Geoff Lawton's Back Story

After watching many Geoff Lawton videos I've left with a ton of questions.  Anyone know the back story for zaytuna farm?  
How did he come up with the money to purchase the place?  I assume it was done by doing permaculture consulting jobs around Australia?  He mentioned
in an old video that they were camping at customer sites for awhile.  
Once he purchased the place there wasn't any infrastructure there.  How did he live?  Was he camping out on the property until he could bootstrap some buildings?
He must've had some kinda side money or savings to purchase food and supplies to kick start the property.  
How did he get that going?  If Geoff wrote a autobiography I'd definitely read it to find all this out.  Zaytuna farm is quite an amazing property and I have dreams
of someday pulling off a similar but much smaller effort myself.  

There was a video of him describing the development of a small (5 acre?) property while he lived on it in a shed.  He later sold the property.  I am guessing this is one of the ways he built up enough savings to purchase the property that would become Zaytuna Farm.  I can't find the video anymore, darn it.

That's interesting.  I'd love to see the video

Tyler Ludens wrote:There was a video of him describing the development of a small (5 acre?) property while he lived on it in a shed.  He later sold the property.  I am guessing this is one of the ways he built up enough savings to purchase the property that would become Zaytuna Farm.  I can't find the video anymore, darn it.

I managed to dredge this link to it from Google

That's the one!  

I may be wrong, but I understand that Bill Mollison chose Geoff to inherit leadership of the permaculture research institute, of which Zaytuna was an integral part. It seems he earned this with his work in the field and demonstrated talent teaching.

I watched the video.  He is a wizard.  There's no doubts about it haha.  

It's weird to see him using roadway run-off to water the food forest on that small property after I've been warned by authorities not to forage around roads because of lead contamination...

The property has been in constant permaculture development for over 16 years and features a wide range of demonstration in permaculture techniques and farming practices.

Zaytuna Farm came into being after Bill Mollison had handed over the responsibility of managing the permaculture research institute to Geoff Lawton. Geoff relocated the PRI from its original location in Tyalgum NSW to the Channon NSW.  His vision was to establish a permaculture demonstration site with a wide range of permaculture principles and techniques in place.

Read the rest of the story:

https://www.permacultureconsultants.com/project/zaytuna-farm/

https://www.zaytunafarm.com/

I took a permaculture consultant course from Lawton and he told some of his back story. He took his PCD from Mollison in 1987. He stated that he was “skeptical” of much of the information given by Mollison and decided to “check it out”. His research revealed the Mollison’s information was accurate thus he became sold on permaculture. He is an engineer (electrical) by training. He stated that he only made money at permaculture once he went from being a for profit business to a nonprofit organization. He also stated the he and David Holmgren don’t get along (felt it is because Holmgren is jealous of him). He has owned several farms but lost or sold them for various reasons (including divorce). Zaytuna is his latest farming venture.