Welcome to Manifestation, Motivation and Passion. If you're looking to transform your life,
this is the podcast for you. It's all about improving yourself on the inside to see transformation
on the outside. I look at how to find and improve motivation and manifest lasting changes.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
Okay, I wish you all could be in the studio with me today. I've got the wonderful Laurie
who's got the most incredible energy. Laurie Norton found an old rundown bus, double decker
bus and made it his mission to turn it into twice as nice gallery cafe. Now I believe
this was in conjunction with Eli's gift to help families of seriously ill children to
relieve the financial burden so parents can focus on the child without the added pressure
of the incidental expenses. So thank you so much for joining us today. Third time's a
charm. We've tried this a couple of times and not had success. So we're here. How are
you?
Good morning. I'm really well, thank you.
Okay. So how did you come up with the idea for twice as nice gallery cafe?
So about 15 years ago, I was driving through a paddock and seeing this old rundown 1949
double decker Leyland Sydney bus that had been sitting there and used for numerous different
things over the years. And yeah, I just, it was one of them penny drop moments where I
was like, I'm going to do a charity drive around Australia in this.
That's incredible. So how did you know about Eli's gift? Or what, what was the connection
there?
So I worked on the bus for about three years and then I left the bus on my parents farm
and completely forgot about it for a few years while I had life admin to do. And then I ended
up going and doing a bit of a vision quest up on a mountain and sat for four days with
no food and no water and realized that I was putting a lot of time and energy into projects.
And if I had 10 projects, 10% complete, cause I've only got a hundred percent of myself,
I stripped down all of my projects. I had one project that I could put a hundred percent
in and that was the bus cause it always made me happy. At that point I went door knocking
and found a lady, the second door I knocked on, who was from my hometown, four hours north
of Melbourne in Finley, who had land that I could leave the bus on. And it was actually
her son went to school with Eli's father. So she was the one who connected the dots
for me and was like, why don't you do the charity drive for Eli's gift?
That's incredible story. And so you've came up with the idea when you're on the mountain.
So what was the divine timing moment or what was it that inspired you for this particular
charity?
Divine timing has been a bit of a concept that keeps showing up in my life. And quite
often I think that I want to go and do something, but the world's just like, no, you can't
do that. So the divine timing side of things was the five year break in the middle when
I then gathered all the skills that I needed to actually be able to do the bus to go out
and do the charity drive.
And what kind of skills were they?
So I had never done woodwork before. I'd never done plumbing before. I'd never really done
anything but worked on power lines all of my life. I spent a few years on a farm when
I was a young child. And so in them five years, I built a table for an ex-partner of mine.
And that then gave me a thicknesser and a few skills on how to complete a project like
that.
And then once I got the bus down to Melbourne, I sort of looked at it and I was like, wow,
this is actually a bigger job than what I thought. And there's a beautiful old saying
and it's like, how do you eat an elephant? And it's one step at a time. So in my time
away from the bus, I had actually done a diploma in project management. So I then took the
bus and broke it down into all of its small little sections. And I literally finished
the elephant one step at a time. So I picked the first thing on the list, created a critical
path on how to finish the bus. And then over 18 months, I just nailed off every little
project on the list until the bus was finished.
So how did you work out the space?
So I got the bus to a point where I could live in it. And once I had a bed in the bus,
I actually moved into the bus in the middle of winter and had no hot water, no sink or
anything like that. And the best way I found to create a space that was suited to me was
to be living in the space and go, oh, I really need a sink. So I built a sink.
So you knew where it would function best.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
And then on the floor. So I built a couch.
Yep.
Yeah.
Wow. And now where did you first go once the bus was complete?
So I launched the bus in Bendigo at Australia's first tiny house festival. And from Bendigo,
I headed across up through Cooma and then around to Sydney. And I got to park the bus
under the Sydney Harbour Bridge and do the charity drive in Sydney CBD for a few days.
Yes.
And then there I went all the way to Cairns across to Tannent Creek down to Alice Springs,
Kings Canyon or La Rue to Adelaide and then come across to Perth.
What an incredible journey. And might I just mention in there that you were only going
45 kilometres an hour. So that is a really long journey as well.
Yeah. So as fast as the bus would go is 45 K an hour because they were never designed
to go any faster around the Sydney streets.
