[2] Seeking a place where Wood could paint without paying rent,[4] they purchased 15 acres on Bedarra Island, North Queensland[1][5] and made a grass shack in which to live before building a home they called the "House of Singing Bamboo".
[5] Wood called the island a place "with a warm climate, where one could live for approximately nothing and solve one’s own problems in paint and colour".
[7][8] Soon after World War II, Wood packaged fifty of his best paintings to exhibit in London at Leicester Galleries.
The crate of works was despatched on Queensland Rail but went missing en route and never reached Sydney, where Wood awaited them.
While bitterly disappointed, Wood took ship to London in 1947, and he painted in England, Ireland, France and Italy, paving his way by producing portraits, until returning to Bedarra after several months in Europe.