The huts are built from sustainable victorian ash timber sourced locally. They have been designed to be reusable, they can literal be disassembled and reused (not that we will). They are off grid. They operate on 100% solar power generated by the small solar panel outside which is more than enough power to manage the demand of our guests 7 days a week. The native grasses and plants that surround the huts are found naturally on the surrounding paddocks. The huts are designed with passive heating from the glass and are also designed to take advantage of the cross ventilation to cool them using the breeze. They are also well double insulated to keep the heating/cooling required to a minimum.
All of our Soaps and hair products are made in Australia from Australian botanicals and all of our containers are refillable to reduce waste. Leif do all their manufacturing in Australia to keep jobs here.
We have planted bee and bird attracting natives to the homestead garden and we have plans afoot to do the same thing at our cottages and at the Grain Shed. Bees have had a rough time lately and are possibly the most important part of agriculture and food supplies in general. We have planted bee attracting natives below the hut tubs so that we are not wasting the water. Over time these small ecosystems will thrive and we are hoping to produce honey from them once they are established.
We try to only shop locally for all of our food and wine items, sourcing from local producers. We operate a vegetable garden to produce as much as we can ourselves and we are looking at expanding this over the next few years as we grow. We use waste food to promote worms in our veggie garden and compost the leaves from the homestead garden to create beautiful soil.
What are we trying to do at Kimo Estate? Our long term vision is to create a self sustainable business operation that produces nearly everything it consumes. Our mission statement includes reconnecting our city friends back to the land, showing them new innovative ways to preserve and improve the land and also ways to reduce their impact on the environment.
We have many new and exciting sustainability ideas to add over the next few years so we will be updating this page as we progress.