Being a lifelong Taswegian, I have experienced many Tasmanian winters, which has made it easy to learn the typical weather patterns. I would describe our winters as having clear blue skies, crisp air, and peaceful wind-free days. The winter landscape has a certain beauty, with the ice on the paddocks sparkling in the weak sunlight and occasional snow on kunanyi/Mt Wellington (although less frequent these days). It feels like nature’s quieter, more contemplative side during this time.

However, the beginning of winter this year was the complete opposite. There were at least five days in a row where misty rain fell each day, with low, grey, gloomy cloud cover and absolutely no sign of the sun. Coupled with the short days, it all started to get a little depressing and slightly concerning. That’s because Aquila Eco Retreat is an off-grid business. Therefore, we need sunlight to give our guests power! During these five days, our solar power system was tested for the first time since we opened our doors. Not only was there no sun, but Aquila was also heavily booked for most of June!

We couldn’t have been more delighted, though! We got through the shortest day without a hitch. Jason can monitor the power consumption through an app on his phone. He could see that two to three heat pumps ran almost constantly, not to mention the tumble dryer I used nonstop to keep up with the linen washing. The backup generator had come on to top up the batteries for about an hour each day, but otherwise, the power system coped on its own. Impressive! We are so proud to be able to call Aquila Eco Retreat off-grid but also luxurious. Those five days proved how far such renewable energy systems have developed. We can operate just about every household appliance and still not run out of electricity, even in the gloomiest weather. We are deeply passionate about our land and the natural resources the earth and the sun provide, and we hope that our guests feel this too.

Some awesome facts are:

• We’ve saved just over 5 tonnes of carbon going to the atmosphere since
  opening.
• We’ve generated over 7,100kWh of electricity.
• We’ve only run our generator for a total of 12 hours in two years

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We are able to commence producing a lot of power as soon as the sun comes up due to the angle of our solar panels, which are optimised for the winter sun. Even early in the morning, we can produce almost 4kW of power! This will ensure, that by lunchtime our batteries will be fully charged on a sunny day.

As much as I love our Tasmanian winters, it’s great that we’ve turned the corner on another winter solstice. It will remain a memorable solstice for Jason and me this year as we took part in the Dark Mofo Winter Solstice Nude Swim for the first time.

The Mofo atmosphere of the drummers, the flares and 3000 other crazy people make it an exhilarating, almost out-of-body experience. I can see why people do it again and again. I’m not sure if I will, though. Perhaps I’ll pull the cold-water bucket over my head and then step straight into the 80-degree sauna at Aquila Eco Retreat’s Flame Space next winter solstice … dressed in bathers rather than nude!