The Old Church Block

The Flower Family moves to Crows Nest

2009-10-25T09:01:00.001+10:00

So the next step in the long running grand plan has been taken. We are now Crows Nest residents and what a relief! For those of you who are not facebook friends, here are some pics of the new house:

The view from our front yard and just one of the many roses in our garden.

The backyard, showing two of three sheds, and existing fruit trees.

The dog run – for entrapment during the day and our shady place under the tree.

Looking back towards the house from under the tree.

The lounge room, sitting end and tv watching end.

The dining room, and the study. So many rooms!

The kitchen and resident chef.

The walk in pantry! The bathroom.

The guest room, ready and waiting.

There is also our room and bubbies room. The nursery is still a work in progress, almost there, just a couple of things to put together. Bit frightening each time we walk past and look in to see a room for a baby!

Small town life has been very kind to us so far. Dom is now a five min bike ride to work (downhill all the way there, a bit more effort required to get home!) and my drive is an easy 35 mins or so bopping along to my favourite tunes.

The dogs are very happy, in their run during the day chomping on bones and exploring the acre of yard they have been gifted when we are home. BJ loves the horses over the road and likes to bark a deep hello to them if they approach the fence opposite our house. Gypsy is coming to terms with the anti-bark collar we invested in and is trying her best to be a very good girl now that she is primarily an outside dog!

We have been busy meeting lovely locals and yesterday attended our very first Crows Nest Day as part of the week long Crows Nest festival. We took it in two shifts, attending the parade, chainsaw races and markets during the day then back at night for a roast dinner, country music and fireworks! Lovely. And to top it all off, the middle of the afternoon surprised us with a wonderful drenching storm which our current garden and the block are sure to have loved.

Dom checking out the restored engines pumping away noisily.

Chainsaw racing. The goal is to cut three ‘biscuits’ (thin slices of log) no wider than the marked lines. First to loft his chainsaw high, with three completed biscuits wins! Very noisy, sawdust in your eyes, awesome :)

The parade seemed to be themed on the many forms of available transport, and also celebrated 150 years of Queensland. So there was foot transport, with drums and pipes, and tractor transport.

Horse and carriage transport and just plain old horse.

Beautifully resorted classic cars, and if you have four feet use those too! (This one is for you Tash!)

There was dirt bike transport, as any self respecting Crows Nest child knows is the ONLY way to get around, and apparently even emu transport!

Centenary Park in the centre of town was transformed into a market place, entertainment space and dining room.

Then home for a pair of snoozes only to be awoken by the fury of this storm.

And then back into town for a lovely roast dinner, to listen to a live country music performance and the grand finale fireworks display. Oh and icecreams, there were icecreams :)

In other news, we have been in contact with Ergon and they have pegged out the placement for our power connection. Still quoting that it will be done by January. We need to speak to our sparky to get a builder’s pole erected, as if it is there when Ergon show up they will connect the service to the pole as part of the deal. So need to get on to that!

We actually haven’t been out to the block since moving here… should go out this afternoon. Dom is out re-discovering his love of golf at the Crows Nest Golf Club. Loving the honesty box system on a Sunday morning which means, as long as the sun is up and you have 10 dollars in your pocket you can play :) Hoping to get across to the Cabarlah markets once he gets home to stock up on local fruit and veg for the week, then home to relax away the last of the weekend – so maybe a Sunday drive out to the block will be in order.

Anybody remember us???

2009-09-20T12:48:00.001+10:00

Sometimes we are not sure if we remember us either! Looking back at my last post I can see how very long we have been out of the loop.

Those in the know, know of course that the previously mentioned Cowboy Flu actually turned out to be me realising I was pregnant! And the needs of the growing little one left me feeling just awful for a couple of months, preventing us from getting out to the block. Well we tried once, and here are some images of what Dom got up to while I sat in the shade and sulked :)

Dom building something… a raised garden bed.

Gypsy helping her Dad out with the building…

BJ helping his Mum out with the sulking and laying about in the sun.

Other than that trip we didn’t get out much until just recently. Once I recovered from the early stages of pregnancy, we spent a number of weekends in a row with Dom’s family as his Dad has been ill, and more recently Dom has been focussing on his TAFE assessments.

Today we popped out for an hour or so as Dom has to put together a bug collection and we thought the block would be a great place to catch some bugs! Fun was had running about the place chasing erratically flying butterflies with a net and we did manage to catch three! So that is a start!

And the big news is that we have managed to score a rental house in Crows Nest! As of mid-October our new abode will be this place:

So another step towards our goal! And hopefully a nice quiet life for our growing little family :)

But the even BIGGER news is that we have finally made progress towards getting the power on at the block. We have officially accepted the offer for connection and have paid for the connection, now we just have to sit back at wait the six months or so they say it will take! But very very exciting, and Dom is already dreaming of using power tools (without limiting battery packs) to get all sorts of new jobs done.

The move will keep us busy, but then once settled in Crows we hope to be out at the block more often and I will keep you in the loop.

Happy Summer Days to All!

Constructive time apart…and some soup

2009-05-14T11:58:00.001+10:00

It was such a busy week last week that it is already the Thursday of the following week before I get around to updating here. Phew! And only today because I am home sick with a Cowboy Flu! Yep. I visited some cowboys and they gave me the flu.

Last week I packed up my new corporate work uniform, work car and knitting needles (to be explained) and headed west with a Colleague to man the College stand at the Roma Show. The show was a bit slow but we had a great time checking out the other stalls, watching some show jumping and generally relaxing away from our usual jobs. The best bit, however, was that my travelling companion is a knitter and not just any knitter but a show-prize-winning knitter from New Zealand! The best kind :) As soon as I found out that I was going to be away for a few days with her I picked up the knitting needles again, not held since childhood, and got back in the swing ready for some intensive lessons.

First attempt was focussed on not dropping stiches! Once I got the hang of that I moved on to plain knitting and started working on this scarf:

That one is still a work in progress, over a metre long and going to be warm as warm can be! I am knitting a blue acrylic yarn together with a white wool, as when I first started I couldn’t handle only the one thread. Then I learnt how to purl. Yep, the other kind of knit! After much trial and error I figured out how to knit a row then purl a row and have been working on this little skinny scarf for my buddy Sarah:

It has been coming along and should be finished before she arrives. It is a variegated acrylic and once again I am knitting two strands together. But then came the big lessons. When my mother visited us a little while ago she was kind enough to bring me some knitting needles, yarn and a magazine. In that magazine was a headband which I thought would be a great first project for pattern following. So after some quick instruction from my travelling companion I had it on the needles and away! This time in a variegated wool yarn. And over two nights and a few glasses of wine, I cast off my first ever finished knitting project all on my own!

Very, very satisfying! And keeps your ears warm too! When I got home I got stuck into a larger scale version in purples and whites which I use as a cowl, either around my neck or around my head hippie style :) Next plan is to get my scarves finished then launch into trying some patterns for whatever I want to make!

So apologies all around to those of you who are here for the nature shots and building progress. Sometimes I will use this blog to brag about my knitting :)

So, while I was wiling away the hours in western Queensland, Dom was busy on a chainsaw course as part of his traineeship and then got busy on the block fixing the tin in place.

When he arrived at the block on Friday he found the evidence of critters making use of our shade shelter! Yep. Poop! If anyone out there can identify it, please let us know.

Then with much workplace health and safety and the occasional text to his wife in Roma the tin became a roof!

Thanks Dom! There are still a few gaps at the rear, near the shed. We plan to head out to the scrap yard that doesn’t sell timber again this Saturday to find some shorter lengths to patch up the gaps. Then a little silicon of some sort in the holes and away we go!

Oh and on the way out the gate Dom stopped off to do a little fence fixing as can be seen below.

On the Sunday after I got back from Roma we headed out to the block so that I could see the wonder that is our roof for myself. Dom’s Mum dropped in for a visit while Dom was Batching it too so a family lunch by the fireside was called for.

First job was to plant out a lovely native that Dom recently acquired. It is a lovely sturdy little fellow called Banksia Serrata. So Dom dug a nice big hole and gave him some healthy soil to spread his roots into and with a good feed of fish emulsion and a dripper left for company he was settled. Let’s hope we have more success with this guy than the last planting attempt!

Then it was time for Dom to demonstrate his new professional chain sawing skills. He not only learnt how to look after his chainsaw and do safe, simple cutting and trimming, but he was taught some bush craft as well. The tradesman explains and demonstrates:

Then before we knew it a bush stool was created. Check it out in the little video below:

Next on the agenda, after all the hard work, and witnessing of hard work, was lunch. We had brought out a little left over potato and leek soup and Jane quickly had it bubbling away on the fire. Lovely!

So, things are really moving along. We are out there again this week to get the shelter tidied up. And then plan to go to the Toowoomba Home Show this weekend to scope out some local builders. One tiny step at a time :)

Labour Day Labours (or phase three, four and five)

2009-05-04T20:08:00.001+10:00

Once again we are at the end of a weekend, be it a long one. But so much was achieved over the last three days! Family were enjoyed, timber was purchased, nails were embedded and Camp Anduramba took one giant step closer to the dream.

On Saturday Dom and I were up early with car packed with gardening implements and tools and our two dogs. The goal was to tidy up the block as on Sunday we were expecting guests! Oh, and we recently purchased four lovely brackets and some boxes chock full of nails and bolts – so Dom was keen to attach brackets to shed, in preparation for building a shelter onto the front of the shed.

The shed as it was:

Lots of brush cutting was done, tidying up the previously cropped camp area, adding a new swanky driveway and even a meandering garden path to somewhere… In the morning we had visited the local scrap merchant in Crows Nest, hoping to pick up all of the lumbar and tin required to construct our shelter. After being told to rummage outside and take what we want – Dom got stuck in choosing the best lengths of timber. This was short lived, however as the shop keep came out of her shed hideaway to advise us that actually, that timber wasn’t for sale. When questioned as to what timber was for sale, the answer? None! Umm. Ok! The tin was for sale, however, and we quickly availed ourselves of six sheets, at only $2.00 a sheet! Bargain! A roof for $12.00.

