Written by Lizzie Macaulay
I’ll be honest: I went into this month’s adventure with a very specific expectation.
I was going to meet Suemi and her eight-year-old daughter Frankie, spend time with the rescue animals they care for through East Coast Exotic Animal Haven, and write about the wonderful work they do caring for creatures in need.
In the days leading up to our meeting, I’d built up quite the mental picture of what exotic animals might be waiting for me.
Birds, perhaps?
Reptiles?
I’d been silently begging the universe: please, anything but spiders. I’m deathly afraid of them, and the thought of having to act composed around rescue arachnids was genuinely keeping me up at night.
Fears aside, the plan seemed simple enough. Straightforward. Lovely, even.
Except when I arrived, there was a plot twist: the rescue animals had been released, thanks to the loving care they’d received.
And for a brief moment, I wondered if we’d have anything to write about at all.
Turns out, I’d underestimated the situation entirely.
What followed wasn’t just a story.
The animals I did meet that day were Polly, a rescued galah with a personality as colourful as his plumage, and Biscoff the dog, whose gentle nature made it abundantly clear he was a deeply cherished member of the household rather than ‘just a pet’.
Both seemed perfectly content with their lot in life, which gave me my first glimpse into the kind of home Suemi and Frankie have created.
But it was the sprawling conversation that followed which really opened my eyes to something I hadn’t expected: an education in how to live creatively, connect deeply with your community, and see possibility in places I’d never thought to look.
Suemi has a philosophy about life that’s quite different to mine.
Where I tend to follow the same well-worn path without much question (gym, kids, work, kids, bed, repeat – a routine that’s certainly not tinged with half the amount of colour the region, let alone the world, has to offer), Suemi actively seeks out experiences, connections, and opportunities that many of us don’t even know exist.
As we talked, she mentioned community group after community group that I’d never heard of.
Parents for Climate. Coral Watch Hervey Bay. Various sustainability initiatives happening right under my nose.
Twelve years I’ve lived here, and I’d barely scratched the surface of what’s available.
It was both enlightening and slightly embarrassing that I hadn’t tried harder to this point, if I’m being honest.
Suemi doesn’t just participate in these groups – she uses them as springboards for creativity and resourcefulness.
She makes jewellery from reclaimed scraps sourced through the Hervey Bay Gem and Mineral Club, transforms vintage t-shirts into printed creations using carved lino, and approaches every material with the question: “What could this become?”
Watching her describe these projects, I was struck by the skill involved.
This wasn’t just crafty dabbling – this was genuine artistry combined with an impressive understanding of materials, techniques, and sustainability.
Where I see a worn-out t-shirt, she sees potential. Where I see scraps, she sees jewellery.
It’s a completely different way of moving through the world.
Frankie, who’s being homeschooled, is being raised with this same entrepreneurial, creative spirit.
Both mother and daughter are autistic, and animals happen to be one of Frankie’s deep interests, which is how their connection with East Coast Exotic Animal Haven came about.
But what impressed me most wasn’t any single aspect of their lives independently.
It was the overall approach: nothing is ever boring, there’s always something new to try, and community connection is prioritised above convenience.
In Suemi’s world, “slow is fast, rest is best, nothing in nature blooms all year round” – a philosophy she’d written down and shared with me.
It’s the antithesis of the modern hustle culture that insists we should be productive every moment, that downtime is wasted time, that we need to optimise everything.
As someone who accidentally buys into that hustle mentality more often than I’d like to admit, this was genuinely challenging to hear in the best way possible.
I realised I’ve been living in a kind of tunnel vision.
Meanwhile, there’s this entire network of community groups, skills-sharing, creative practices, and connections happening all around me.
Suemi hasn’t just found these things – she’s actively cultivated a life that’s rich with experiences and learning, despite (or perhaps because of) rejecting many of the traditional structures many of us tend to operate within.
She’s deeply thoughtful about the school system and its limitations, choosing instead to guide Frankie through a more holistic, interest-led approach to education.
She’s passionate about sustainability, not in a preachy way, but in a practical, “let’s actually do something” way.
And she’s proof that life doesn’t have to be mundane – it’s about how you approach it, not what resources you have.
In fact, her path seems infinitely more interesting than anything I’ve ever come up with.
I left our meeting feeling inspired and very slightly sheepish that I hadn’t been a more active participant in my own life and the world around me.
Here I am, writing a column about learning new things, yet I’d somehow failed to notice the wealth of learning opportunities literally on my doorstep.
The lesson Suemi taught me wasn’t just about being resourceful with materials.
It was about being resourceful with life itself.
About looking at your community and asking: “What’s here that I haven’t discovered yet?”
About approaching each day with curiosity rather than blank resignation.
About recognising that the “alternative” approach isn’t necessarily the harder one. Most likely it’s the more fulfilling one.
I’m not saying I’m about to completely overhaul my life (let’s be realistic – I know my limitations).
But I am saying that meeting Suemi and Frankie has made me think differently about what’s possible within the boundaries of where I already live.
We spend so much time thinking we need to travel far or spend big to have interesting experiences.
Suemi’s shown me that’s simply not true.
The interesting experiences are already here, waiting to be discovered.
We just need to be resourceful enough to find them.
Twelve years in Hervey Bay, and I’m still learning what this place has to offer.
Suemi’s shown me that being resourceful isn’t just about making something from nothing.
It’s about recognising the abundance that’s been here all along.
With gratitude to Suemi and Frankie for opening my eyes to a different way of seeing our community. If you’d like to learn more about East Coast Exotic Animal Haven’s work, or get involved with community groups like the Hervey Bay Gem and Mineral Club, a quick search will point you in the right direction. Sometimes the most valuable resources are the ones we didn’t know we were looking for.