That just blows my mind. So I guess it would be sort of the equivalent of going on a tram
nowadays.
Yeah, pretty much. I think even the trains go faster than that these days.
To fund the trip, you were doing painting and I understand pan.
Handpan?
Handpan as well. Yes.
So yeah, I had made it all the way to Cairns and then back down to towards Alice, Alice
Springs, sorry, Adelaide. And I had found myself with a blown radiator, a broken water
pump, no way of paying for it. I was six and a half grand in debt. And I was sitting down
in the bus one day and I was like, oh, come on, something's got to give or I'm going
to have to go home. And I was walking through the bus with a long black because I was still
doing coffees while the bus was broken down in this caravan park.
And I sat a leaking cup onto a piece of paper and then I drew a picture with the coffee
that had leaked onto the paper with a gum leaf. And the lady walked in and went, wow,
that's really good. How much is that? And I'm like, $25, but this one's not for sale.
So I figured out a way from there that I could fashion a paint from my waste product off
doing the charity drive because every day I've got to put coffee through the machine
to take the cleaner out. So I would turn that into a paint. Then I would paint pictures
all day. And from the pictures, I would then sell the pictures so that I could pay for
the repairs to the bus and put food on my table. And the coffee painting just took off.
And from there, I actually made back the money that I'd put myself in debt doing the charity
drive and continued to fund the conscious work I was doing from there forward with my
coffee paintings.
What an incredible story. So you're doing the painting still today?
Yeah. So today I'm still painting. Not as often as what I was.
Yes.
But there's a beautiful little community based cafe in Bibra Lake called Heart Arrest. And
Lani that's just opened it up has given me some work. So I'm doing some barista work
on Wednesdays there at the moment. And Lani's kindly opened up a little space in the cafe
for me to display my coffee paintings and a kids book that I actually wrote as well.
Oh, wow. You're just full of different ideas. You've got lots going on.
Yeah.
So what's the children's book about?
When COVID hit, I had just come across into Western Australia, found a beautiful lady
who had space for me on their farm in Oakford. So Ken and Wendy opened up their space for
me to bring the bus in. And because I couldn't be doing the charity work, I always liked
to have a conscious project in my life. And I had actually painted a series of pictures
and written a short story and sort of dedicated it to my nieces back in Melbourne. And my
conscious project then was, well, let's write this book and put a dedication in the back
of it and explain all about Eli's gift and the work that they're doing and give them
a shout out so that when people buy the book, they're actually hearing about the charity
drive and everything that I'd been out doing. So I wrote the book, published it, and then
put it up on eBay. And also it's in Harder Frest and it's called Claire and the Koa Tree.
Claire and the?
Koa Tree.
Oh, wow. That's incredible. So eBay or at Harder Frest?
Harder Frest in Bibra Lake, yeah.
Fantastic. And you play the handpan as well. So that was getting you through some of the
lonely nights you were playing the handpan while you were traveling around Australia.
Yeah. Before I left Melbourne, a dear brother of mine, Amrit Sandhu from Inspired Evolution
podcast, he lent me a handpan so I could see if I actually liked the instrument. And from
there after having no musical background or anything, Amrit helped me get my first handpan.
And then on my lonely nights or whenever I was in a beautiful space, I'd just take my
handpan down and sit there and play by campfires or in gorges or there was some lava tunnels
up north that I ended up playing the handpan in. And yeah, it was a beautiful gift to give
to the world. And I still do a little bit of teaching today.
You've been on the most remarkable journey. So how can people contact you if they are
wanting to get handpan lessons or if they've got a group perhaps that they would like to
have coffee painting lessons?
So Facebook and Instagram under twice as nice gallery cafe, there's always people reaching
out and saying hello and actually really value that community time to get together with people
and it's really soothing for the soul. So yeah, just reach out and send a message and
whatever you've got going on, I'm always up for finding a way to go and hang out and
meet new people and teach what I can where I can.
Perfect. Well, thank you again. Thank you so much for coming in today.
No worries. Thank you for having me.
I'm Quinn Carnegie and I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of Manifestation, Motivation
and Passion. I'm so thrilled you chose to spend time listening and would be even more
grateful if you left a positive review. And if you found value, no doubt your family and
friends will too. I'd love it if you share it with them. Thanks again.