So, on the block, Dom got busy with his power tools and with some cooperative communication through the shell of the shed, the four brackets were in place.

Sunday saw the happy arrival of our visitors. First to arrive was Bethany and family, including relatives all the way from Austria! Our first foreign guests on the block… We met up with the travelling group, booked them into their hotel and went to the lovely Picnic Point for a spot of breakfast. Next to arrive was Luke, totally unaware that he was about to be conscripted to the Camp Anduramba work force! Into our cars we clambered and out to the block we commuted.

On arrival we threw together a lovely cold meat and fresh salad picnic lunch and enjoyed the serenity – or sat in fear of Australian native wildlife, depending on Nationality :) In true blogging style, I managed to not remember to get a photo of this gathering… maybe someone else did?

After lunch the tourists and their chaperones were off and Luke, Dom and I got busy in framing up the shelter in preparation for the roof.

Some discussion was held:

Much clambering about and sawing and nailing at odd angles was managed:

Alternative construction methods were implemented:

And in the end a pleasing result as the basic frame of beams and rafters was complete! Thanks Luke, it would never have been possible without your concept of chock!

Monday morning and Dom and I were up again to farewell Luke and head out to the local hardware conglomerate to get the battens needed for fixing our tin. We had not imaged that we would be needing them so soon, but this was a weekend of big movements! So battens sourced, once again we were at the block in our best work wear and ready to get the next step completed.

With much climbing about without a safety net Dom had all the lengths in place and strapped down tightly in a matter of hours.

Working as a highly efficient unit, one aloft and the other firmly grounded, we were ready to experiment with tin placement by mid afternoon. $12.00 worth of tin was dragged out of the shed and placed about first one way, then the next, and yes, I am afraid there was not enough! So another trip to the junkyard is called for, as is a session with limited batteries running a low powered drill. Much fun to be had. But as a teaser – check this out!

Camp Anduramba, soon with outdoor entertainment patio!

Camp Anduramba – Phase Two, now with ensuite

2009-03-01T18:19:00.001+10:00

Another two days off work and another station wagon filled with Flowers and their dogs, tools and stuff heading out to the block to get stuff done.

We hit the ground running with project ensuite! Our kindly benefactor (previous owner of the block) had left us with a shower base and stand to sit it on. So it was all action stations, see pics or the video below for the results:

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Next step was to go and cut down some dead trees for lumbar. We collected a nice pile of shiny beams!

I then took the opportunity to catch up some important literary study (umm novel reading) while Dom set to work expanding our empire. That brushcutter went off!

Our favourite lumberjack sees an object in every fallen timber.. so two small stumps and a generous log soon became:

A comfortable fire-side stool.

After a disturbed nights sleep (note to self don’t attempt to sleep along a slope…) Dom was up bright and early and getting stuck into operation, build a whole new room!

Within a matter of hours logs that had been laying peacefully on the ground were upright, firmly placed into position. The plan is a large tin-covered outdoor room to use as our living area, thus removing the need for temporary tarps. Looking good, don’t you think? The fun is on each weekend, so any other keen lumberjacks, sword smiths or novel readers are welcome to join in the fun!

Camp Anduramba – Phase One!

2009-02-22T14:48:00.001+10:00

To the good news first. Dom has started his Horticulture Course and is really enjoying it so far, and just last week he picked up some casual work at a local avocado farm! Yay to him getting some work, Yay to it being in the Horticulture Industry and Double Yay for the free avocados!

So in celebration we planned to go out to the block and camp for the weekend. But then I realised I had to work on Saturday (eww!) and by the time I got back home on Saturday afternoon, the mood had passed. So we were up early on Sunday morning instead and out to the block in the crisp clear coolness of the morning.

The Crows Nest region has had a few large bucket loads of water so far this year. Take a look at these figures just for February so far:

Measure Date	Rainfall (mm)
Feb 1	4.2
Feb 2	0.4
Feb 3	0.4
Feb 4	5.0
Feb 11	1.2
Feb 12	0.4
Feb 13	3.6
Feb 14	5.0
Feb 17	3.6
Feb 18	4.8
Feb 19	2.0
Feb 20	8.6
Feb 21	22.2
Feb 22	14.4
Total	75.8

How’s that! And add that to 49.0 mm in January and we are getting off to a great start! Pity we don’t have a roof and a hand of tanks to collect all the water. But we are able to appreciate the explosion of life that comes from so much water. When we arrived at the block we found grass a plenty, emerald green and stretching towards the sky. We stumbled across buttons of mushrooms on logs and under leaves and encroaching on clearings. And we even found a lovely succulent meandering its way across the ground soaking up and storing every drop.

The medium term plan (while we rebuild our savings) with the block is to set up Camp Anduramba – the lower socio economic relative of Castle Anduramba, the middle class cousin who will hopefully, one day become Insert Name Here otherwise known as Our Actual House!

So, the plan was to clear an area in front of the shed where we generally hang out when we are camping. To formalise the area a little by laying logs as borders, to move some of the timber stockpiles up to the campsite and to maybe actually build something!

We hit the ground running, with Dom hacking and slashing his way through the growth and me doing an excellent job of keeping the dogs out of his way…hmm. Then we set to wandering about the block chopping up stuff with the chainsaw, and of course temptation took over and before I knew it a couple of dead trees lost their powers of vertical and succumbed to the horizontal.

Then came the fun of dragging, hefting or rolling the logs back to base camp. I trudged along with my medium sized lumbar and Dom staggered back and forth with his megaliths. A quick change of plans mid way through saw us clearing another section of land to incorporate the current fire pit – to avoid having to create a new one, and to enlarge the living room! So I got my first ever turn with the brushcutter and cut much brush.

And all of a sudden it was mission accomplished and break time. Click on the image for a larger version of the new, controlled Camp Anduramba.

But once moving, it is hard to get a Flower to stop, so next Dom attacked the wood pile and dug out a few good hardwood timbers from the rotten heap and unearthed the untouched treated coppers logs (some with concrete socks on). These were then all trudged up to the camp site as well!

Which had now become Camp Lumbaryard! We couldn’t end the morning without building something Steel Rudd style, so you can see below the absolutely essential campsite bench seat under construction!

And complete. Well almost complete. In true tinkering style, the seat underwent a few additions and improvements ensuring that even an elephant could plonk down for a rest without destroying the furniture. As long as it is a very small elephant of course.

So satisfied that we have achieved something and inspired to return next weekend to build another piece of essential bush furniture we returned home to relax before another week of work and study and dreaming.

On His Selection

2009-01-28T22:11:00.001+10:00

“PIONEERS OF AUSTRALIA!

To You “Who Gave Our Country Birth”; to the memory of You whose names, whose giant enterprise, whose deeds of fortitude and daring were never engraved on a tablet or tombstone; to You who strove through the loneliness through the years that have faded away; to You who have no place in the history of our Country; so far as it is yet written; to You who have done MOST for this land; to You for whom few, in the march of settlement, in the turmoil of busy city life, now appear to care; and to you particularly, GOOD OLD DAD, this book is most affectionately dedicated.”

Steele Rudd (Arthur Hoey Davis) – Foreward, ‘On Our Selection’

This blog entry is inspired by a great Australian. We are lucky enough to live here in Steele Rudd Country and a visit by Jane (yay, first visitor!) was reason enough to go exploring.

Travelling South West from Toowoomba we headed to Pittsworth and turned off the beaten track in search of the land of Dad and Dave. The sky turned on quite a show for us as you can see.

Arriving in the small town of Nobby after drifting through rolling hills of farmland, corn and sunflower, dead grass and sometimes nothing, we set off first to find the burial place of another local hero. Sister Kenny, of the region, pioneered successful Polio treatments on the farmer’s children much to the angst of the establishment and as such is remembered for her enduringly rebellious spirit. She was so pioneering in fact that we couldn’t locate her grave in the local cemetery. Perhaps she is laid to rest somewhere else. But there is nothing quite like the education received from 10 minutes looking back into the lives of those that came before. Tales were evident of vast family legacies, plots beside plots. And reminders of the struggle of the past, with deaths of small children and families in groups. All mourned, all remembered.

The view from the ‘top’ of the Nobby cemetery, plenty of space left in readiness for generations of pioneers to come.

We pulled into the one street town, a post office/general store, an art gallery, a craft shop and Steele Rudd’s Pub! Inside was a clutter of paraphernalia, not a wall space was left, not a beam un-hung. A favourite of mine was the small image below painted on a large leaf. Simply beautiful.

Below Jane inspects the artefacts while we await our light lunch of seafood delicacies… I know, seafood in the bush, but hey, it was on the menu!

Obviously set up for the large group bus tour crowd, the pub meanders back and back through disjointed rooms into ever increasing dining spaces all with that rustic charm.

After a tasty meal and some friendly service, and some not so friendly, we headed West again in search of the Steele Rudd Memorial Hut on the supposed site of his family selection. And just when we thought that we had missed it there it was! The sign I am dangling off was carved and placed in site by a relative of Mr Rudd himself and the whole memorial designed, constructed and up kept by community workers and community good will.

And below is the replica hut. Tiny house anyone? Apparently a family of 13 children made their way into life in a hut just like this. In fact, inside is a slab of timber that claims to be from the original Rudd dining table. And from the feel of it it had soaked up more than the odd spilled tea, it sang of a tactile past and of many a merry meal and disillusioned dinner.

Inside you can see that the insulation practices of the time were not quite up to our standards, but the positive is that you would awake each morning to the twinkling of many little lights…or perhaps to the drops of cold rain.

