About slowfeet1

We published a blog of our travels around the world for 3 years. The two of us have started another phase of our lives developing a new home in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. There is a house to build and a 30 acre block to deal with. Weed infestations, rubbish, drainage, access and fencing all need sorting. Gardens and trees need to be started. Animals need to have a place to live. It will all take time. In the meantime we need a place to live. A shed is the short term option. We are not young but not so old yet that we just want to sit. Writing about what we are doing is something we enjoy and things we do might just be interesting to someone else. We will write mostly about the development of the block and, particularly, the building of the house but we may wander off into other areas from time to time. We had intended to start this blog early in the process and chronicle progress but, apart from one post we have failed. Too busy, too distracted, just not enough time. The plan now is to talk about the things we have done to get to where we are now but to do this as particular subjects arise.

Back Again

Posted on March 30, 2016 by slowfeet1

There are time when the procrastinating has to stop and you just have to start again!

Four years ago I started to record our plans and progress in setting up our place in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. There were a few posts – not really enough to provide a reasonable overview – and then they stopped altogether.

What happened? The short, and easy, answer is that we have been busy. It is, however, all a matter of priorities and the fact is, while I have frequently thought that something going on would be of interest to others in the same situation and worth a post, I simply haven’t given it the priority it needed to create a blog post. So I have changed the priorities.

A quick summary of where we are now. I left off with the construction of a causeway on our (then) new 500 metre driveway/road. The driveway/road did everything expected of it and, while it could probably do with a bit of work, it still performs its function. There is now a very comfortable and pretty stylish house set about halfway up the block on the side of the hill.

Looking down on the new house

There are a lot of stories that could roll out about that project but I will leave them to one side at the moment. Enough, for now, to note that it didn’t involve us in a tremendous amount of actual physical work (I sorted that by breaking my ankle when it looked like I might have to do a bit) but it did swallow up most of our time and interest for the best part of a year.

Contemplating the new house (broken ankle on show)

A key part of our plan for development of the block has been to use permaculture principles and operate organically. While there has been some action consistent with these principles, the actual development has been frustratingly slow. There are now a number of swales constructed across the contours of the hill below the house. These have been planted with a variety of fruit and nut trees, interspersed with some acacias and allocasuarinas. I intend to explain in more detail how and why this has been done at some stage but, in brief, the aim of the swales is to counter the effect of the heavy clay soils in the area by providing deeper top soil, better drainage and, at the same time, the best possible supply of water to the fruit trees.

Getting the levels right for the swales (hose and coloured water method)

The acacias and allocasuarinas are nitrogen fixers. Their roots will assist in fixing more nitrogen in the vicinity of the root systems of the fruit trees. Their pruned branches will be left to rot down on the swales, delivering further nitrogen to the swales. Over time, these interspersed trees may need to be removed completely to give the fruit and nut trees room to expand.

A dozen or so assorted citrus have been planted out in and area that has reasonable soil and also receives frost, whenever we get one here. We have spent a bit of time researching the appropriate chill factors for the various types of fruit trees we would like to have. If we have it right then there will be a pretty good supply of oranges, lemons, mandarins, yuzu and grapefruit at appropriate times of the year.

Citrus in foreground, house in the background and allocasuarinas on swales in between.

More swales will be developed specifically for avocados. These particular swales will provide deeper and better top soil and allow better drainage – conditions that avocados appear to enjoy. There will also be more other fruit trees planted. We have had a few losses in the first plantings and these need to be covered.

Next spring I intend to start planting out a bush food area with trees and shrubs. There are already some around but I am getting together a list of those that do well in these conditions.

Wildlife corridors are also under development. We have planted 300 trees using a Land for Wildlife grant this year. We planted over 250 last year, all natives endemic to the area, (but not with a grant from Land for Wildlife) but lost over a third of these. Lessons have been learnt. This year I have planted in autumn following, and during, good rain and I have used bio-degradable corflute type tree guards rather than the plastic ones I used last year.

