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All Is
Revealed
 
Younger Days
This is not easy. A lot of people when writing in with
suggestions have said I should include a page on the site which tells
people a bit about me, easier said than done, I'm a whip maker not a
writer , but I'll try.
I'm 55 years old,married,2nd time around and Christine and I have
been married for 22years this year, jeez , I hope I don't forget our
anniversary this year, been there and done that, wasn't very pleasant.
For all of that 22 years, except for about 9 months, we have lived here
on our property at Western Creek in the state of Tasmania in Australia
on 50 acres of bush, half way up the side of a mountain at an altitude
of a bit over 2000 ft and we love it.
We first came here it was just a bush block. No House, no road
to the property, just lots of bush. We did have a map telling us where
the access road to the property was supposed to be but because no one
had actually lived on the place before, it was once part of a dairy
farm, the road had never been fenced off or defined in any way. That was
all worked out in the end with the help of friendly neighbours and then
we set about making a camp and settling down to building a house before
winter set in and we all froze to death. Apart from Christine and myself
we had two teenage children with us, Shayne and Donna, who didn't
think this was very funny at all. Back in civilisation this was all very
romantic but when it came down to the nitty gritty it was a little
different. I grew up in the mountains of New South Wales and was in the
Army for three years, but Chris and the kids had never been out of the
city or even camping for any longer than a weekend so they didn't really
know what hit them. One minute a comfortable little house almost in the
heart of the city with all the modern conveniences, the next, tent and
a shovel to dig your own hole for the toilet.
I had decided on a log cabin because I thought it would be
relatively easy to build and quick. Just cut down a few trees, pile
them one on top of each other and Bob's your uncle. Did I forget to
mention I had never used a chain saw in my life and I had brought with
us the biggest chain saw I could buy because we all know big is better
don't we. The biggest tree I had ever cut down was when I was a child of
about 10 and I cut down a wattle tree which must have been all of
6inches through. The first tree I had to cut down here was 4 feet
through and about 150 feet tall. Entry in diary for Saturday 6th
February 1982,"Dropped first big tree today, very dicey business". Very
dicey business indeed. It becomes a bit intimidating when you front up
to a tree that weighs 15 or twenty tons and while your getting ready to
fall the tree you remember all the stories you have heard about trees
falling on people, limbs coming out of trees and killing people and all
the other horror stories you have heard. It tends to make you very
careful.
We cleared a site for the cabin and then started on the task of
building our new home before the winter set in. We started on the 8th of
February 1982 and finished
on 17th of April 1982.At last a roof over our heads and some
protection from the weather. We still didn't have a kitchen or bathroom
and the toilet facilities were still a shovel and a walk in the bush. We
found this a bit rough not long after when we all ended up with a tummy
bug, from the water I
think, we weren't used to untreated water, and it decided to
rain and snow at the same time. It's not easy digging a hole holding an
umbrella, in the snow and trying not to get the toilet paper wet.
We discovered toilet paper isn't much good when it's wet. As
you can see things were pretty basic. Four of us had to eat sleep and
cook in space 16ft by 36ft.Sounds like a lot at first until your there
for awhile. Also had to work there which took up a bit of room. As I
said no kitchen so all our cooking was done on the Franklin stove. All
nice and cosy in winter but in summer it gets a bit hot. We ended up
building a kitchen in time for Christmas that year. For a change in diet
when we were burning bits of wood and rubbish outside to clear up the
surrounding area, we would stick a leg of lamb and some vegetables in a
camp oven, just a big caste iron pot with a lid, bury it in a hole in
the ground, cover it with coals and come back in a couple of hours to a
roast dinner. One weekend after a hard day cleaning up around the house
we pulled out the camp oven, really looking forward to a nice roast leg
of lamb with veges, only to discover the coals had gotten a little too
hot and all that was left of our roast dinner was a black leg bone and
the vegetables had become so hot that they were still little glowing red
hot coals. Toast and peanut butter was a poor substitute. In the photo
you can see how the cabin looked from the air at 1000ft.
 This
was taken about a year after we had moved in. You can see the beginnings
of the concrete slab for the house we live in
now.....
12/05/2012
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