Dom inspects the cow shed and farming implements, marvelling at the ingenious construction techniques designed we suppose around a complete lack of nails and screws.

The rough shingles of the roof framed by powerful clouds.

I loved the opportunity to see and touch and feel and hear the country and the replica buildings. And best of all I have loved that, in telling others where I have been, I have introduced a number of new people to the joy that is Steele Rudd’s authorship.

The next day we were up bright and early and into the Carbarlah markets, midway between Toowoomba and Crows Nest. These lovely sprawling markets had a range of goodies from home made goods, to woodworked marvels, to exotic fruit trees and cheap Chinese imports. A great little market that goes a little nuts at Christmas, or so we have heard.

Then to the block for a look see and for Jane to take a little more time to explore than her previous visit. Below in the panorama, if you click to see a larger view you will spy a tiny Jane surveying her son’s own selection.

And there we are the happy family, allowing Mr Stump Frog to take our picture to capture the moment.

On a side note – we have been enjoying the rain lately, 47.2mm so far this year!

“No mistake, it was a real wilderness – nothing but trees, “goannas”, dead timber, and bears; and the nearest house – Dwyers – was three miles away. I often wonder how the women stood it the first few years; and can remember how Mother, when she was alone, used to sit on a log, where the lane is now, and cry for hours.”

Steele Rudd (Arthur Hoey Davis) – ‘On Our Selection’

From Seadoo to Chainsaw…at Castle Anduramba

2009-01-15T18:00:00.001+10:00

So time for an update! The new year is well upon us and we are feeling more like mountain citizens every day. Our little house is lovely, dogs well settled into their new routines and I’ve almost completed two weeks in my new job.

The best bit about being here is the 40 minute drive to our piece of paradise. We have come up with a new interim plan, or project to keep us busy! Inspired by a pioneer-type living in central Crows Nest we are looking into expanding our existing shed into a two room palace! See the pic below for our inspiration:

We love the iron cladding, ramshackle additions and multiple solar panels running those little necessities. And if this guy can do it in central Crows, then no one will bother us out in the ‘Ramba, surely!

So out to the block we went to measure and string and wander about visualising.

Dom spoke to a local hardware store specialising in package deals about how much to build a tin-walled room which would become our bedroom and washroom. I say washroom, not bathroom and really, without running water can it be a bathroom? Perhaps bucketroom will become the vernacular! They came back with a quote of about $3500 which sounds pretty decent! And if we keep our eye out for great recycled deals and giveaways we could bring that price right down. So operation Build Castle Anduramba will develop over the next months…maybe when it gets a bit cooler!

We have been exploring our new local area as well. Dom is missing his easy-access fishing spots so we went for a morning drive west towards Jondaryn and a spot called Bowenville Reserve. This is listed in the top three fishing spots in the area behind Cressbrook Dam and Lake Cooby. It is a free camping site with an ablution block and not much else in the middle of a rural farming area along side a lovely river. The river is stocked by the fisheries department and the local fishing guy told us it is the best place to go with an esky of beer and a fishing rod!

The day we went was just after a night of heavy rain and our sturdy station wagon found the going tough once we were on site, with the mud. There were three or so camping groups all peering at us from within their set ups and with our two overly excited pups we didn’t get to explore in full. But we can see the potential of the spot and would recommend it to anyone looking for a peaceful and free getaway! The shot below is of the road between Toowoomba and the Oakey bypass:

Another day trip took us out to Lake Cooby, a water catchment for the Toowoomba region. After a peaceful drive on narrow roads through a rural zone nestled in behind Highfields we made it to the dam wall. There are two spots to stop and spend some time at Cooby. The first is a wonderful long winding shady parkland along the overflow creek below the wall. The area was beautiful, peaceful with recently installed barbecues, picnic tables and a fantastic playground for the little ones and young at heart. And some beautiful old trees:

From the same spot you can wander along the top of the wall and the shot below is a panoramic of the dam itself. Maps show what it would look like when full, which I’m sure we will see again before too long…right? Click on the image for a larger version.

As you know we were given the surprise Christmas gift of a Seadoo Jet Ski thanks to a raffle we entered when we bought our car. After a short listing on Ebay we sold it to a family man from down south and much to our pleasure found that we had some cash to spend on little necessities! And what does an outback land owner need more than a brushcutter and a chainsaw! No self respecting weed or fallen log can last long when Dom is around! We went into Crows Nest to buy the new toys from the local dealer, Doug and needless to say Dom is one happy man!

In other news, Dom has decided to follow his passion and study a Certificate in Horticulture at the local TAFE and is looking for casual work to support his studies. I am settling into my new job and loving every day. Life is moving forward in the most delightful way.

We're Here!

2008-12-18T10:05:00.009+10:00

A week after offically arriving in Toowoomba we have access to the internet so I can share with you all our progress! Dom has been working away at his new job since Monday leaving me to set up house and run errands. We are pretty settled now, just in time for the test match so everything is running to schedule!

So, would you like a tour of our little house?

Here is our street! And at the end there is the wonderful off-leash dog park that runs for a couple of kilometres through our suburb. Dogs love it, we love it!

This is our house! With a lovely little front porch to sit and watch the world go by. And a small dog-free front garden.

Just inside and to the right is our bedroom! A nice big room with a built in cupboard and air conditioning! On the other side off the hallway is the guest room, which at the moment has nothing in it worthy of taking a photo!

A little futher down the hall and on the left is our utility room, ironing board, shoes, golf clubs, all the essentials :)

And on to the lounge room. A bit of a tight squeeze, but cosy is nice! And with our new policy of no dogs in the main house (unless we invite them!) there is suddenly a lot more room on the couch for us!

And off the lounge is the cosy eat in kitchen. And next to that the child gate from heaven that keeps the dogs in the laundry (gradually, day by day, they are learning that being outside, on the grass stuff is not so bad and every now and then I catch them enjoying being outside! Like real dogs!).

Behind the gate, at this stage, we may move it once we figure out how to secure it, is the bathroom, toilet and laundry.

And then you are out the back door into a giant backyard!

Complete with Hills Hoist, which I haven't bumped my head on....yet. Our street is a three minute drive from my work, a five minute drive from Dom's and surrounded by little corner stores and regional shopping centres. It is five minutes into the middle of town as well, so perfect really!

Last weekend, the day after we had settled in we drove out to the block just to remind ourselves that we are now so close! The drive took 55 minutes from door to shed door, including about 10 minutes waiting at traffic lights in the middle of nowhere on the road works they are doing. So it is safe to say that it will be about 50 minutes from my work to our house when it is built, and I can certainly live with that!

The area has had a lot of rain lately and it certainly shows, the dams are bright and shiny and full, the grass is long and green and the birds are singing with joy.

Click on the images for larger versions.

And that is about it for now. We are focussed on saving every penny to get through this move and three weeks that I am not working, then once our routines are set next year we can start on operation build-a-house! Oh and hopefully play some golf....

An Update, but slightly off topic...

2008-11-29T17:31:00.007+10:00

So, time I suppose, for an update! However, we are about to digress from the overall theme.

Here is the news! Dom and I have decided to move to Toowoomba and as such have rented a house for 12 months. We have both secured jobs there and even bought a lovely new car for the trips back and forth. What happened to the pioneering plans of living it rough on the block? Why rent when we could be building our own place? Well..

A month or so ago we met with Kevin the local Crows Nest electrician at the block. And took some time to clean the gutters...as you do.

We had intended to arrange for Kevin to install a builder's power pole so we could draw electricity to the shed and commence living, small style. But as we probably should have expected, his news was not overly positive. The power lines running past our place are actually high voltage lines, meaning we need a transformer to access the power. This, obviously comes at a cost (up to $30 000 depending on the option available to us) and will take some time (up to 9 months is the worst case scenario). Deep in the stress of trying to find new jobs and attain finance we decided the best option was to take a step back, concentrate on securing our incomes in the region and rent a house for 12 months.

So that we did! This morning we took a drive to 'Woombie to pick up the keys to our new place and do our tenant's inspection. We will be moving to 13 Swallow Court, Newtown on 12 December. Unfortunately the house has been taken down from the realtor's website, and we didn't take any photos today. But in two weeks time there will be pics galore i'm sure. The location of the house is great - very close to both of our new jobs!

Yep! New jobs! Gotta love em! I will be working as Personal Assistant to the Principal/Registrar at St Ursula's College. And Dom will be Line Haul Coodinator for NQX. Dom starts his new role on 15 December, hence the move on the 12th and I get a nice Christmas holiday and will start in my new role on 5 January.

And to help with all of this driving about, we bought a new car! We are now the proud owners of one of these:
It's all a bit too swanky for the likes of us, but hey, we'll take it :)

So that is the update. We are busy packing up our worldly possessions here on the Coast ready for our move. Once settled we can focus on our plans for the block, make some long term decisions about what we want in a house (yeah right!) and move in the right direction one local step at a time.

All we need now is jobs...

2008-10-19T11:49:00.005+10:00

I have learnt by now to not bother with waiting for news from the bank, as when the news does come it is invariably bad or with increasing frequency just simply not true. But I am not going to waste my energy complaining. Instead I am proud to announce that we have decided to join the growing Tiny House movement!

In a nutshell, we are not able to attain finance to purchase a Transtate Home without a larger chunk of cash than we currently have. So that plan is filed away with a large number of other thwarted attempts! However, we have been advised that we will have a much better chance if we go with a traditional construction on site. So I turned on the big eyes and spoke to Dad and bless him, he has agreed (once again) to build our house for us! He is quite keen actually, has taken the plans this weekend to do up a costing.

The idea is that we will buy a steel frame kit to lock up from a kit home specialist and then finish it off to our own specifications. We still don't want to build too large, but may be restricted in how small we can go by the bank (ironic I know) and may actually have to add a third bedroom to suit their requirements also. In researching kit homes we stumbled across Mecano Kit Homes in Gympie. Their prices are excellent, their plans nice and small and the location is excellent for delivery costs to our place. We have based our plan on this external kit and then changed around the internals:

Click on the image for a larger view.