Based on our experience of last year, we should have a better success rate with this approach. The plastic slip type tree guards were not sucessful in this environment. They seemed to overheat some of the seedlings and I could never spot the things from the tractor. The new ones are bright pink, made of stronger material and assist in establishing a suitable micro-climate for most of the trees I am planting. They are 3 times the cost of the earlier ones but reusable a few times.

Some of the reveg trees with their pink guards.

More reveg trees marching up the side of the gully.

Some equipment has come and some has gone. The East Wind tractor went to a new home – for a better price than I had thought I might get – and has been replaced by a slightly larger and, much more reliable Kubota. A Tree Popper has arrived and is being used frequently in weed removal. More on that in a later post. The old Simplicity mower has, possibly, come to the end of its useful life and has been replaced by a smaller Greenfield. There are now 2 brushcutters, his and hers.

The old tractor helped with the stabilising for this battered bank (which is actually steeper than it looks in the photo).

A new shed has been constructed, but, unfortunately, not yet completely finished. This will be a workshop for both of us and will have a section for home brewing and such things. Another shed will be built this year to house machinery and equipment. Two shipping containers are now in place up on the hill in striking distance of the house. These are for storage for us and the family.

Storage on the left and chooks on the right.

The only animals that we have – apart from the birds, wallabies, dingos, snakes, many, many small marsupials and the inevitable rats and mice – are chooks. There is now a Barnevelder rooster and a couple of Barnevelder hens along with a few of the crossbreed, commercial type ones we have had for a while. There will be more animals this year.

Not long after moving to the new house. The wallabies don’t need to wait for complete wildlife corridors.

Now there is a bit more green but no wallabies this morning.

The shed that we used to live in has changed. It is now fully insulated and lined with internal walls to create three bedrooms and a study, lots of lights and nice white paint. There are now more windows to let in light. A sky light is waiting its time to go in to assist in providing light, particularly during the winter. That shed has its own shed that incorporates a shipping container for lockable storage.

The big shed, aka our old house

We always had a thought that it might be possible to let the shed out to someone who could have a comfortable residence there and who would also keep an eye on the place while we travel. That has been a successful plan and we are now on the road again. Not for years this time, just a few months.

So it will be a while before there is a new post in this series. There will, however, be some posts as we move through Ireland, Greece, the United Kingdom and, just possibly another place or two. You can find those entries over at http://www.travelblog/slowfeet

Rainbow in the valley

Early morning looking over the dam

Same morning, same dam from bedroom this time

Sunset after the storm – looking across the valley

Bunya Fight Back

Posted on January 19, 2014 by slowfeet1

We like our many Auricaria Bidwillii. We have no intention of chopping them down – or not too many anyway. We don’t try to stop them growing, in fact we tend to assist them where possible. But we are currently under active bombardment. Huge nuts are being hurled from the very top of the more mature trees, clearly with the aim of damage and destruction of anyone or thing below. And this is not the first time. It happened when we moved into the shed 2 years ago. Perhaps an attempt to drive us out?

The last time it happened we split open the fruit to extract the kernels. The fruit, that are the size of large footballs, are what you might call ‘multi-loculated’ – but not in the sense of a disease of course. You break it open into its segments and then expose the kernels by removing them from their shells. This can be tough. Needle-nose pliers were used the first year but that was a long and tedious process. There is a chance that we will adopt a more mechanical means this year. An angle grinder would appear to be a good bet.

The kernels or nuts are relatively large, for a nut. They are edible raw but not particularly tasty. It is better to boil them up for a while. Then it is possible to pound then down into a coarse flour. Mixed with basil or similar with a little oil they make for a very good pesto. You can also eat them roasted more or less like potatoes or slice them into a salad. The taste is not spectacular but they are well worth a try. They tend to pick up taste from other ingredients.

