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So much is happening!!

Posted by on June 25, 2014

Ok so I’m sorry, I never finished the last weekend at Little Duna 🙁

Truth was it was simply too cold to write at night up there that weekend… no seriously sitting around the fire if I took my hands out of my pockets they literally froze and I couldn’t type!! To put it in perspective, on the Sunday night as I was sitting around the fire I checked the weather and it was 0.8 degrees!!! Lovely around the fire, but bloody cold every time I went to the car for another can!!!!

Anyway, to sum it up, Fi finally got up to join us about 3:30pm, pissed off because her course had been cancelled in lieu of the long weekend and they had forgotten to call us!! She could have come up Friday night with us after all. I spent the day Saturday chopping fire wood and lugging it back to camp, and lucky I did because we lit the fire about 1pm each day! The sun was lovely (at one stage I considered putting shorts on, but as soon as you got in the shade it was freezing!!

Sunday, Mark and Chris came up with the kids and we had a fun day playing around the block and riding through the mud on the quad bike. I put Mark to work cutting and collecting wood as we had burnt off most of what I had collected the day before. With two of us going we were able to build a decent stockpile before the chainsaw was simply too blunt to cut more.

Monday, well we packed up and came home. Somehow it still managed to take most of the day to pack down (really can’t wait until we get the shed).

So Monday night I had every intention of updating the blog, but I was too tired by the time I got home and they we just got busy with life, so I didn’t get a chance to update it until now, and as the title says… So much is happening!!!

Tuesday was an exciting day as the permits for the shed arrived!! Very exciting!! I also got a notification that the shed kit would be delivered on the 25th of June (yes that is today!), and speaking to Ranbuild over the next few days they advised that Giovanni the concreter (yes I know surprised me he was a Greek!) would be in touch to arrange to lay the slab.

Finally it felt like things were getting underway.

Also, in the last few weeks, I had ordered a new Generator as my old camping one had finally gone Ka-put! This time I ordered a slightly larger one, a 10 KVA generator with 6 240V outlets!! This thing is big enough to run your house, so it should have no trouble running our shed, and caravan and anyone else’s caravan that comes up to join us!

Problem was, although it was classed as “Silent”, my definition of silent and theirs is a little different. At about 80 decibels it is actually as silent as standing next to a petrol lawn mower!!! Also, weighing in at 180kg’s this thing is simply to big and to heavy to lug back and forth. So I spent the last few weekends building an insulated box to house it. There are some pictures of the final product further on…

I also got a little creative with the welder Sunday afternoon and created a Little Duna sign for the block. Not much, but at least it now has and official name until we can get a better one.

Anyway, today was the big day. I had taken a day of annual leave, but unfortunately no one else was able to join me for a day at the block. Last night, Fi and Kelly who was over for her Birthday dinner (Happy Birthday Kel) helped me to load the generator and housing onto the trailer so I could take it up today.

Now I should point out that yesterday was a wild day. Winds tore through the State, well over 100kms per hour gusts, and coupled with the rain there was flooding all over the place. I was watching the radar all day as the rain sat over Violet Town, quietly cursing and not looking forward to my day up there with no shelter. When I awoke this morning about 7am, it was pissing down, so I decided to go back to bed, letting Fi have the first shower. Lucky I did as by the time I pushed out the driveway, it had stopped raining and I had a good run all the way up the Hume. Only rain I saw was the spray from other cars, and luckily the wind wasn’t too bad with the box and generator strapped to the trailer.

I arrived in VT about 10:30am, stopping in town long enough to grab a Bacon and Egg sandwich and coffee from the café and a can of spray paint for the sign, before heading out to Little Duna. First thing I noticed as I arrived was just how much water was around the place! I thought it was bad last time, but there was definitely  a lot more water around this time! Was some BIG puddles to drive through coming up the driveway!

I parked near the location for the shed and had just finished my sandwich when I got a call on the mobile “Yea mate, I got a delivery for you but can’t find the address…”

“Wow… that was quick” I thought as I walked down to the front gate talking him along the road. As I approached the tuck sitting out the front I thought to myself “Umm… where is the shed??”

Turns out this was the reinforcement for the slab!

I jumped in the truck and got a lift back to the shed site as the truck slipped along what was now becoming a muddy track where he dropped his load before chewing his way back through the mud on his way out… “Hope that wasn’t the only reason I had come up here…” I thought disappointedly.

Oh, almost forgot… before that phone call as I was just about to eat I got a phone call from Tom from Bushman’s tanks “Hi Craig, would you believe we have a truck heading up to Benalla tomorrow and we want to drop your tank off. Need you to be there to meet us…”

“Oh my GOD!!!” I thought. “But I’m here today, not tomorrow!!!!” How typical!