So that is where we are at the moment. Dad will come back with a price soon enough and then we will approach the bank. As I mentioned, they may require that we build a large home with more rooms in order to suit their risk assessment criteria, and if so, then we will have to consider our options at that time.

However, we are talking about a plan for sometime in 2009 and yet we plan to finish up our jobs on the Gold Coast by mid December at the latest, so the in between plan? Originally we had intended to buy a caravan and camp our way on the block. Last weekend we went caravan window shopping and came to the realisation that they are really just overpriced little sheds on wheels! Most that we looked at were no larger than the solid little shed that we have already in place on the block. So the decision has been made! We will fit out the shed for living and hang out there until a point at which we either have a house to move into or we get forcibly evicted :)

I have been following the Tiny House movement in America for a year or so now and love the concept entirely. Check out these links if you want to join the bandwagon also:

http://tinyhouseblog.com/
http://www.tinyhousedesign.com/

and my personal heros:

http://coyotecottage.com/index.htm

So motivated by all of these pioneering Americans we came up with this little sketch of our own Tiny-Shed-House:

We may have been a little generous with the dimensions, had planned to go up this weekend to measure it all out - but the Sparky we had arranged to meet needed to reschedule so it hasn't been measured up yet.

The large cabinet to the right of the entry door we already have as well as the bathroom vanity cabinet which will become our kitchen. We intend to buy a good quality camping toilet and a second hand shower cubicle shell and build them into one corner. We will clean out the tank already on site, and possibly also install another for showering, but will probably need to buy our cooking and drinking water for a while yet. We plan to build a bed base up off the ground a meter and a half or so, so we will climb in up a little step ladder and the dogs can sleep underneath. We will line out the whole shed and insulate it - all second hand we hope. There are already two windows on site that we can install and we will throw up as much head high storage as we can. And there you go - tiny house Anduramba style!

Needless to say we are excited about planning and implementing this tiny build, maybe even more so than the house at this stage! And not having a loan for a caravan purchase means that our weekly costs will be greatly reduced, enabling us to make a move on saving the cash we will need to impress the bank when the time comes.

So - now we are almost at the point of daily construction updates and roughing it in the wilderness tales. Can't wait!

The Waiting Game

2008-09-24T18:26:00.005+10:00

Tick tock, tick tock

Time goes by so slowly when you are waiting for a call from the bank.
In the absence of any progress I thought I would take the opportunity to shamelessly advertise the products and companies we are hoping to incorporate into our place.

If you have read previous posts, you know about Transtate Homes and what they are all about. But even if the blatantly irresponsible economic practices of the United States prevents us from getting any finance at the moment, we will need to push ahead with essential services on the block, water supply, water treatment, power and shelter.

Shelter will come thanks to Metroll Toowoomba providers of all things spawned from steel. Our very polite and prompt consultant there has quoted us on a double garage with attached double carport (or garaport if you are into the lingo) which should provide us with enough living space to while away the months. All the tv advertising would suggest that the price of all things steel is about to sky rocket astronomically, must be something to do with the fact that they are digging more of it out of the ground then they know what to do with. No wait a minute...that doesn't make sense... Anyway a lovely steel kit home (ie shed) will cost us about $6300 plus slab. With two doors a window and built in outdoor entertainment area, can't complain about that!

Next comes water. You can get lost and dehydrate pretty quickly trying to sift through all of the water tank suppliers in the market so I went with a time honoured decision making process based on the 'ooh they look pretty' system of selection. I stumbled onto Rhino Tanks. Which quite frankly say 'I'm a serious rural water tank' to me! They are fully constructed on site on an owner prepared pad and come with a free ladder! Yay! So really it is a water tank and swimming pool all in one! A 56 000 litre (yes, you read that right) comes in at about $8350 installed on the block ready for plumbing. Pretty decent, and add to that a range of local and state government rebates and we might be able to afford some soap for showering. As long as we get some rain that is.

Water comes in, water goes out. We are not on a water supply so a water treatment system is a must. We originally intended to have a composting toilet and grey water system, but after speaking to a few fellas in the know we have decided to go with an all-in-one black and grey water treatment system that provides irrigation quality water as a by-product. Best thing is the more delicate of our friends and family will not have to be afraid of the breezy bum toilet we were intending to have! Solar Centre Toowoomba offer the Envirocycle System which suits all our needs and once we have dug a big hole they will supply and install for around $9000.

Tanks and water treatment systems need pumps, and pumps need power, not to mention it is nice to be able to flick a light switch on when you go to the loo! RAPPS Systems are right up my alley. A local guy with local knowledge who isn't afraid to tell me what I should do and has a sense of humour to boot! We would like to generate enough power to be able to sell our excess back to the grid. Every unit that we do not use we can sell to the grid for $0.44, and then we buy back the energy at $0.14 per unit. That's good maths to me. So we have gone for a medium sized system which after the generous government (oxymoron?) rebates comes in at a neat $14000 installed.

Have the mathematically gifted of you added that up yet? Shed plus tanks plus water treatment plus power comes to a grand total of
$37 650 and that does not include any of the required earthworks or payments to the plumber and electrician who will also be required. And this is before we even start to think about the house! Yup. And yet, everyone wants you to go green. It really isn't that easy.

But the reality is, that in the current climate we may not be able to get the full amount we require to build our home complete, but perhaps we may be able to get a smaller amount to get us started and wait out the wild ride. We were supposed to hear from the bank today - but I think they were all too busy watching the stock market to make any call backs. Perhaps tomorrow.

Tick tock tick tock.

A House on a Truck...

2008-08-31T18:45:00.003+10:00

A long time between posts! I can't believe that the last time I was here was June and now tomorrow is September. But something tells me that the frequency of posts is about to increase...rapidly!

On Friday we were up early and on our way to Toowoomba for a meeting at Transtate Homes. How did this come about? A few weeks ago we met with Dad to discuss our newly developed house plan. However, he let us know that it really wasn't feasible for him to build the house. This was unfortunate, but led us to thinking back to our original idea. Transtate Homes build completed homes on their site in Toowoomba and then ship them out to your site on the back of a truck, crane them onto footings they arrange and you are ready to move in!

We contacted the company about two weeks ago and started talking to Mark, the friendly Transtate representative. He priced our first (and somewhat grandiose) plan at a somewhat grandiose price. Still cheaper than the average McMansion, but not what we needed to reach our goal of less cost than our current lifestyle. So we downscaled the plan, reduced our expectations on finishes and emailed off plan number two. This one came in at a much more respectable (and workable) figure...but this got us thinking. How low can we go?

When we first began we had the idea to build small so we went back to those thought patterns, back to our Small Houses web links and started drafting again. And the result was plan number three, emailed off to Mark and returned at a markedly reduced cost! Excellent! We thought.

At the meeting however, Mark explained that a good portion of the cost of our home (almost 10%) was due to the necessity for a police escort and associated costs. He explained that if we could manipulate our needs into a footprint of 5 metres wide and up to 17 metres long that he could use that 10% percent on a full length deck rather than handing it over to the authorities. As part of our downsizing and rethinking we had all but abandoned the possibility of a large deck. However, this reminded us that our original dreamings had indeed been that of indoor / outdoor living. Mark showed us some new plans they are working on that fit the footprint and took us for a tour of the construction yard for some more ideas.

What an excellent concept. They had about six houses on the go at different stages of finishing, all built up high on platforms ready for the trucks to come in and take them away. Mark proudly described the process which at the moment is taking approximately 8 weeks, including council approvals. Can't complain about that!

We went back to the office to discuss the nitty gritty and then left promising to get a final, that's it, yep final, plan to him soon.

We headed off to Crows Nest to meet Irene and Peter who were enjoying a day off work by coming to check out our crazy plan! We headed to the block and wandered about a bit with a measuring tape, ramming small innocent sticks into the ground as corner markers.

And a good time was had by all!

As you can see the land appears dry, however the night before there had been quite a downpour and the earth itself was very moist. More rain this week in the area, so maybe some green will come to visit soon. We popped back into town for cafe burgers and talk of houses and jobs and life as we know it, or soon will know it. Then back to the rat race for all of us.

At home again and there we were furiously clicking away manipulating walls and furniture and fixtures trying to fit what we want (on top of what we need) into the required space. And by george, I think we've got it. Click on the plan below for a larger version:
It's simple, it's tidy, it has plenty of space for Dom to whip up his culinary delights and fits to a number of principles of sustainable design, so we are happy. We have to come to a decision soon, so will send this off to Mark tomorrow for the verdict. He is keen to add a full length carport to the southern side also, to provide a parking area and increased roof area for water collection. I am in two minds about that, with a covered deck on the front and covered carport on the back, I am concerned about the house becoming dark. But we will talk to him about the use of clear roofing and / or sky lights.

So the plan? Have Mark generate a quote for us on supply of the house. Get quotes for earthworks, grey water and storage tank supply and install, composting toilet supply, grid-connect solar supply and install and connection to the grid and a fencing quote. Then to take these all to the friendly bankers and wait for them to smile and say yes!

Then the real fun will begin!

St Hilda, I presume?

2008-06-30T16:12:00.005+10:00

So, after the joyful week of family togetherness that was our wedding celebration, we headed to the place that is ours for some time with the wilderness.

We arrived to find proof that there is in existence a wonderful rural spirit of neighbourliness, not that we would have doubted it if the question had been put to us. Our gate which has been through a number of transformations all leading towards a general state of collapse was in a state of wholeness! New wire and a wonderful new bush craft gate latch!
Then once through we saw that we had a driveway and new wonderful slashed homesite surrounding our shed!
Could this have been the work of our neighbour Tom?