Bunyas don’t fruit every year and, thankfully, they don’t fruit all of the time. For us here in SE Queensland they seem to fruit every couple of years – based on a sample of just 2 years. Ours come on in January and they seem to all fall in about a month. So far this year we have had relatively small ones come down. I am not sure whether that is due to more wind, less water, the age of the trees or something else. The last fruiting we had a few small ones but more very large, clearly mature fruit. So far this year we are getting fruit of between 2 and 5 kgs. Last fruiting some were well over 10 kgs.

The fruit seems to form at the very top of the trees which means that they come down with a decent thump. There is generally a bit of noise as they work their way through the branches, thus giving you a bit of time to get out of the way. The branches will also break up most of the fruit on the way down, particularly if it is a large specimen thereby reducing the danger a little. As with everything on a bunya, the fruit are spiky and these spikes will easily draw blood, but then so does the bark and the leaves.

I am not too sure why the Bunyas feel the need to bomb us but I guess if I just expressed my anger or frustration once every 2 or 3 years I would be doing well.

I might just work in the shed or the open for the next couple of weeks.

Wildlife and Weeds

Gallery

Posted on November 4, 2013 by slowfeet1

This gallery contains 21 photos.

Being retired means that you do less work. Our 30 acres will not be used for the grazing of animals that we might encourage to breed so that we can sell their children for money. Nor will it be used … Continue reading →

Music While You Work

Posted on September 11, 2013 by slowfeet1

Much of my time is spent working around the block. Listening to the birds, animals and occasional traffic as well as the general quiet is fine – some of the time. There are times though when a bit of other noise is most welcome. And this has been a bit of a problem.

I have a good robust radio that can do the job. I did destroy the last one when it fell off the tractor under a wheel but the replacement works well. If only there was occasionally something worth listening to. The commercials have too many commercials. Radio National has some good stuff but can become a little serious over time. We don’t pick up ABC local radio easily and Brisbane seems to spend an inordinate amount of time providing a platform for the ignorant and ill informed. None of them provide much decent music. I will admit that I do now know rather more than I did about some women’s issues and have picked up some recipes.

Music would be good but how? I have tried an MP3 player in the past. There are issues. The ear buds are a nuisance. If you are up close and personal with the vegetation, you can spend a lot of time trying to keep the ear bud cords out of the road of random pieces of lantana or whatever. With the ear buds in you can’t hear much of anything else – rustling in the undergrowth, calls to come in for morning tea, branches heading for the ground. And I don’t find buds particularly comfortable.

I know this is a whinge but, on this occasion at least, my whingeing has delivered a surprise result.

I tend not to bother too much with Father’s Day but it does arrive relatively close to my birthday. My kids often combine to give me a gift and cover the two events. This year they have surpassed themselves.

I now have a stereo built inside a tool box funded by the two kids and built by my son. Good quality speakers and amplifier powered by a motorcycle battery all packed in material designed to ensure that the sound is pure and good.

I just plug in my MP3 player, switch on the machine and I have as much good noise as the neighbours and I can handle.

It is tough and well packed enough to be carted about in a carrier on the tractor, to lay about on the ground and generally to be treated as any piece of equipment that I work with.

: MP3 player in place

: Speakers

: Vegemite Kid gave directions

: On the Job

: The white packing assists sound

: At work

To be really honest I don’t quite treat it as badly as some of the stuff I use – so far – but it is working very well and making working on the block much better. A great gift. Very impressed.

Causeway – Done!

Posted on August 25, 2013 by slowfeet1

A road is only as good as the bit that fails. The most likely place for failure of our road is the main gully crossing. Well perhaps not fail exactly, more likely disappear. There are times when there is a great deal of water through there and a great risk that, left to its own devices, our causeway would disappear down the Mary River every time there is a flood. So, there needed to be concrete and fair bit of that.

I haven’t built a concrete causeway before and the rough estimate of the amount of concrete suggested that it might be sensible to see if we could get the job done by a contractor. Unfortunately, we ran into a problem we have encountered before in this part of the world. Finding a contractor capable and prepared to do the job was not possible. “Yeah, I’ll drop around tomorrow or the next day” is apparently code for “Look, I have enough work and I don’t need shitty little jobs where I can only pick up ten or twelve grand for two days work”. Talking to others in the area it seems that this isn’t something that just happens to newcomers. A bloke we were talking to recently spent 3 months finding a tiler.

