It has been a hive of activity in the foothills of the Gold Coast Hinterland for a while now, and with a new passion project in full tilt Catarina Pereira’s home is well abuzz. Catarina and her husband run an Artisan Apiary/Miuze Retreat in Mudgeeraba, and when they’re not caretaking their bees (below right) and extracting raw honey, they are making handmade wax candles.
The pair also has a cute Airbnb cabin they let out as a secondary stream of income and recently purchased an old Kombi on Qoin that they’re in the process of restoring to its former 1970’s style glory.
“I’m from Portugal originally and I had a Kombi there … when I sold it, I was heartbroken,” Catarina admits. “I’ve been looking for another one, but it’s hard to take the money out of your household, especially with a mortgage and everything else we’ve got going on.”
After a fruitful honey season and considering their growing interest in Qoin, Catarina convinced Jose to put some of their spare capacity into getting another Kombi and renovating it using full Qoin.
The van they settled on was a 1978 pop-top, a relatively rare model, that they have aptly named ‘Qoinbi’.
“It’s got a Porsche engine in it, so when we finish it will be a Porsche in a Kombi body,” a very proud Catarina tells us.
The enterprising couple has already used Qoin to get keys cut, a tow truck, and they recently enlisted another merchant to quote on upholstery and roof work. Furniture and panel work are to come.
“I love the Qoin community, it feels like a real community,” says Catarina, noting that it has become a trading of information as much as goods and services. “We’ve met so many people and sold to so many people that we wouldn’t have met had we not been on Qoin.
“So, we’ve got our normal business and work and then we’ve got this added layer that has just added to our lifestyle.”
Not only has their ‘Qoinbi’ benefited from the digital currency, so too has the house, with the enterprising pair installing solar panels and getting the roof painted using it, but it was almost certainly a family holiday to Noosa that their two children, Melissa and Kai would have appreciated the most.