As we settled into unpacking, a white ute pulled up at our gate and yes, our kindly neighbour jumped out of his ute to explain that he had fixed up our gate and as he had been out with his slasher he thought he would get the grass around our shed and usual camp site under control! The generosity of the action is really beyond words. We had a lovely chat to Tom who told us the sad news that his 'girl' - his faithful canine companion, had recently been trampled by a bull in the course of her daily work and now got about on three legs. But like a true rural trooper she was soldering on full of life. Tom let us know that his horses had been getting out on to the road via our place so he had fixed up the gate and put up a temporary fence between our blocks. With a quick discussion of our future plans he was off back to his house on the hill and we got to some serious work.

Our plan this time was to camp in the shed. So step one was to drag everything out and get busy with some sweeping!
An hour or so later we had a spiderweb and (almost) dust free shed to set up. We rearranged some of the existing furniture and got our bed set up ready to go.
Dom got to work on the next most important task, the fire pit and with some wood collection done we settled into an evening by the fire.
Both still a bit tired from recent stomach bugs we settled into bed early for what was not the most relaxing night of my life! Cold! Very, very cold! The sleeping bags and doona ensured that we were warm from above but the earth had other ideas and she pumped her coolness from the ground, through the concrete and into our air mattress, making sleep for me a destination I couldn't reach! Eventually I succumbed to exhaustion and awoke to forgive all. Morning at our place is truly the most beautiful thing you could experience. Crisp, clean and raring to go, it fills you with an energy that a sleepless night could not drain.
Our plan for the day was to track down Hilda, the church from our block. With map in hand we ventured west, heading towards Oakey on beautiful wide outback roads.
Forty minutes and few misturns later we were in Macglagan, and then out of it again! A true blink and you will miss it town, so a u-turn was required and we were back again. After a quick stop at the convenient public ablutions we trotted into the local general store for information. The shop owners were not entirely sure which of the four (!) churches in town was the original Anglican church. They told us that all church services had been amalgamated into the one venue, but gave us a good guess as to which one we were after and tickled our senses with the suggestion that the property had been on the market previously and was perhaps on the market at the moment! Dom requested a sausage roll from the hot box as compensation for their help, to be told it was in fact a gourmet beef roll! You will have to ask Dom as to the accuracy of that description...

We scampered around the corner to the church and wandered around admiring the building from the outside.
On the western end was a lovely, but dust covered, stained glass window which in my imagination-fueled reasoning had the letter H and a nun's habit as its features! We clambered onto stump camps to peek in the windows and had become convinced it must be our Hilda. Then, on a whim I reached out to try to the door handle to a rear entrance and she was unlocked!

With a little apprehension we entered to experience the serenity and power that is this building.

The original section (approximately 5 by 6 metres) is beautifully lined and retains a stunning stained glassed window, pulpit and other furnishings.
Next to this, a more recent addition we assume, is a grand hall with side room.
In the midst of some snooping I wandered into another side room of the original building to find piled in the corner a stack of paperwork and to our great joy laying there on top was the most recent registration of a business certificate for St Hildas Anglican Church! Confirmation that we had found her! Laying in the pile were various documents, original account books, orders of service and prayer books all stamped with the St Hildas stamp. Interestingly there was also a half bottle of good quality scotch whiskey, standing abandoned. We took as many photos as possible, from as many angles, to ensure we didn't forget her presence. Somewhat reluctantly, we said good bye to our girl and drove home (the long way, thanks to a wrong turn brought on by BJ deciding to regurgitate his lunch of grass in the back seat!)

We stopped in at Crow's Nest to restock and stumbled onto the second hand store, which I had originally thought to be a bric or brac outlet, only to find that is has a 'hardware' wing complete with original range ovens! Definitely a place to visit again in the near future.

Back to the block and more wood collecting in preparation for another evening. While I wiled away the hours with a good book Dom got busy working on operation build-a-bed. Not too many people can say they have slept in a bed built out of a toilet! Dom took a wall of planking down from the bush toilet and turned it (with help from our collection of water containers) into a delux raised bed!
We spent the evening rugged up (much more prepared this time) by the fire and read our books by the gentle light of our Coleman lamp, then into bed for another restless, but more rewarding, sleepwise, night.

The next morning we awoke to a general sense of dampness! A fog had rolled in overnight and our bedding and everything we touched was coated with a frosty dew. But upon emerging from the shed, once again everything was forgiven, ten fold, as we witnessed the beauty of our block under fog, with the light of a gentle sunrise drifting through the water vapour, slowly burning it away into the clarity of day.

For larger versions of any images on this page just click on them!

A delicious cooked breakfast of crumpets and a casual pack up saw us heading home by mid morning with thoughts of our Hilda in our minds.

A side bar - dogs. You would think that buying 2 1/2 acres of bushland would satisfy the wildest dreams of our canine children. And to some extent this is true, they love to scamper about sniffing out the wildlife and enjoy the spontaneous walks which more often then not end in Mum ducking into the Hall toilets for relief, but our dogs are in essence city dogs. Every time one of us opened a car door to retrieve an item, Gypsy was right there asking in her puppy dog eyes if perhaps we could now go home to the place with the couch and the beds and the walls? So on our second day, frustrated with her whining (despite her fancy new dog dress to keep her warm!) we simply opened a car door and let them climb in! A wonderful evening was had by all, the dogs curled up together in their little piece of civilisation imaging they were at home on their leather couch and we didn't have to worry about what they were up to! Spoilt much???!!!
In a postscript, today I spoke to the lovely Laurel, property advisor for the Brisbane Diocese of the Anglican Church. In the way of everything involving the purchase of this land she responded to my initial inquiry regarding the fate of Hilda by saying - 'Oh, I have her paperwork right here on my desk, next week I will be recommending to the church council that the site be put up for sale!'

I know, I know, this keeps happening to us. Laurel filled me in that the building was officially closed as a church about 12 months ago and closed up for good six months ago. She was intently interested in our dreams of returning her to her original location and took notes. Laurel explained the process that they would undergo to sell her and we swapped contact details. She also provided me with some excellent contacts to help with my search for information on the burial on the block. So here we have something to watch with interest, within the month our Hilda will be up for sale and the universe alone will decide her fate!

OK universe, we hear you!

2008-05-22T20:22:00.004+10:00

This is the first blog entry that hasn't involved us piling into the car and driving a 6 hour return trip! No, we didn't scamper off to the block rather than going to work (not that we aren't tempted each and every morning!). Today, I got an envelope in the mail!

About two months ago I sent an email off into the ether in the general direction of the Anglican Church Archives in Brisbane, posing questions about our block, the church we have been told was there and the burial. I had long given up hope that I would get a response, imagining my email sitting in some dusty inbox in the depths of the archives with not even an ape-like librarian to take care of it.

Then out of the blue a few days ago I got a reply that succinctly questioned my postal address as information previously posted in response to my question had been returned, addressee unknown. I replied with my work postal address and jeepers if an envelope didn't arrive today!

It contained four pieces of paper, a lovely purple with comps slip, a two page photocopy of The Crow's Nest Parish Paper - February 1947 (notice the apostrophe in Crows!) and a printout from the Crows Nest Parish Year Book 1911-1952.

The printout reads as follows:

"1911 - Year Book indicates dedication in 1911.

1953 - CLOSED and building moved to Maclaglan (Oakey Parish History).

P&F Report 1953 - At the request of the Parish officials and after proper investigation, permission has been given for the removal of the Anduramba Church in the Parish of Crows Nest for re-erection on the new church site at Maclagan in the Parish of Oakey.

P&F Report 1975 - Permission to sell the site of the former church which was closed twenty years ago and the building removed."

The Parish Paper lists the Parish Churches including St Hilda the Abbess, Anduramba. It has this excerpt:

"ANDURAMBA: Services here have improved immensely. We look forward to having our church here filled for the monthly services very soon. Our thanks to the women folk who recently gave the church a thorough cleaning and polishing. There are whispers of other things to come at St Hilda's and as interest grows, more will be done."

Could those whispers have been - hey lets take this church away! Who knows. But by the end of my reading here we have more information. The church was called St Hilda's and we have confirmed dates of its existence and removal. And a location where it currently is!

I jumped straight on the web to see if by chance I could stumble across a photo of the church in its new home, only to meet with immense frustration. The keen eyed of you may have noticed that in the yearbook printout above the new location of the church has two distinct spellings:

Maclaglan or Maclagan

Impatient to the end I quickly typed the first option, not noticing the differences and was thwarted! Not a single google response to a town called Maclaglan. How could this be I thought? This is simply not possible! So back to the Anglican archives I went to check if they still registered a church there, was it still a town? Yes, it was, but now according to the Anglicans with an e - Maclagen. Confused much? Imagine how the people who actually live there feel!

So search for that I do - and still nothing, nada, zip! In frustration, in fury, I return to the paper and in midst curse of the tree it was pulped from, I notice the difference... one l, not two! Maclagan. So back to google and success! Hundreds, no thousands of results, mostly completely useless but confirmation that the place exists! It has a general store, public toilets (thank you Commonwealth Government Public Toilet Maps) and if I really wanted to I could buy realestate there! It turns out that Maclagan is a small town west of Crows Nest (now part of the Toowoomba Mega Council, so technically our neighbours!), just south of the Bunya Mountains in Rosalie Shire. And there are three churches there! So a new adventure has been added to our list of things to do! We will definitely have to head out to see what St Hilda looks like!

And Saint Hilda! Next step on my researching oddysey was to find out a little more about the church's namesake. I was happily reading away on Saints and Angels dot com about a strong willed young royal who commanded armies of men when my eye drifted to the top of the page and the entry:

Feastday - November 17

For the non-Flowers of the readers that is none other than Dominic's birthday! Yep! The one day of the year when all good practicing religious types venerate the life of our Hilda, is also the day we venerate the life of our Dominic!