Yet again, I became just a little irritated by people who give a commitment and don’t deliver and decided to do it myself.

The objectives for this causeway were pretty simple:

The running surface needs to be strong enough to carry a fully laden concrete truck without breaking up;
The ‘shoulders’, ‘skirts’ and ‘aprons’ – not sure if these are technical terms but I mean the bits on the sides and into the stream – need to be capable of withstanding a considerable force of water without breaking up and peeling away while maintaining the integrity of the running surface.

I wasn’t very concerned about looks although it is always nice if it looks OK.

I read a number of articles about how to build farm causeways and, while they provided some help I wasn’t really wasn’t much the wiser. I looked at causeways that seemed to work and tried to replicate the key elements. I should say that the basic formation of the causeway had been carried out by the contractor who constructed the road. We had a well formed causeway with 3 x 500mm ‘Black Brute’ pipes properly installed and covered with rock and road base. All that was required was concrete.

The plan was to, first, concrete the skirts and the aprons on both the up and down stream sides. There is a chance that we didn’t need the downstream cover to the same level as the upstream but I decided to put the same cover on both. The upstream apron was set into the stream bed 200mm. Reinforcing was placed in both skirts and aprons supported by 75mm chairs. Concrete at a minimum of 100mm thick was laid using a standard mix of 1 part GP cement, 3 parts 20mm drainage channel rock and 2 parts crusher dust (in lieu of sand). I kept the mix a little ‘stiff’ to assist in holding it in place on the sides of the causeway. The skirts and aprons took a little over 5 meters of concrete.

The running surface deserved a little more care and strength. I had intended to bring the skirts up to about 150mm to provide a bund wall that could be used in lieu of form work for the running surface. This didn’t pan out. I couldn’t really bring the skirts up that high and keep them strong. So I placed 150 mm form work for the running surface, laid builders plastic and reinforcing on a mixture of 75mm and 100mm chairs – with a few rocks after I ran out of chairs of either size.

I faced a decision at this stage. Bring in a truck or continue to mix by hand?

The150/160mm slab at an average of 3.6 x 18 meters was going to require 10 cubic meters of concrete. In this area the cost of 5 meters of concrete delivered was about $1,400 plus an additional $200 per load as a ‘Saturday’ surcharge. I would not be able to handle 5 metres of concrete on my own. With extra hands it might be possible, although with 2 of us, still tough.

Option 2 was to mix half the concrete myself and bring in a truck for the last 5 metres.

Option 3 was to mix the lot.

I decided to start out mixing and keep open the option of bringing in a truck for the last 5 metres.

As it turned out I developed a rhythm and mixed the lot. By the time I finished I reckon I had it pretty right.

The total cost of the project was a little under $3000 in materials – Reo, builders plastic, 20mm aggregate, crusher dust and cement – and 11 days mixing, including a couple of days when there were 2 of us on the job. The record amount mixed in a day was 2.3 cubic metres, achieved with Adam and I working. The best I did on my own was 1.8 cubic metres. Early to bed that night.

I used a mix that should achieve the 30MPA standard and, at the 150mm thick, should deal with a fully laden 25 tonne concrete truck but I will only be able to assess my performance on that criterion after the first truck, just as I will have to wait for a flood to see what effect that will have.

New Shed

Posted on August 15, 2013 by slowfeet1

The original plan was to keep things very simple here at the Shed. The real objective is to put the effort, and the funds, into the new house, the block and related infrastructure. We always knew that it would take a while to have the new house built and we put effort last year into making the Shed reasonably comfortable, but I have resisted doing too much else here. However, a garden was necessary and then we apparently needed some flowers and shrubs that don’t necessarily grow fruit. So, I finally decided that I might as well build a shed as well. This definitely does not mean that I don’t need a proper one up the hill.

