Fleeting visit - little progress but still nice to see

I managed to make it back home to Australia for Christmas, and in the process spent a day at Amherst.

Although there hadn't been any change to the house since Dave's visit, it was wonderful to see it up close in person.

 

The same with the "damhouse".  Even with the spillway having been added, the dam is still so full that there is no way you could access it without sinking to your waist or more in water.  Dad has a great idea for how to quickly build a ramp to it using various old fence panels, so with luck we'll soon be able to make progress on it again.

 

But there has been some big visible progress, with the construction of the new shed.  This was partially completed back in August when Dave visited.  Since then Dad has got it pretty much completely to lock up stage.

 

update and idea for dam shed ramp

All is quiet at Amherst for the moment because Dad has instead been working on some emergency repairs on the Toora house instead.  One small step forward though - Dad managed to rescue some strong metal fence panels (remnants of the old Toora fence) which he's thinking about using at Amherst.

I don't much like the look of them, but one possibility is for them to become the base for the pier-like ramp that Dad plans to build, so he can access the damhouse without needing a boat!

the dam gets a spillway

Somewhat controversially, Dad has created a spillway at the back of the dam in order to lower the water levels after the recent torrential rains so the "damhouse" isn't totally flooded.  It apparently is going to have rocks added next visit to prevent erosion.  Ironically, this is the same spillway that Dad closed up several years ago in order to boost the dam capacity.  Dave had wanted it not to be changed but there was a misunderstanding and, well, now we have a spillway again. 





This is what it looked like before the spillway was put in... the dam floor was covered but not by as much as I expected, so in the scheme of things the spillway hasn't reduced the capacity by that much because the water had already started to overflow around the dam sides. 

A full-to-bursting dam

It has been raining incessantly at Amherst. In August alone, there was over 110cm of rain, and then on Sept 4th there was another 80+mm. Considering we normally get only around 500mm of rain in a whole year, this was pretty incredible.

When Dave was back in mid-August the dam was already the fullest we'd seen it:






The water was already lapping at the floor of the "dam house":





Then on Dad's last visit a week or so back he said it was over the damhouse floor and you could just see a window sticking up. I wouldn't be surprised if now you can't even see the window (!). Fortunately, Dad reckons it'll all be fine once it dries out as it is all hardwood / treated pine. But still. Seems hard to believe that it could go from being the lowest water level we'd ever seen to the highest in the space of scarcely 18 months.

Work continues on new shed

Given the weather didn't allow for working on the house, Dave and Dad instead focused on getting the new shed erected. Dad had already made a huge start by getting the frame up, but there was still a lot of work to do in terms of getting the roof and walls installed.

Then they set up frames inside to support shelving, and Dave started cutting up some old boards to serve as the floor. Once it's fully finished, it should give us a lot of extra undercover working space, as well as overflow storage.

Olive grove gets a mow too

The olive grove also needed a mow... Here's what it looked like to begin:




And here's the final result...

Mowing the orchard

The fences we put in are working brilliantly to keep the sheep and kangaroos out... but the sad byproduct is that they no longer can eat down the grass. One of Dave's favourite jobs is to mow.

Here's the orchard pre-haircut:



Midway through...




And at the end. Note how Dave took away all the rocks from the trees... they looked lovely but apparently turned out just to be housing for giant grass weeds and spiders.

The campsite gets a (sort of) bathroom

Over his big (UK) summer break from teaching, Dave spent a few weeks working up at Amherst with Dad.

Unfortunately, it rained almost the entire time they were there and was absolutely freezing, so they had to get creative about what to do.

One of the things, done largely out of self-preservation and a desire to get warm I think(!) was to get the "camp bath house" in workable condition.

Here's as far as Dad had got it. The bath was hooked up with the tank, with water heated by the wood fire. But it had no walls(!)



They used some of the windows and old wood and corrugated iron Dad had salvaged from rubbish over the years to knock up walls, even stuffing them with leftover insulation from one of Dad's old projects. Some old curtains and wall candles completed the transformation. It's still pretty basic but functional at least for a temporary camp bathroom.