The kids and I have designed a new entrance marker for our driveway. We’re far enough out in the bush that we’ve had a number of people drive right past the driveway so some sort of marker was needed. We designed something that I think represents us pretty well, although I realised later that most people won’t recognise the symbolism of it.
It started off a fairly standard weekend, heading down out with a loaded up trailer on a Friday afternoon.
But this time turned out to be a little different. About half way there we were stopped for one of Nics many toilet breaks. I was going over the nights to do list in my head. Then suddenly I realised.
I didn’t have the keys to the caravan. Continue reading
The long weekend was planned to be a team effort with a fair few people to help get the roof over our van.
The weather however had different plans. A few days before the trip we were forecast to get up to 45mm of rain over 3 days. That put a bit of a dampener on our free labour lol.
By some freak change in the weather we only ended up getting about 15mm of rain (almost all on the Sunday night), so it actually ended up a nice weekend. Continue reading
NOT LONG AFTER WE FIRST STARTED I MOVED FROM WEBS.COM TO WORDPRESS, I’VE MOVED OVER THE OLDEST POSTS SO THAT WE DON’T LOSE THEM.
We’ve had our first night/weekend out as owners of block.
It had originally been planned as a long weekend trip, 4 days 3 nights. Mum, Kelvin, Oscar and us plus any others that decided to tag along.
We arrive mid morning and cut the fence along the railway line, Oscar managed to squeeze his car through with minimal bumping of the fence posts but we decided to lift a fence post out to make things easier for the Patrol, down through the trees and cut the second fence to the cleared area (close to where we plan to one day build our house). Oscar and I came back the following morning and dropped a tree on the path we took between the fences just to give us a bit of extra room.
We set up camp and I decided to have an explore of the bracken managed to track down an olive, fig, blackberry and what I later found out was cotton bush. I also came across a 1.5-2m long snake, jet black, not 100% what it was but he left me alone and I left him alone.
We finally got to meet the old owner as well as the real estate agent on the Friday night and I enjoyed a little bottle of Glenfarclas 21 (scotch) from one of the guys at work and a few more quiet ones. We were asked by a guy that leases a patch of Bruce’s property to put out our fire which we did, the local shire fire bans were extended to the end of March so we were just a few days to early.
During the night we ha a storm come through, Shan and I coped the worst of it I think, our tent ended up with a few puddles in it. Oscar was fairly dry and mum and Kelvin’s mattress was a bit damp. We checked the radar in the morning and a massive front was coming over Saturday and during the night so Shan made the executive decision to call off the camp so we started very slowly packing everything up.
Oscar and I had a bit of a 4wd trip around the property, push a few trees over with the car and in general had a bit of fun. Oscar spent a bit of time pulling dead trees over and I cleared the area around the blackberry patch to try to stop it from taking over to much. Mum and Kelvin cleared all the rotten logs from around the camp site and swept a lot of the weaves and sticks off to the side.
I spent the remainder of the day marking out contour lines to try to plan for the driveway. I ended up marking out 4 lines, the first 2 ended up hitting the northern fence line, the third cut a bit to close to the dam, the final one seems like it will be roughly where the driveway goes. I had wanted to actually start checking it with the water level that I built, but turns out the water level leaks water so the level line is constantly changing. I’ve dragged it back up to Perth so I can seal it back up with a bit of silicone and i’ll try again next time.
In marking the lines I realised how quickly I will go through the bamboo, so I think i’ll need to do another trip to the patch and get a ton more, plus find a better way to stack it into the car to get it out to the block.
We headed back into Bunbury in the afternoon before the rain picked up to much.
It was lucky we didn’t spend the night on the land because a lot of rain ended up coming through.
We did a day trip out with Emma, Matt, Mum Kelvin and the kids on the Sunday, Emma and Matt even managed to get their Elantra in when we levelled out the little berm around the fence line for them.
Now that the storm had passed it was a great sunny day, the dam even had a few inches of water in the bottom. There wasn’t to much productive done on the day trip, just a bit of entertainment when Emma got bitten by an ant and lost her mind tearing her clothes off to get it away from her.
When she calmed down we showed her Nicholas’s legs with 4-5 ant bites on them and him not complaining in the slightest about it.
It’s been pretty much decided that we are going to need to get a caravan for us to sleep in. A leaky tent with winter just beginning doesn’t sound like much fun. We had a look at one on the way home, but it was rusted through and about to fall apart. Shan had a look at other today though and she said it is probably the one.
I’ve still been looking into Tractors, I thought I had found my one also, but someone else beat me to it so I’m back on the lookout again.
I’ve uploaded about half of the photos that I took to the facebook page, I’ll get the rest up some time soon. I’ve taken the advice of Geoff Lawton and taken all the before photos that I think I need then taken 100 more.
A few of my cutting have started to take, at the moment I think it’s just the mulberries, but there are a few others including some figs and roses that look promising, maybe a nectarine also. We’re going to get a few olive barrels (~200L) and I’m going to start working out how long they will last as drip irrigation. it would be great to start getting things transplanted into the areas that we don’t plan on changing to much.
We’re planning our next trip out there for mid to late April so there will probably be an update then. For now it’s just Tractor and Caravan hunting. Plus helping Oscar to move back out to his own place this weekend.
So much to do out there, lucky we have plenty of time.
NOT LONG AFTER WE FIRST STARTED I MOVED FROM WEBS.COM TO WORDPRESS, I’VE MOVED OVER THE OLDEST POSTS SO THAT WE DON’T LOSE THEM.
Okay,
So everything has suddenly started moving faster than expected. We found a broker that had a bit more experience in the kind of land that we were looking for and he managed to get us pre-approved for finance, a few days later we put an offer in for the Brookhampton block and a few days after that we agreed on a price.
Evaluation came in with no issues and yesterday our finance was approved.
We’re hoping to have settlement on the Easter long weekend in about 2 and a half weeks.
Our first camping trip is in the process of being planned, we’ve invited a few friends and family to come out and visit or if they like camping rough then staying out there with us.
I’ve collected a heap of Bamboo (for marking areas) and gave the chainsaw a bit of a service to make sure it was ready to go if needed. Our plan is to cut the fence on the service line side and not really do to much apart from celebrate and relax.
We chose the service line side because we have a few 2wd cars coming out and some smaller 4wd’s, the drainage ditch on the main road shouldn’t have been an issue for the Patrol, but we didn’t wana leave the others carrying their gear a few hundred meters. Also, the service line has less trees against it so it should be less work to get a temporary driveway cut out.
Big changes happening for us, all the work is paying off.
Now we just need to build the farm..
I’m hoping to get a few more pictures uploaded to the facebook page from when we have gone out there over the last 6 months or so, I’ll also try to get some when we’re out there camping. The photo’s that are already up show everything beautiful and green, in the middle of summer it’s def not green, but still a great view.
QUINSGUNNADO 