Chapter 11 - Dams and Storms
The first step in restoring the block.
Our priority on the block, other than cooking, getting a toilet and enjoying the serenity, was to remove the mess left by the previous owner: the caravan and dwelling, the wrecked Mahindra in the gully, the dog house and corrugated sheeting and lengths of top hat that he’d taken off the roof, perhaps intending to take. For months, we’d managed to park the car and trailer in such a way as to hide the worst of it from view, but it was always there, a miserable sight, like camping next to the tip. We’d done a preliminary clean up, collected all the plastic wrap, insulation, cans, cardboard, foam and metal scraps, food packaging and taken it to the Broadwater tip, but it really didn’t make much difference. The caravan would have to go, but how?
Enter Josh - hoarder of vehicular lost causes and self-taught mechanic. He finds it almost impossible to say no to giveaways, especially anything with wheels and I admit, I was keen to exploit this character trait, hopeful even that it would extend to the mashed Mahindra in the gully. He didn’t exactly jump at the chance, in fact there was some wheedling involved, but eventually he agreed to take both away. The caravan screeched when wrenched from the dwelling, then rolled belligerently along behind Josh’s car. Good riddance, I thought, channelling the women who’d sold me the heavy cast iron plate – each to her own. It was such a relief to see it go and felt like the real start of our block restoration.
As for what was left of the dwelling, there was nothing else for it than to get a bulldozer in and have the whole lot taken over to the concrete pile. We arranged for a earthworks contractor named JT to come and meet us at the block. It was a freezing morning, classic Stanthorpe cold where every word spoken comes with its own white blanket. We were huddled and shivering, with so many layers on our arms stuck out from our sides. JT hopped out of his ute wearing the shortest shorts I’ve seen since the Seventies - clearly a local. He exuded an understated confidence when talking about the fleet of earthmoving equipment he had at his disposal, including a D9 bulldozer, a 25-tonne excavator, and a large Caterpillar tip truck. We showed him the pile of concrete and waited for his shock and awe reaction, (we were actually starting to feel a bit proud of how bad it was by then). JT didn’t seem phased. Nothing seemed insurmountable and his self-assurance may have given us ideas above our station. By the time JT left we’d engaged him to demolish the dwelling, add the rubble to the concrete pile, dig a hole, bury the pile, build a dam, create a pad for a shed, remove the dog house and push all the piles of dead trees in to one stack.
Unfortunately, we were in Brisbane when the work was done so we didn’t get to see the massive changes taking place. Josh oversaw the production and sent some videos. It looked like a mine site: concrete dust swirling, giant slabs being jackhammered, tip trucks on rotation. For the dam, they scraped off all the topsoil and stockpiled it, then moved the concrete, truckload by truckload, fifty or so metres down the valley and spread it in a crescent shape. Then they dug out the dam, using the clay to form the dam wall, a metre-thick crust over the concrete. It was a work of art, made all the more beautiful with the football fields of concrete gone. Within days of the first rain after the work was finished, grasses started sprouting on the newly scraped earth and even the odd wildflower appeared.
Jackson and Smash pretending they own a D9.
Having the dwelling gone and a house pad in its place was even more exciting than getting rid of the mess. As much as we were having fun camping, tent life was wearing a little thin. Literally. Every time we came back, we’d have to use another roll of gaff to patch the canvas up.
One time when we were packing up to leave, storms were predicted for the following week. We lifted everything of the bedroom tent floor and put it on the beds, then placed tarps over the beds. We used Don’s gigantic tarpaulin as a fly over the kitchen tent and brought in the guy lines nice and tight, as per the Scout’s rule book. We dug an arc shaped trench at the top of the slope and put everything inside the kitchen tent that could fit – the Weber, water drums, tables, chairs – all jammed in. We thought about putting down the sunshade over the outdoor dining setting, but it was such a pain to erect, and so unwieldy we decided to just tighten everything and hope for the best.