We simply have too much stuff and most of it needs to be accessible. Tools, machinery and equipment needed a place to be stored. I needed a place to work out of the rain, and it does rain here – frequently. The vehicles needed a place to live. There are hail storms in this part of the world and rushing out with covers to try to protect the vehicles when the first few hailstones hit the roof is no fun.

A little unwieldy but not too bad. The upside of a 2.8 metre roof.

Two shipping containers carried our gear from the Top End. One is in pretty good nick and is now employed as a storage facility for all of the material that we will need in the future or that we can’t yet throw away. The other is old and tired. The roof has rusted in a number of places and it has been a struggle to keep it waterproof. It has come to the end of its road. Thus, it will be incorporated into the new shed where it will have a roof and where it can continue to function very well as a lock up workshop.

The shed needed to meet a a few needs. It had to be handy, provide cover for the vehicles, provide a waterproof roof for the ‘workshop’ container and have some storage capacity for assorted machinery and material.

While we accepted that we needed a shed we were very reluctant to spend too much on its construction. Come in Ebay. I don’t have the patience for this method of shopping but luckily I’m not the only one in this partnership. The recycled corrugated iron came from a bloke over the range who retrieves material from housing demolitions. He threw in the tek screws. I had a variety of post supports left over from other projects. Treated hardwood posts and structural pine joists came from Bunnings. I had most of the fixings left over from other jobs or recycled from structures I have demolished. Knew they would come in handy one day.

Roof going on. Not too much wind but some rain about.

I still need to do a little more tying down. A length of chain through the ‘posts’ of the container and around the bearers will provide a bit more insurance and I will include some extra bracing on a couple of the bays. And it all needs a coat of paint. This will happen in due course but I will admit that painting is a job that tends to take a little while to hit the priority list.

Post support. 400x400x400 concrete block with 200 mm bolts inserted

The total cost to date has been under $2,500. For that I have a 16 x 6 metre shed that incorporates a car port, lock up store and workshop with a couple of bays for storage that take care of the tractor, fuel and the ride on mower.

Needed a bit of light and we had a couple of sheets of poly laying about.

Strapping to tie it all together. Recycled hardwood bearers came in handy.

Home for the Hyundai, Ute and the firewood

Snazzy new clothesline. A permanent one this time.

Almost done. The red container will go up the hill eventually

Liveable, Comfortable But Definitely Temporary

Posted on July 11, 2013 by slowfeet1

This is a big subject for us and I haven’t been too sure how to approach it. Basically the development of the shed has been carried out over more than a year. A lot of issues arose and some of the solutions we found could be of use to some people considering similar options. So we will post now with a relatively broad brush and float back to particular issues or areas from time to time when something seems to warrant a little more attention. Of course, if anyone out there would like to hear about something specific, feel free to ask and we will try to oblige.

Living in a shed in this part of the country isn’t strange. The area is not that far from the places up on the ranges where some quite flash residences have been built on some very nicely cared for, but sometimes smaller, blocks. Down here in the valley the dairy farmers still compete for land with some small beef production properties. The number of lifestyle people seems to be relatively low. Our local town is only really trendy on the weekends when the tourists come in numbers.

Sheds provide a reasonable option for short term accommodation while money for the house is found or the house is built. We have previously avoided the option mainly because we have noted that it is apparently easy to become used to the shed with its increasing level of amenity, and put the house building off for rather too long. This happened so much around Humpty Doo, where we once lived, that living in a house was a little unusual.

We started out with a metal framed, 4 bay, colorbond clad shed set on a concrete slab with roller doors on 2 bays, 2 personal access doors and 2 small windows. Certainly large enough to accommodate 2 people and their occasional visitors, but comfortably and for a year or longer? No, it couldn’t do that. Changes needed to be made to address key issues:

a water supply was necessary;
we needed ablution amenities that didn’t require heading out into the rain and cold;
it had to be warmer in winter, cooler in summer;
a power supply would allow us to retire the generator from full time work;
a laundry so that clothes could be washed in a machine would be handy;
a verandah would allow exit from the shed without immediately stepping into the rain;
hot water, and cold, reticulated to the amenities and the ‘kitchen’ would be useful;
a stove would allow the barbecue to go back to being a barbecue; and
living inside on cold, wet days would be better if there were a few more windows.

