the Great Depression, perhaps it isn’t surprising that Australians are making this drastic change.
It’s becoming an accepted – and even expected – practice to work from home, making it easier than ever to try country living. The global death toll from coronavirus is now sitting at 1.78 million with almost a million people dying in just the last three months, there is a mutant virus strain sweeping through the UK which recorded over 41,000 new infections in one day on Monday, and NSW is currently caught in the throes of another virus cluster which came seemingly out of the blue.
‘Prepping’ has now become a multibillion-dollar industry which hasn’t scrupled to capitalise on society’s collective fear of contracting the virus.
In today’s world, off-grid is on trend.
RELATED: COVID habits we’ll live with forever
‘The bunker mentality is about resiliency,’ says Dr Garrett. Picture: Supplied by off-gridder Sue McinnesSource:news.com.au
Off the grid is becoming mainstream because of COVID-19, an investigation by news.com.au has found.Source:Supplied
The Doomsday movement attracts all sorts of people, including those from corporate jobs, according to Dr Simon Henry, the first Australian academic to complete a PhD on Australia’s survivalist community in 2016.
He found that Australian Doomsday preppers number in the thousands – and that was before COVID-19. Since the virus hit in March, he told news.com.au he’s seen a “noticeable increase” in the number of off-gridders joining online forums.
Living off the grid goes beyond people leaving the city – it’s leaving society. Kiss goodbye to unlimited electricity and warm water at the touch of a button. Sometimes you’ll find yourself wading through human excrement to fix a sewage problem.
And popping to the corner store takes on a whole new meaning when you’re in the middle of nowhere. Setting it up can be expensive but once that’s done, water and electricity bills become things of the past. For many, living off the grid is a hideous idea but others are embracing the simple life.
Paul Meloury aka ‘Cockatoo Paul’, decided to do exactly that 10 years ago, disconnecting his home from the grid in 2010. Now he’s making a living teaching others to do the same.
He runs the Kangaroo Creek Survival School close to Grafton along NSW’s north coast and there’s been huge demand for his expertise since COVID-19 reached Australia’s shores.
Mr Meloury teaches survival essentials from finding edible plants in the wild, purifying water and even building shelter from scratch.
According to him, “you don’t need to be Tarzan” to move off-grid.
‘You don’t need to be Tarzan,’ according to Cockatoo Paul. Picture: Supplied/Sarah Lee/www.cockatoopaul.com.Source:Supplied
Mr Meloury was anxious when he first heard of the international travel restrictions because most of his clients were backpackers from overseas. But he needn’t have worried.
“From the domestic side of things, (business) definitely has picked up,” he said.
THE ‘DOOM BOOM’
Doomsday preppers don’t call it “COVID flight” – they have another name for leaving the city in a hurry – “bugging out”. The phrase originated in World War II, to describe soldiers fleeing when their positions were compromised. Etymologists believe the word came about because of the rapid way bugs fly off when threatened.
It’s not the only word tossed around casually in Doomsday dialect. The post-apocalyptic world is referred to as PAW in prepper parlance. TEOTWAWKI stands for The End Of The World As We Know It. Then there’s the INCH bag which preppers will likely bring with them while bugging out – an “I’m Never Coming Home” pack.
COVID-19 is a mid-level event among the Doomsday community, and most wouldn’t consider it an apocalypse.
A prepper ‘manifesto’ from multi-billion dollar survival company The Vivos Group, based in the USA.Source:Facebook
OFF-GRIDDERS IN THE FLESH
Not all off-gridders predict the end of the world or are obsessive hoarders. Mike Stone, who quit his 9-5 job as an employee relations expert in Canberra after 30 years, insists he’s not a Doomsday prepper.
And he isn’t, in the traditional sense. Although the early days of the pandemic saw some Australians stockpiling canned food, toilet paper and even tasers, Mike didn’t do any sort of hoarding. To survive an apocalypse, the 58-year-old only needs a few vegetable seeds in his off-grid property three hours’ drive from Sydney.
He’s just planted lettuce, tomato, carrots and corn to replace his winter stocks; Chinese cabbage, bok choy, cauliflower, silver beet, rocket, garlic, beetroot, onions, spring onions, broccoli, snow peas and leek.
He estimates that 90 per cent of his vegetable intake during the winter came from his veggie gardens. “You name it and we’ve probably got it,” Mike tells news.com.au with a laugh.
Mike sips a glass of red wine with his partner Sharon Law, watching the sun set on their two-acre NSW property. Their cottage is a modern fusion of corrugated iron and wood panelling. Its steep roof suggests snowy, miserable winters.
Inside is a newly renovated bathroom which could be on the cover of an interior design magazine. There’s also an airconditioning unit for the sweltering summer days ahead, where temperatures can soar as high as 41C.
The couple’s two sheepdogs are happily occupied, one sleeping in a sliver of sunlight and the other ambushing a pair of unsuspecting bunnies living under the house. Four chickens waddle around the property freely.
As the couple drink on the balcony, an easterly breeze plays with Sharon’s long blonde hair and the solar panels catch the last of the sun’s rays. A kale quiche, using veggies from their own garden, sits on the table. They cooked it during the day to save energy.
The summer crops, newly planted, fill the place with the smell of freshly turned earth.
Australia’s ‘doom boom’: COVID-19 inspires people to prepare for the end of the worldSource:news.com.au
modern day nuclear bunker ATCSource:news.com.au
The cottage is completely off the grid. Solar-powered and with generator backups, it’s totally self-sufficient. Cheap, too. They have a septic tank, they drink filtered rainwater and grow their own food.
If the world ever goes dark, Sharon and Mike will be ready.
The cottage is surrounded by eight acres of vacant farmland. It’s a half-hour drive to the nearest grocery store. The place is so secluded, in fact, that on a quiet night, Sharon and Mike can hear the scraping of a freight train 11km away. This house is the epitome of social distancing.
This off-grid lifestyle is becoming increasingly popular in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.
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