OK Universe We Hear You Already!

This uncanny coinkydink follows on from some other strange goings on - some of you will have heard the stories, others perhaps not. There was the large black crow that overflew us on a visit to the block, circled, landed in the tallest tree of the block, grasped us in his beady eye and cawed with command. Then flew off. Ok - we thought, the crows of Crows Nest know we are here.

Then there was the trip to the bottle shop just after returning from the trip to the block where we met Tom, our neighbour. Contemplating the reds, I spied a lovely bottle with the name Church Block and in excitement called Dom over to see! Only to have pointed out by him that right next to it on the shelf was a bottle called 80 Acres. The significance I hear you asking? Only that we have bought The Old Church Block and our lovely neighbour Tom is the proud owner of eighty acres! Couldn't make it up if I tried!

So stay with us on this magical mystery tour! Who knows where we will end up!

Oh and a quick postscript - have been in contact with the council in Toowoomba and have had confirmation that no planning permission is required for dam and swale earthworks, and we will be able to live in a caravan on the block for up to one year during construction! Yay!

We have been working on home designs also and are pretty happy with our latest concoction, a longhouse-pod hybrid. Check it out below (click on it for a larger version).

Do do do do do do do do Do do do do do do do do Do do do do do
(the theme to the x-files!)

Unexpected guests for breakfast...

2008-05-11T19:16:00.039+10:00

Another Sunday evening and feeling tired from a weekend at the block. We went for an overnight stay this weekend with Luke, Chris and Sue, adding to the lengthening list of family member visitors to our place.

Dom, Luke and I got off to a great start leaving the coast at 6:00am and with a couple of junk food stops on the way got to the block mid morning to set up camp.

We noticed the region was a lot drier than on any of our previous visits, but still dramatically beautiful. A comparison below shows the Anduramba Hall now and on our last visit:

Driving up to our gate we could see a few strange lumps scattered across the long grass. On closer inspection these turned out to be four confused cows and two curious horses! Our neighbor Tom's stock were set in for a weekend of their own on our land and had been rudely disturbed by our arrival! For a self confessed horse and cow phobic this presented a new challenge! Watched closely by the stock, we opened the gate and Luke navigated his way around bovine and horse alike to drive up to the shed.

Then came yet another comic attempt at animal wrangling as Dom and Luke confidently harahed and waved hands to move the animals back down the slope to Tom's place and the security of a fenced field. I stumbled about keeping a safe distance (100 metres or so seemed good to me!). The horses figured out the plan pretty quickly and did what they were told. The cows had different ideas (or more likely, no ideas at all!) and scattered one way and then another with their herd-brain in synch, and at no time looked to be heading for home.

Eagle eyes will spot the tiny-Dom demonstrating long-distance cow wrangling.

So in the end we settled for them being not where we wanted to pitch the tents and that was that. I should note; however, that prior to the wrangling, I did manage a minor breakthrough of touching the nose on the bolder horse ever so gently!

We set to erecting our tents, got the camp kitchen set up and the fire stocked.

After a grand tour for Luke it was time for some snoozing and relaxing and further wood gathering. By mid afternoon we headed into town to check out the annual Crows Nest show. The $12.00 entry fee was a bit steep, but who can complain when the money will go towards the community. We wandered about the pavilion checking out local art works, prize winning vegetables and even a prize winning bucket of wheat! We stopped by the poultry shed and checked out some beautiful and some strange poultry and bumped into a beautiful placid great dane who was feeling a little down after not winning the day.

There was a small sideshow alley and the required wood chopping zone.

Preparations were in place for the night's events which were going to include a lawn mower grand prix! It was decided that only a pluto pup could round off our country show experience and searched and searched to no avail! Who could have predicted, not a deep fried, batter wrapped sausage to be found. So we left the show grounds and went into town to await the arrival of Chris and Sue. Dom ducked into the local cheap shop to pick up a couple of pillows (inconveniently forgotten by us in our pre-dawn packing!) and we sat in the town square to wait.

Soaring interest rates are forcing young people to live on park benches with cheap shop pillows as their only comfort.

The undisputed rock golf champion of Crows Nest.

A phone call to Sue revealed that they would not arrive for another hour, so a quick trip out to Lake Perseverence filled the time, driving past the local model airplane club dogfighting their way above a field.

We met Chris and Sue at the local caravan park where they had rented a cabin and decided a night of fire gazing was called for, so popped into the local fisho to grab some dinner and then headed out to the block. It was well into dusk when we arrived so a quick glance about was all that our latest visitors had time for before we settled into our fish and chips and an evening of discussion and planning and wine and beer! Chris and Sue headed home, while the younger generation kept the fire company (and the beer from freezing) into the night.

After a restless, cold night we awoke to find we had unexpected guests for breakfast. The horses had returned, right to the middle of our camp and the cows were loitering around the edges!

Celebrity chef - Anduramba style.

The horses seemed very interested in our morning coffee brew and whatever it was that we were preparing for our first breakfast, so we generously gave them an apple each in the hope they would be satisfied. They weren't of course, and added to their intruding behaviours the cruel trick of walking up behind a horse-o-phobe as she sat peacefully reading in the morning sun and snuffling in her ear!

After a stern word or two, they got the point and wandered off to greener, less human dominated pastures.

Chris and Sue arrived just as the boys were launching operation 'dig-a-hole' the goal of which was to figure out the make up of our sub soil. Good news apparently, they hit clay after only a few inches and with a mini-dam water test, confirmed that our land may be suitable for the creation of a stable dam in the future.

We cooked up a delicious breakfast and enjoyed the serenity for a while.

Chris and Sue were taken on the grand tour and were satisfyingly impressed! Then it was all hands on deck to pack up camp and we returned to town to check out Salts (this has become a habit!)

We were having a lovely time wandering around the store and Chris was explaining the ins and outs of recognising a quality piece, when the grumpy shop-keep (not the usual jovial host) approached us and insinuated that we were damaging his stock. Not a pleasant experience for any customer, so we withdrew our custom and thus ended the visit on a slightly sour note. My advice now would be to peer in the window before entering and if you spot a jovial brit brandishing his hands as he entertains his customers with tales then enter, but if you see a grumpy grandpa scowling down from his lofty perch, then leave him be.

So home again now, and we are more convinced than ever that the right plan would be to convert the on-site shed (with the addition of a caravan?) for living, until we are certain of what we want in a house and where we want it. I will have to contact the council soon to determine if this will be possible. It seems the logical choice!

Note: some of the images in this post must be attributed to this photographer. As he is a Software Engineer we cannot show his face.

Perm Your Culture

2008-05-08T20:47:00.017+10:00

A couple of weekends ago we acted on an invitation to visit a working permaculture food forest just north of Brisbane, and it was enlightening to say the least! Luke's friends Baz and Bec were our wonderful hosts and guides for the two day visit. Not only was it a lovely, relaxing, gastronomically rewarding venture, but our eyes were opened to the permie way of life and the necessity of swales! I'll let the pictures (and my clumsy captioning) do the talking.

Shakespeare's Macbeth taunting sister-witches had nothing on this brew stirrer!

What is the opposite of the Socratic method of teaching? Well this was it! As we wandered Baz peppered us with information and we tagged along trying to absorb, collect or store each nugget. Luckily Dom had a lot of pockets, great for storing knowledge.

An engine room, but no di-lithium crystals! These are the cool worm farms, beautifully constructed.

And busy reconstituting household and garden leftovers into beautiful, healthy, sweet smelling soily goodness.

And on to the hot worm farm for the Ibiza worms.

Really the image says it all in the remaining 986 words. Produce, being produced. Wonderful!

- They call this the Popcorn plant.

- Why do they call it that?
- Why, because it smells like popcorn.
- Gaaaarn!
- Come and have a sniff.
*sniff*
- Gad! That smells just like popcorn!

Even in the most practical of spaces is beauty, launching herself unashamedly into the sky. Oh, and it reminds me of a fern, which reminds me of New Zealand, which reminds me of pineapple lumps... now where are you growing the pineapple lumps?

I grew up in a town where sugar cane meant occasional fantastical fires that seared the eyelashes off a seven year old, followed by a day of black snow and stinging eyes after a morning bike ride to school, the occasional super-mother-load of a passing cane train sporadically dropping juicy, chewy sticks of joy, and of course the gut-wrenchingly putrid smell of whatever it is they do with the molasses... but not here. Here it is beautiful, a wind break, doing something fantastic with...umm nitrogen (next time I shall take notes, next time I shall take notes) and providing mulch a go-go.

Likewise, the lady finger banana, a cruel joke to any true banana lover, here provides a beautiful vista as the sun glints through the draping leaves, but also acts as a windbreak, is undergoing some sort of scientific process under its toes and to top it all off provides a tasty treat to the big dogs (horses...).

And now we are on to the good stuff! A group of lovely ladies jut itching to provide their owners with eggs benedict, scrambled eggs, omelettes, and maybe even a pavlova or two. And of course, Mr Rooster, ensuring that all that we take is the eggs.

And, the most important element of all. The water. This beautiful dam, fed by a pride-of-place swale is the source of all secure life. And the observant of you will notice the two Baz's. Perhaps this is my homage to the man who didn't seem able to stand still, who had his choppers out of his pocket every chance he got to mulch away and who disappeared around a magical corner in the food forest before you could finish asking, where is the diet coke plant to go with my popcorn plant? Or is it just that he moved in the middle of my panorama construction? Or is that, really, in essence the same thing?

Thanks Baz, thanks Bec, thanks lovely little dogs, and no thanks big dogs, please stay on your side of the fence!

In loving memory...

2008-04-07T18:31:00.004+10:00

Another wonderful weekend, and another blissful trip to our block.

We have just returned from another of our flying visits, this Sunday after a lovely evening staying in Brisbane with Jane, we took her out to see our place!