Not much of a list. I gave myself 3 months to sort it out – initially.

The first big issue, and one that has not been resolved, is whether this will remain as a ‘shed’, and if you are from the planning department of our local council of course it will remain as a shed. It could conceivably, however, be brought into service as short term and temporary accommodation for all sorts of people. Perhaps even for people who might be interested in camping here and looking after the place while we are off wandering somewhere.

But because it is a shed it needs to be developed as cheaply as possible. Bring on Ebay. It has delivered most of what is here and at prices that are excellent – even if I sometimes feel like the rag and bone man tracking around the place in my overladen ute.

Water

You can become quickly tired of carting water in drums. Two 22,500 litre (5000 gallon) plastic tanks started to address that issue. There was a minor difficulty when it started to rain – and fill the tanks – just as we decided that one needed to be moved a metre or two. It is very difficult to move a tank when it has any water in it at all.

High speed action involving the ute, the Tirfor hand winch and a couple of Snatch-Um straps saved the day but it was line ball between losing the water and moving the tank.

Ablution Amenities

The outdoor amenities provided reasonable service but to be honest there were complaints and a few difficulties. After one experience my mother-in-law announced that she would return when we had a ‘proper’ toilet.

Adequate for a time but maybe a little more airflow than necessary

We had taken all of the space within the shed with the expanding gear we found stored in our shipping containers. So a new bay was added to the shed and fitted out with a toilet, shower area, laundry and a large pantry/larder. Easy peasy but it did keep us busy and took rather too long to get there.

We needed a supervisor but who?

If I had my time over again that tank wouldn’t be in quite that spot

It was a lot of work to erect this frame but we made it – and then I realised it was 50mm too high.

It took a few months to get to this point

Amenities area with walk in pantry on the left

Shower

Verandah

The verandah and its slab were installed as part of the same project as the amenities bay. We had one 5 cubic metre truck load of concrete delivered and I mixed the remaining 8 cubic metres myself at great value to my level of fitness.

The team arrived regularly and helped get us over the bigger lumps.

Building the bond beam first turned out to be a useful strategy

No team today. Things move more slowly.

Would have been a little easier if we had bought the bigger tractor.

The truck made things easier but too difficult to handle without the team

Doing its job as a nice place to sit. Note the big windows set under the roller doors

Warmer/Cooler

As our friendly architect pointed out, a millimetre of tin won’t keep the cold or the heat out. Insulation was clearly necessary but lining the interior seemed to be going a little too far and that would make it difficult instal insulation. We found, on Ebay, some foil and foam material at a good price. OK, so at times it feels like we are living inside an cooler bag but we are warmer and cooler as needs be.

Hire of a scissor lift allowed us to get it all installed in a few days. A bit of shifting of furniture and such was an acceptable extra bit of work

We will line it one day but probably not before we move into the real house

A major, and probably somewhat indulgent, addition was the heater. We could have existed with our kero heater, perhaps supplemented, but we found – on Ebay – a Tassie Barrel wood heater. I intstalled it – pretty well if I do say so myself – and it provides us with a nice amount of warmth and a bit of charm. With the heater operating at about 50% capacity we can keep the shed about 12 degrees above the outside temperature.

An old beer keg but does the job beautifully helping keep us up to 12 degrees C above outside temperature

No leaks and the smoke comes out the appointed place. Success.

Power Supply

Our first foray into the local tradespeople supply situation didn’t bode well for our future house building plans. We tried 4 electricians. Two actually turned up to look at the job but they never returned. Eventually, we called in a favour from my nephew who wired the shed and gave us the opportunity to get to know 2 of my great neices.

