This land has a small spring on it and is on a North facing slope with the most spectacular views.

It also has a road access which make life much easier getting materials to site.

It is flanked 1 KM away by a Rock amphitheatre with a natural stage approx 50M above ground.

This pictures really do not do it justice.  This picture is approx 200M across

I will hopefully proposing a subdivision of this land if anyone is interested in building their own earthship in Swaziland.

On route to visit the land on 1st of August 2009 the road had been washed away.

I have lots of interim news and pictures that I will post in due course.

I have been busy in Lagos and the UK since October last year and have had precious little time and minimal bandwidth in Nigeria to update the blog.

Due to extended rains in Swaziland this year the staging window has been to small to complete staging in time for the build in May.

The first part of the staging was to get a scratch road put into the site and also to assemble a bulk of the recycled materials.

We have yet to get a useable road up to the site. I am visiting the site again this week as it is now dry enough to get the Landrover (with new all terrain tyres) up to the site and assess how we should progress.

We will therefore be staging from May 1st through to thend of the dry period 2009.

Main building starts March/April 2010 just as soon as the rains stop again.

Mike has just informed me that he has some experienced volunteers willing to help with staging. If anyone else has experience in Swaziland or South Africa I would be pleased to hear from them.

In the mean time the systems will be built in the US and shipped by container to Durban.

More later after the site visit.

This will be in keeping with the traditional Round Swaziland huts and hopefully will head us in the right direction for perfecting a 1 room design that can be adopted for single dwellers and small families.

Here is the latest sketches from Mike.

Similar in design to the one he built in Bonaire

Of Gunsmoke and McCloud fame talks about his Earthship

After much searching we found trig point A.. Only 4 more to go

A quick overnight in Nelspruit and then on to Swaziland

As an earthship relies solely on the Sun for heating energy it was important to check which way was North.

I quickly ran up to the site with a compass.

Damn I need to get fit.. thats a long way up in the Swazi Sun

Here is a view of Plot2 from Plot 1, This will be the site of a larger build at a later date.

Here is a Vid taken from Plot2 before I got totally out of breath

Although these are not Earth rammed, the concept is there.

I must find the guy responsible and invite him to the build in May 2009

This is achieved by a combination of thermal mass in the form of thick earth filled tyre walls and correct alignment with the winter sun angle.

I got up today to find a sprinkling of snow on the foothills of the mountains and ws suprised how chilly the outside was. I had previously seen a thermometer inside the house always showing 18-21 degrees and decided to take it outside. It was 10 degrees cooler. The Earthships maintain a steady temperature from the thermal mass stored in the Earth walls. It really is quite amazing