It was a little disconcerting driving off, leaving the camp site to fend for itself, but probably best that we weren’t there when the storm hit. I watched it on the BOM radar from the comfort of our water-tight living room in Brisbane, grimacing as a dark red blotch hovered over Nundubbermere. It was wonderful to have the rain, of course, and the timing could not have been better for the dam build, but I had doubts about the forty-kilometre winds that were ripping through the valley. Our good neighbours went down the next day to check out the camp site. Tarps were off, tent pegs ripped out of the soggy earth, the sunshade completely shredded. They did what they could, put the tarps back on and tightened ropes, but there were more storms on the way.
When we arrived a fortnight later, the bedroom tent tarp was trying to escape up the hill, tethered by one peg only. The tent itself had flopped down, showing the outline of the bed head. The centre pole was bent into a semi-circle, other poles had snapped open, extendable springs stretched to their limit and poking out through weakened canvas. When I crawled under and opened the zip, a dank, musty smell hit me; the floor of the tent glistened with puddles. We straightened the poles as best we could and gaffed them together, tightened the guy lines, mopped up water with little enthusiasm. Animals had moved in – frogs, spiders and beetles. I wondered what was happening under the floor; it seemed spongey, as if we’d had thick underlay installed. The kitchen tent looked as if it had been picked up and spun in a full circle then set it down. All the plastic boxes were on the floor, contents spilled out and smeared with silt. The newspaper stash was one sodden lump that fell apart when I picked it up. There was a stain along the back wall of the tent showing how high the water had washed up to it – clearly our trenches had not been deep enough. Everything had a saggy, faded look to it, lacking energy. I didn’t take any photos - we were too busy cleaning it all up.
As I tried to start a fire with Smash’s farm machinery magazine, I wondered how long it would take to build a shed. Even if we still had energy for camping, our canvas tents were tired. A lot of our time seemed to be spent repairing tears, unbending poles, tightening ropes and hammering pegs back in. Mice had moved into the kitchen; if nothing yummier was lying around they’d have a go on the soap. I put Schultzy in the tent and told him to ‘skitchem’ – a word he’d never heard before, having never needed the encouragement. He looked excitedly at me, wagging his tail, then when nothing fun or tasty eventuated, started barking. Smash showed him the mouse poo and repeated the instruction. Schultzy kept barking and stared with Schnauzer intensity at the end of Smash’s finger. Worst ratter ever. We went back to putting everything away in plastic boxes at night, even the soap, and noted down to buy some mousetraps. As it turned out, we never needed the traps and the problem was eventually solved without Schultzy’s hunting skills because the next time Helen came down to visit, the mice moved into her campervan and she took them back to Brisbane. So, thanks for that, Hellie.
The kitchen tent had reached its capacity as a functioning space. Of course, we could have done with a lot less, roughed it more, had fewer dinner parties, but instead, I rearranged the kitchen about seventeen times. At first, Smash would give me a hand, but after the twelfth rearrange (which was spookily similar to the second one) he said I was on my own. I persevered, tore some new holes in the tent floor moving the stainless-steel bench, manhandled the water container into a new spot with a lot of loud grunting that Smash ignored. By the end of each rearrange I’d stand back and be pleased for a day or so, then realise there was still room for improvement.
Before we left that time, one morning, as the sun was just peeking over the eastern hill, I went over to the newly levelled shed pad and stood in the spot I imagined a kitchen window would be, looking north east toward the granite. I felt such a deep and warm affection for our block of land. I thought about what it would be like to have solid walls and a roof high over our heads, a level, concrete floor. We’d only owned the block for about eight months and already we had a strong sense of ownership and the instinct to nest was strong. Then I thought about the millions of displaced people in the world living in tents who didn’t have the option of building a shed on their own block of land, or who’d had to leave their home soil, or who’d had it taken away (after much longer than eight months), and I know this will sound incredibly naive, but for the first time it dawned on me how that might feel.
