Camp Anduramba – Phase One!

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.