As well as getting the power distributed around the shed we needed to have the power connnected to the block. The first estimate came in at $65,000. We immediately set off to check out stand-alone solar systems. A top of the line system that would have met all of our needs was available for about $45,000. You do have to replace storage batteries though. It was a possible but we then established that we could bring the power across from the transformer on the main road for a relatively small charge and give ourselves probably reliable mains power if we installed larger than normal cabling. That was the option we took. We have posts and cabling now. The job was done for $22,000 and the bloke who did it turned up when he said he would and did a job to the agreed standard. Our faith in tradespeople was restored – a little.

Stove and Hot Water

This was another trades job. I am happy to muck around with pipes and such but draw the line at the types of pipes that carry stuff that can explode. The local plumber was again reliable and did a good job. My faith in local tradespeople has been restored.

Light

Living inside on a cold, wet day was a little like living in a cave. Pretty dank.

Ebay came to the rescue. A variety of windows have been installed including some large, full length ones that are set in place of the roller doors. We could still do with a few more I think but there are competing priorities.

The other day we were talking to some people about what might be at the end of our new road. They were surprised when we explained that it would be a house. ‘What, another one?’ So, I guess it must at least look the part.

Starting to look like it belongs

Our New Road

Posted on July 4, 2013 by slowfeet1

Call it a driveway, an access track or a long and winding road; it is now in place and looking pretty special.

When we first looked at this block we cast an eye over one particular gully – of the half dozen available – and wondered how much water might come through. A month after we took up residence the water came through and it was pretty special. The theory that ‘we might need a bit of a causeway there’ shifted to thoughts of bridges, dams and roads in different places.

In our normal style we avoided the issue for as long as possible. The shed to store our gear while we travelled, and which is now our temporary home, was placed to provide access avoiding the gullies. Eventually, though, we decided that the best site on the block for the sort of house we want to build is on the side of the hill and access needed to be sorted.

The plan for this block involves creating a number of zones – a domestic zone for the house, vegetable garden, some animals; a grazing zone probably in 3 or 4 identified cleared areas; and a zone that would include both the current native vegetation and areas that we want to revegetate. This revegetation zone includes all of the gullies and low lying areas and link to the current bush at the top of the hill. It is important that the access road provides good access while not compromising the revegetation plans too much. At the same time we also need a road that doesn’t end up in the Mary River every time we receive a couple of inches of rain.

All of this is relevant but it also demonstrates how much I don’t know.

Yes, the crossing was an issue, but at least as substantial were half a dozen other areas along the length of the road. In some of the areas the clay subsoil had become inundated. In other areas the subsoil is a sort of sloppy grey mush – like porridge but without the lumps. Water coming off the hill, in addition to the stuff flowing through the grass, was seeping along between the nice topsoil and the clay subsoil, ensuring that it was, and remained, nicely inundated.

The road is a tad under 500 metres long. Eighty ‘body’ trucks delivered a total of 709 tonnes of processed overburden – basically gravel material but with rocks that vary from 25-75mm and 400 tonnes of 75-150mm ‘spec sized spalls’ – shot rock. We used 3 X 450mm ‘Black Brute’ pipes in the main gully, another large pipe plus two small – 300mm – ones in the dam overflow and further 3 of the small pipes at strategic places along the road. At areas of concern, high tech fabric was laid either under or over the rock, occasionally both, to provide extra stability and ensure that the subsoil did not arrive at the surface.

To keep the water away from the subsoil in the future, drainage trenches and gutters were installed in appropriate places along the length of the road.

8.RoadthruCreek

Major earthworks involved the building of a substantial bund wall to divert the significant overland flow that occurs whenever we receive more than 50mm of rain in a day or two. This water, if it all goes to plan. will now flow back into the main channel of the gully. To protect the entry point of this water to the gully we also brought in 3 truck loads of ‘armour’ rock – up to 1 metre boulders – to place in the shute. These rocks were carefully placed to protect the area on top of an even more expensive high tech fabric called ‘Grass Roots’ I think. The rocks were covered by topsoil and grass scalped from well-grassed areas of the block and, with some luck, there will be a good cover by the time the next flood arrives.