We had a great run from Brisbane in the gentle Sunday morning traffic. We arrive mid morning and settled in for a delicious and friendly breakfast at the Sundowner cafe in Crow's Nest then after a quick saunter around the Sunday markets, headed out for a showing-off of what we have!

The district looked drier than before, despite quite a lot of rain the past few weeks. A sign of the season I suppose. The long grass on the block was still there, but no longer a lush green. As Dom took Jane on the grand tour, I collected the pickets and string that had marked out our house plan. It looked as though Tom's livestock had been wandering through our loungeroom!

The shed was still intact and quite magically, all of the food we had accidentally left in the bathroom cabinet that acted as our kitchen was fine, the bread was displaying wonderful shades of blue and green but everything else was intact, and most has stayed there awaiting our next visit.

The sad news is that our little native that we had hoped to give a new home had not survived. There it sat in a brown and brittle memory of the vibrant seedling it had been. Lesson learnt. We will now wait until we are the permanent caretakers of the land before attempting to add any new flora. So we honoured its passing and moved on.

Unfortunately, it wasn't until we had left that we realised we didn't take any photos of Jane on the block, but surely that is just a good excuse for her to visit again in the near future!

So no big news accompanying this visit, but a chance for us to record what everything looked like in early April.

Not sure when our next visit will be, but not too far into the future we hope!

An Ode to Porcelain and Electricity

2008-03-24T12:38:00.023+10:00

We have just returned from a relaxing and productive Easter break at the block. We packed up the car, lightly this time, and headed off with the pups on Friday morning nice and early.

We arrived to find that once again, the grass has grown, and the world at our place continues to be just beautiful!

We had decided to create a more minimalist camp by placing ourselves close to the shed, so got to work flattening larger grass tufts and tidying up the paving at the front of the shed.

The tent and tarps were up quickly and Gypsy got settled into her favourite place!

BJ spent the first two hours camped out in the shed...we thought he was crazy as it was so hot in there, but then Dom realised, that the concrete was cool... dogs are smart!

So are humans, occasionally, I suggested that we bring the bathroom basin cabinet out of the shed into our camp site for an instant camp kitchen! Perfect!

We had gotten to the block by taking a different road this time. A couple of visits ago some friendly RACQ people had come to take a look at Linda's car, and had approached the block from the north. So I took a look at a map and saw that if we continued to head directly north from Crow's Nest rather than turning right so early, we could approach the block along Midddle Road, coming out 1 km north of our place. So this is what we did! The distance is almost exactly the same, the road has a little less tarred section but is in general straighter and less mountainous. In fact you bypass the whole range, except for a small ascent and descent, making it a better option for daily commuting I think.

The side effect of going this way, was that we drove past what we had thought were our Northern Neighbours, rooftops that can be seen 50 metres away from our block to the North. But no! Our northern neighbours turned out to be the famous Anduramba Hall!

A beautiful country hall with the most spectacular outbuilding I have ever seen. It was small, and blue and divided into two halves. A feat of modern architecture, a sight for sore eyes, yes, a toilet block! And not the expected bush drop toilets...but beautiful, shiny, porcelain flushing septic toilets! All of a sudden it seemed possible to stay at our place for extended periods of time without that toilet stress!

So, facilties used and appreciated we went back to our block for operation fire place.

Our last fire pit was now too far away from the camp, so Dom got busy digging a dip, and I worked on transferring the rocks. We had not brought any camp cookers this time around, the plan being to cook neanderthal-style! So Dom created a lovely figure eight pit ready for gourmet delights!

With my convenient camp kitchen all stocked with food we spent some time collecting wood, got the fire going and commenced relaxing! We took the dogs off for a scamper down maria creek road - probably one of my favourite things about being there is we can decide hey, let's take the dogs for a walk, and up you get and start walking! No leads, no fuss, no nothing. I hope that doesn't change. On our walk we found a mushroom pushing itself out of the road side! That is pretty cool! And goes to show there has been a bit of moisture around...

One of our plans for the weekend was to conduct a ritual planting. I had originally planned to buy a 100 or so tubestock natives and whack them in the ground, but once a number of experts and some laypeople had told me they would die, I decided to give up on that plan. We went to plan two. About a year ago a beautful grey leaved native sprung out of the earth at the front of our house, and grew at an amazing exponential rate which now sees it reaching three metres into the sky. A month or so ago, a clone popped its head out of the ground a few metres away next to our driveway. If it had continued to grow like its mother it would have blocked the driveway, so it had to come out - and we decided to send it to a whole other climate zone! Dom prepared the ground, fertilising, adding water crystals and collecting mulch. I talked to the plant, let him know he was going to be ok and in he went! He seemed happy! We will see how he has gone when we get back next time.

Right next to where we planted the native there are two stumps... and low and behold in a crevice in the smaller stump we found a lovely little green tree frog, hiding away from the heat of the day. He stayed there for a few hours, but eventually the proximity of us and the dogs sent him scurrying and off we went.

Day one ended sipping wine by the fire, and we spent a night of not much sleep with the dogs in the tent and the camp beds seeming much smaller than I remembered!

Up nice and early on Saturday, to a delicious full breakfast cooked on coals. The big plan for Saturday was Operation Lantana. There were a number of lantana bushes on the block and Dom was determined that this time we wouldn't just complain about them, but remove them! So with jeans and shoes and long sleeve shirt, hat and gloves off we set to the fence line adjoining Tom's place, where most of the bushes were. Tom had put his two horses in the paddock next to our place, and had popped down the evening before to set the fence, that is, to turn on the electric fence! He had done this, he said to keep his horses out of our block, but the fact that BJ sprinted straight through the fence and tried to make friends with his working dogs when we arrived may have been a motivation for him also. Anyway, BJ, being the smart old boy that he is, didn't stress about the electric fence and no harm came to him. But, of course, we have two dogs... our rambunctious puppy, Gypsy, struggles with being away from her couch and tv for any extended period of time, doesn't like the giant dogs (horses) that live next door, and previous to this day, could not leave the side of her parents, ever, at all, nope never. So Dom and I were busy yanking and chopping and sweating and Gypsy was doing what she does best, getting in the way. Next thing, she had sniffed her way over to the fenceline, and I suppose, with our backs turned, sniffed a little too close and received a decent shock to her face! We didn't hear the zap - it would have been drowned out by the extended yelping! This was a whole new world of shock for our white great dane x - never before had she been so terribly assaulted! The yelp went on, she squirmed, she shook, and she looked at us in shock. Then she put her tail between her legs and bee-lined it back to the camp site. Not to be seen again! I went up to check she was ok - and it was a fence that bit her not a snake, but she was fine, feet firmly planted on the tarpauline with a 'hell no - I am not going back THERE again' look on her face. Dom and I happily worked away for the next 45 minutes without being bugged once. And Gypsy didn't stray more than 5 metres from the camp site again for the next two days. Blessings go to electric fences!

We popped into Crow's Nest for some supplies and lunch, and had planned to make use of the showers in the National Park campground. The town centre was busy busy with everyone getting their Easter supplies together, and when we approached the camp site, a sign said 'pre-paid campers only' - so obviously Easter is a little busier than Christmas around those parts. We headed back to town and snacked on delicious homemade hamburgers and headed back home. Dom got back to work on some more lantana and wandered around planning out what to do where, what to build where, what to plant where, while I read, and read some more.

As evening approached, we headed out to our favourite spot and with stakes, hammer, flouro string and measuring tape we marked out our latest home plan. Then stood and tried to imagine what it will be like to stand in our rooms! All very exciting!

As we went to bed on Saturday night, we decided to leave the dogs in the front section of the tent, not right by our sides, and low and behold they accepted that and a peaceful night was had by all.

We woke in the morning, and decamped, having decided to spend a day at our Gold Coast home before heading back to work. Had a great run home, avoiding Sunday's bad traffic and are back in reality. Half way home, however, we realised we had been a little too smart for our own selves...and had left food in the camp kitchen/bathroom cabinet and locked it back in the shed! D'Oh! We hope that it isn't too much a mess when we get back again.

With help of the measuring tape and a trundle wheel borrowed from my work, we were able to get some accurate measurements and Dom has put his efforts into an excellent plan of the block with its separate working and non working areas. I will scan this, and our current house plan at work and post them here soon.

How to build a house?

2008-01-22T17:20:00.000+10:00

This past weekend we took an almost flying visit up to the block. Dad was going to be in town to attend a party in Toowoomba, so we were keen to show it off!

First stop however was to check out the latest in Manufactured Homes technology at Transtate Homes in Toowoomba. We have been casually researching different building concepts over the last month or so. Anybody who offers an alternative to the Brick and Tile monstrosity is what we are after, and if they can do it cheaply, with as little hassle as possible, in a way that easily incorporates our sustainable house ideals and looks good too then that is what we are after.

Transtate offer five stars in convenience. You design a home, order it, they build it at their site and turn up one day with your entire house on the back of a truck, complete down to the curtains. That really appeals to me! We had a wander around their sales site and took a peek inside two of their display homes. I was expecting to be unimpressed, to feel like I was walking into a glorified caravan, but was pleasantly surprised. The finishes were fine, the houses felt like homes and we had a good chat with the friendly reception girl who told us we could have whatever we wanted!

We arrived in the Crow and spotted our good mate Geoff (the real estate agent) cruising by in his 4x4 munching on a pie. We hadn't been able to catch up with him since the purchase so scampered over to his office to say hi. He was blown away to see us, he actually hadn't met Dom yet, and had barely met me. He was such a help during the purchase, going out of his way to smooth things over between us, our dodgy lenders and the grouchy vendor.