We had a laugh and I arranged to meet them on Saturday 12th July instead. At least being a Saturday I don’t have to take another day off work!!

Well anyway, as I was saying… as the truck pulled out I got to work installing the Generator and housing.

I picked out a great location, about half way between where we camp and where the shed will be, a good dry spot in a nice little clearing. After a lot of huffing, puffing and heaving I managed to get the box off the trailer and the very heavy generator installed inside.

Proud of how I had managed to achieve this all by myself (see Mum and Dad I can achieve amazing things when I set my mind to it!) I fired up the generator and walked around marveling at how clever I was and how quiet the box made the generator. In the location I had selected, it was only a gentle hum from both the camp and the Shed location.

Damn I am good! All that was left was to chain the generator and box to a tree and……. “Oh CRAP!”

A clearing!!! There were no trees anywhere near the box!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!

So, I huffed and puffed and pulled the generator back out again, using the quad bike and some rope to pull it over closer to a tree so I could chain it up!!! Guess I am not that clever after all!

Anyway, once I got it all back in the box and chained up, though I had better take some photos.

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Big thanks for Paul for his assistance and advice on the box construction 😉

Right, big job done it was time to finish the sign. A quick spray with for fluro paint to make sure it stands out and I attached it with wire to the front fence. Now as I said it is not the prettiest, but at least we shouldn’t drive past the block in the dark again!!! Also will help to direct people in given we have no street number.

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Right, jobs done it was time to explore my wet block, so I jumped on the quaddie and went for a burl… well slow ride through a lot of water.

“I do hope the delivery I was sent up here for was not just the reinforcement for the slab….” I thought, “Hmm….”

First thing I noticed was that the creek was running, and I don’t mean a little trickle, the creek was bursting at the seems!! I wasn’t game enough to ride up to the back of the block as I was sure I would get bogged!

Second thing is that the dam was very very full. Water was finally flowing out of the dam and there was a good current behind it too.

And the front Dam was very full as well with a good flow in from the street. Water water everywhere…..

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So, generator done, sign done, exploring done, I was just starting to worry that I wasn’t going to get another delivery when I got the call. “Hi mate, I am at the end of Ramage road with a 44ft semi… am I going to be able to come down this road???”

“You should be able to” I said “I’m about 1km down on the right”

In the background on the call I could hear someone yelling “Don’t go down there!!”

“Tell you what” I said “I’ll jump in the car and come and meet you”.

So I lept into the car and raced down the road to the train track where I saw…. well nothing.

“Oh Oh” I thought as I raced back up the road fumbling with my phone to ring him back. “You came in from Shepparton didn’t you” I said “There is no way you can come in that way in a semi, the road is narrow and there is a deep creek that is probably flowing…”

…and flowing it was, as I approached the creek I made a decision that is rare for me “No way I’m going through that!!” Geeze I must be growing up and getting… what do you call it…. sensible!!!

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Hard to tell from the photos, but that would have been over the roof of the car!

I directed the semi around through the town and agreed to meet him by the railway. As he rounded the corner, my heart sank. “No way you are going to get a truck that size onto the block without getting bogged” I announced, the driveway in and out was getting pretty muddy by this stage.

He asked if I had a trailer as it was just a small load, and I raced back to the bog…err…block to get it.

We loaded the “small” load onto the back of the trailer, all 900kgs of it and a I crawled very slowly back down the road to Little Duna.

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I had to put the car in 4WD low range to get the car and heavily loaded trailer back to where the shed was going to go. Don’t show Anthony this next photo Kim as he may cry when he sees the poor little trailer…

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Was as I was staring at the load on the trailer that I hear the noise of another truck slushing through the mud, it was Giovani the concreter coming out to meet me as planned.

We surveyed the location of the site, and as Giovani started pegging out the slab, I started breaking the Shed kit apart so I could get it off the trailer. Took me about an hour, and Giovani had to help with the last bit as it was too heavy, but I finally got there.

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Giovani made good progress in boxing up the slab ready to pore the concrete. He said he was ready to do it tomorrow, except that the driveway was simply too wet and the concrete truck would end up bogged 🙁 Will have to wait a week or so for the ground to dry.

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Anyway, was about 5pm when I finally had everything done and headed back out on the road one final time. I took a video to show just how boggy it had become during the day and you can hear where at one stage I get bogged in the mud.

Oh well, was a good successful day at the block and I managed to get everything I had planned done even if it wasn’t easy. Next trip will be on Saturday 12th July for the water tank. Hope it is a bit dryer, but not sure if it will be a weekend or another day trip 🙂

Sorry for the long post but there has been a lot going on. I’m too tired to go back and proof read it now, so forgive any wrong grammar or spelling!!

Cheers.

 

 

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