May Miles

When signing 1812 pre-sold copies of his book The Backyard Adventurer, Beau Miles decided to have a backyard adventure while doing it

This is the story of spending a night in a big old gumtree. Strapped to three builders planks (one of which had a large crack that I thought was spilled paint) I slept with one eye open, which was pleasant because I could see the view. Originally driven by the premise of backyard adventuring, using old climbing equipment, dodgy ladders and 4x4 recovery gear, a simple night out, 30-foot up, ended up being a reflection of how much I like trees, particularly the vulnerable Strzelecki gums I live among. Dinner, breakfast, bad coffee, podcast, and sitting on a park bench I should sit on more often, Big Gums is the story of a man who is no longer a boy, spending time with an endangered, iconic tree.

When COVID-19 locked Beau Miles and his family down on the small farm, he decided to build his wife a cabin-office in the paddock without her knowing. Using whatever materials were on the property, which were gathered up piles of other people’s junk over time, and with their 6 month old daughter as accomplice, Junk Cabin emerged. What started out as a stunt to see how much secretive, ad-hoc building he could get away with, turned into the most satisfying building project he's ever made.

As there are 1440 minutes in a day, and Beau Miles love planting trees, he decided to plant a tree a minute for 24 hours. It was (swear meaningfully) hard.

Each day Beau Miles does something he's never done before.

May and Beau head off on a slow, tooled-up, distracted lap of the block - which happens to be a perfect mile.