Geoff invited us in for a cuppa and we had a chat about our plans and the area and he even tried to sell us some more land! The best pick up was that he told us that his Aunty lived one country block away from us (ie about 5 kilometres or so) and that she is the last remaining 'original' of the area. She runs a farm with her 'boys' (I'm assuming these farm boys would be in their forties at least!) and Geoff suggested we pop over and introduce ourselves and pick her memories for info about our block, the church and the burial. We definitely plan to do that - there is no better resource than the people themselves.

We left Geoff's and headed into the local takeaway for lunch. Delicious big country burgers and snacks, then as Dad still hadn't arrived we popped into the pub to watch some cricket and drink some beer...

Dad still hadn't arrived, so we drifted over to Bullocky's Rest, a Bird Sanctuary/Rest Stop at the entrance to town and tried to wait out the two hours! I developed a friendship with a nice old tree and did some costings on the Transtate Homes.

Dad rang at last, saying he had taken a wrong turn somewhere near Esk and ended up on a crazy dirt road. We thought perhaps he had come up past our place, but after filling up at the friendly neighbourhood petrol pump in some lady's back yard and heading out to the block we realised he had come another way.

Dad and Letty both loved the block, soaked up the serenity for a while and enjoyed the breeze out of the west. The place changes every time we go - this time, thanks to the large amounts of rain that have been falling in the area, the block was awash with knee high grass and the cicadas appeared to at last have moved on to not so green pastures...

On leaving I took the opportunity to show Dad the Transtate Homes we had looked at in the morning, and offended his Builder's Pride! Was that my plan? Only I could know!

We showed Dad what it is was that we really, really want. That is a modular style of home, with a small 'pod' that contains our bedroom and ensuite (no toilet), and a larger 'pod' containing another bedroom, bathroom with composting toilet, the kitchen and living areas. These two pods would be connected by a large deck area, perhaps larger than the internal living area of the two pods. The plan being that in Summer we live primarily outdoors on the half covered/half uncovered deck, and in Winter we withdraw into the small living space, which is economically heated by a pot belly stove. Something like this concept from Gateway Manufacture.

Dad loved the plans and took them away to do some pricing! Could my dream of having my Dad build my home be about to come true? He says he can do much better than any of the quotes we have seen so far. We will wait and see...

We headed off back home and another weekend away was over, back to reality.

First Stay at the Block

2007-12-31T17:00:00.001+10:00

We have just returned from our first stay at the block. We took up tent and tarps, dogs and tins of food for a few days leading up to New Years.

We arrived on Saturday morning after a bright and early start and dream trip up, and picked up Linda and Ray in Crows Nest. We drove out with them in tow and set straight into setting up the home-away-from-home. Battling against a gale rushing up through the valley we got our tarp and tents up, equipment out and set in to relax. Ahh the serenity....NOT!

Cicadas are lovely, but thousands of them, all screaming at the top of their lungs, or should that be wings, can be a little unnerving! Barely had we got the camp set up when a white ute (there is an unnamed (as far as I know) white ute club in the area... we shall have to find out the initiation process so we can get one too) pulled up at the gate and a cowboy and his two dogs got out. Turns out our neighbour Tom, had heard about our purchasing the block from our mate, Geoff (the real estate agent) and popped over to say G'Day when he saw us setting up. I love it already! He gave us a welcome and was off again, into his white ute.

Dom got a lovely fire going and we settled in for a night of alternate flame and star gazing.

Off to bed next with two large dogs and two humans in a small tent. We survived until morning, that is if you can call 5:00am morning! Some may call it night! We had a little breakfast then off into town to meet Bethany, Alex and the kids.

With them in tow, again back to the block for some walking about and bragging and walking about. After they left it was time for fire-pit-phase-two with the help of some local rocks and another roaring blaze of warmth.

Linda and Ray joined us in the rough that night and we awoke to the patter of rain on the roof, I mean tarp! We released the dogs from the confines of the tent, only to hear Woof, Woof, Snarl, Moo! The neighbour's cows had approached the fence adjoining our properties and one had escaped out onto the road. BJ and Gypsy did their best intimidating run and bark but were called off and Dom made his best attempt at cow wrangling, to no avail. Apparently he doesn't speak cow! It turns out also that it wasn't in fact a cow, but a grumpy young bull, which explains the shaking of head, stamping of feet and general grumpiness. It's owners were down shortly after to show us how cow-wrangling should be done. Which apparently involves lots of walking about with dogs, opening and closing of fences and exasperated hand actions! Dom wandered down and met the female half of our neighbours. He found out that the grave site on our block is not that of an elderly lady as we thought but of a young child who had died from Diphtheria in the late 1920's. The roads were too wet for her to be taken to be buried in Crows Nest so she had been buried on the church block.

With the news of bad weather on the coast that Alex had brought, in our minds, we decided we had had the best of things and home was calling.

It was fabulous to stay there for a few days, great to meet our lovely neighbours. Every time we go the land seems to increase in size and so do our dreams! Here are some lovely panoramas that Dom took of the block. If you print them out wrap them around your head and spin, you could imagine you are there! Larger versions can also be found here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15839&l=0d0d0&id=572593433

First Weekend in 'The Crow'

2007-12-02T16:22:00.000+10:00

This past weekend we had our first visit to our block as owners. It was quite a nervous start to the journey, with our car playing up and a quick visit to the friendly mechanic on the way up. Way to boost the confidence when you have a 2 hour drive and a mountain climb ahead of you. Luckily, we recently joined RACQ with these soon-to-be-more-frequent trips in mind so off we confidently traveled.

Only to become lost. Yes it is possible for two adult professionals to become lost while driving along two major motorways, that are very well signposted. We got an up close view of the Amberley Air Force Base, but not too close I hope! and then we were back on track and heading for 'home'.

Here is the road between Toowoomba and Crows Nest:

And my pink dashboard monkey! A beautiful treelined road draws you into town, via Highfields. We stopped off to see if we could shake hands with Geoff, our local friendly real estate agent but couldn't track him down so headed out for the ceremonial shed opening!

The road between Crows Nest and our block is a weaving, winding, climbing, dropping, sometimes gravel, sometimes bitumen road with the most glorious views (and some cows) for about15 minutes:

And to prove that we didn't just snaffle those pics from the web:

We turned the final corner and arrived at Our Place! First impression was, 'Wow this is bigger than we remember!'. We clambered through the fence past the friendly sign left by the previous owner:

and spent a while just wandering around, soaking up the serenity and dodging the dozens of locusts (!) that sprung up into the air with every step. First lesson learned - don't walk into the wind while locusts are trying to flee you, unless you like locust-in-the-face. We tried the various views on for size as to where the house would go, visualised the rows of garden beds dutifully providing us with food and well being and then came the time to open the shed! With our keys in hand (hastily couriered down to us on Friday as the solicitor 'forgot' to post them to us....) it was time to bypass yet another friendly sign:

and to our great surprise we found not an empty shed full of spiders and webs but a shed full of things and spiders and webs!
It would appear that the previous, friendly sign-writing owner had intended to fit out the shed for living. Inside, seen through the webs and spiders and if you avoided looking at the mutant, three and half legged-huntsman on the basin top (no - he wasn't dead, he just faked like he was until we started moving things around, and then he proved that three and a half legs are better than none!) were a bathroom basin, sideboard full of plates and cups, baking trays and a plastic bag full of matchbooks! Also, a shower base and fittings, miscellaneous containers, lots of water containers, mirrors, windows, chairs and an umbrella!

So we are now the proud owners of a lot of 'things'!

After exploring the shed a little, with one eye on Mr Mutant in his 'i'm dead therefore I am harmless charade' we went back out to take some photos:

And there it is! Once we realised there really wasn't much else that we could do, we made our way back to town and dropped in to visit the world famous Salt's Antiques, the most incredible antique shop I have ever been too, and future source, I would think, of a number of our prized pieces!

Across the road to The Grand Old Crow for a 'pint' was next and ten minutes were spent evenly divided by being stared at and ignored by the locals as we downed our bevies in solitude.

Then it was off to the Crows Nest Motel, where the friendly owner hooked us up with a room and we relaxed until dinner, back at the Old Crow for a delicious steak and choose your own vegies, followed by a game of pool.

We also checked out the Crows Nest National Park camping area, but saved the walks for one of our spare days some time in the rest of our life!

Sunday morning, we awoke, enjoyed our breakfast, thanks to the friendly motel owner once again, and made our way to the once-a-month markets in the showgrounds. We started a chat with a local nursery man, his array of berry vines and fruit trees was enough to get Dominic started, and made a new local friend. Dom is now comfortably happy that his dream of bowls of fresh berries for breakfast will be a reality.

We headed home from there, and managed to get back without any sidetracks. Home again now and at least five degrees hotter! Missing the silence and the sense of belonging, but motivated to get started on research and planning and some more research. There is so much ahead of us, the scope of what we have planned to do is now visible, and somewhat frightening. But do-able.

We would appreciate any comments, questions, advice that you would like to provide, and plan to update here when things happen, or when we have an inspiration or when we are screaming in frustration. Hope you enjoy the ride!

See you at the Crow!

Katrina and Dominic

How we ended up here.

2007-12-02T16:06:00.000+10:00

About three months ago, we took a drive to a little town called Crow's Nest, just 30 minutes northish of Toowoomba in Regional South East Queensland.

For a number of months we had been scouring the internet for cheap rural land, and dreamed of 'one day' buying our own piece of Australia, building a house and living the 'good life'. We saw an interesting looking block listed as 'The Old Church Block' and decided, why not take a Saturday drive and check it out. Our thinking was that we could get a feel for the area, so that at some indeterminate time in the future when we were in the position to buy some land we would have an idea of where to go.

Of course, we should have known better, and ten hours later, after having bypassed the 'trespassers will be shot' sign and wandering about the two acres, complete with shed and bush toilet, we were on the phone to our parents 'negotiating' the support required to make it ours.

And that is how we ended up here. As of Friday November 23 2007 we are the proud owners of two and a bit beautiful acres of Australia.