About me


Hi, my name is Col. My gorgeous and wise partner Maria and I spend most of our time in Barwon Heads about 1.5 hours south of Melbourne on the beautiful Bellarine Peninsula. One of the best things we ever did was to decide to base ourselves in a caravan for 3 months a year. We called our caravan our 'yurt' - and we blogged about our experiences, mostly on the northern coast of NSW with our four kids, at yurting.net.au

As well as cooking, I also enjoy thinking about life and meaning, trying to understand patterns and joining dots. I jot my musing down at colduthie.net

Pictures tell a thousand words, so I also enjoy posting on Instagram.

My work is to support leaders of social change. What that looks like has taken some twists and turns over the years, but I blogged regularly about what I was learning on my professional site colduthie.com.

My partner Maria has a number of themed photo blogs which can be accessed via her current one at mariadicocco.net.

One of the ways we have chosen to make the most of life is to live and work in some great places.
  • for more than 20 years we lived with our 4 kids in a little dead end street in East Brunswick, with Lygon St shops out our back gate and CERES just a short walk in the other direction;
  • I lived in various hotels in Port Moresby for more nights than I care to remember;
  • As mentioned above, we made a caravan into a second home and committed to living and working in it least 3 months a year;
  • When we moved to the Sunshine Coast, our apartment had stunning views over the northern tip of Bribie Island with the sand of Bullcock Beach out our front door;
  • And when family reasons took us to Launceston we found a place on the redeveloped SeaPort Marina where we could walk to the Harvest Market and into town;
  • Our Melbourne base for a few years was the iconic CityPoint, on the doorstep of Southern Cross Station and with uninterrupted views across the south western CBD;
  • And when we eventually moved back to Victoria we were lucky enough to jag a townhouse opposite the sprawling Village Park with the estuary, river and ocean beaches, and Barwon Heads' fabulous shopping strip out our front door.

I often get asked if I have retired. I don't know how to answer that question. I do know that I do a lot of work and recreational things, some of which I get paid for, and others for which I don't. I have written a book(let), a personal manifesto, in which I reason that pleasure, betterness and meaning are what matters, not the extent to which one does paid work.

In 2018 we bought another caravan, a Marvel Seabreeze, from the caravan yard just down the road from our Caloundra home. The pull of the peripatetic life is strong.

Comments


Pots and Vans on Instagram

Col Duthie on Instagram