One bit is yet to be sorted. We still need the causeway or culvert that we originally considered might be all that was needed. The earthworks are done, the pipes are in and it all looks the part; but, with a large amount of water over the top, it is likely to head for the Mary River. So we need a substantial concrete causeway. So far we haven’t had much luck finding a local contractor. My current plan is to do the job myself, perhaps with a little help.

SLOWFEET STOP – FOR NOW

Posted on August 27, 2012 by slowfeet1

We have been quiet for a while but it’s time we came to grips with this next phase of our lives. After travelling for 3 years, and blogging about it all at www.mytb.com/slowfeet we have stopped. This is not a permanent condition. We may not travel for quite so long in the future but we will be on the move again. There are people to meet, places to see and roads to wander. For now, though, we really do need to something about our homelessness. It is the responsible thing to do.

There were a few options in play. We did the suburban thing many years ago and can’t see that as an option again but a nice apartment in the city? Close to restaurants, theatres and family. Attractive, but maybe when we are a little older. Setting up again on a bush block in the Northern Territory. We have the block and there are a lot of good friends about there. No family though and that is a problem. A couple of hectares with a nice house close enough to the city for all of the services? We did look hard but they all seemed just that bit too squeezy. So we have ended up on 30 interesting acres flogged, we think by a dairy farmer with a cash flow issue and because it was too difficult to farm. Not so close to a city that services are easily available but in a very nice part of the country and not that far from family, really.

The block from up the hill a little

When we bought our acreage we had a large but basic shed built on it, shifted our two shipping containers, packed with our goods and chattels, into it and promptly left the country. That story is on our travelblog site in rather too much detail I suspect.

The containers brought our stuff from the NT and stored it safely while we travelled the world

With no house on the block we needed to find some accommodation while we negotiate a design for a house and get construction organised. That will take time. We had the option of renting close by but we knew that the development task required to turn a rough, weed infested block into a nice place to live would be assisted if we didn’t have to travel to and from the place to do the necessary work. We decided that we could cope with living in the shed until the house is built. I should note though that we made that decision when it was warm.

The shed is just that. It sits on a slab, steel framed and metal clad. Sixteen metres long and 7.5 metres wide it is large enough, but that is about it. No bathroom or toilet. No water. Exposed to all that the sun and cold can deliver with no insulation or lining. No electricity and no plumbing. No telephone and not much internet cover. And, a drainage problem that allowed water to flow in under the walls when it rained.

They needed to come out so we could move in

One of us is a calm, positive person who can cope with just about anything. She was never going to have too much trouble, always provided that the house on the hill remained clearly on the agenda, along with those trips to West Africa, Ireland, Greece, the Middle East … The other one of us, though, is not so accommodating. It was clear that the construction of a proper house would take a time and we needed to be reasonably comfortable while that was going on so to sort things out a bit.

The basic plan was to:

organise a water supply, waste removal, basic amenities and some power;

progressively replace temporary arrangements until the shed is more comfortable;

take action on the worst of the weed infestations;

get started on design of the house and development of the block.

All pretty straightforward but perhaps rather more work than I had intended as an old, retired bloke. I have been told that we should record our progress and we have decided to do so. Much of it may not be of great interest to others but some could be of interest to others doing, or contemplating, a similar thing. Others may just get a laugh out of what we are doing or wonder at our stupidity. Friends and family will get to hear a little more frequently what we are up to. In any case, I will write progressively about what has happened and is happening and, if it is of interest to others, your comments are very welcome.

I should also point out that it will take a little time to get to ‘real time’. We have been here now for 8 months. I will cover some of the highs and lows in the next few, or perhaps more than a few, posts.

I may also get used to using this program.

bunyagully

Author Archives: slowfeet1