Weekend Trip: 19th & 20th March 2016

A weekend planned to make a start on the roof insulation. We couldn’t put the sarking on before the sheets were installed for safety reasons so we innovated a new technique that proved successful so far.

We arrived Saturday morning and the weather was cold and windy. A decent breeze was pushing it’s way up the mountain. 14 degrees cool. We spotted a Wedge Tail Eagle on the road eating a fresh Kangaroo carcass and a number of Wallaroos and Echidnas frantically crossing our path involving 2 near misses.

We unpacked and set up camp hopefully for the last or second last time. We decided against the camper and went with the swag. It was our first time in the swag.

Chris’ first job was to install strengthening beams to the floor piers in case of a severe wind. He didn’t have the correct drill bit so off we went to Bunnings Cowra for a Hex bit. There and back in under an hour and Chris finished his first job!

Next we cut up some sarking to fit between the trusses. We cut them in 2.5m lengths and 675mm thick to create a sag to catch and reflect the heat. By the 4th sheet installed you could feel the heat difference between insulated and non insulated roof panels.

While Chris was working with the insulation I decided to go Walkabout to the dam and set up my new trail cam.
It is quite low but holding up well

The surprise is how well the spring holds up. I poked a shovel in and it had no bottom! There was a lot of bees drinking from here.

I set up the trail cam hoping to catch a glimpse of what goes on after dark but all I caught was some thirsty sheep!

I cooked a Beef and Shiraz Stew for dinner over the Ozpig, we kept warm by the fire until 10pm at night, then we went to bed. I had a great sleep but Chris found the Swag mattress too hard.

**Sunday 20th March 2016**

Early Sunday morning, Chris got up to wee in the night. He was amazed at the site of 3 pigs grazing just below the deck. He came over and woke me up; “Karen! Karen! There’s pigs under the deck!”
I immediately got out of the swag to look. The moon was high and casting a brilliant glow. I looked down with anticipation of seeing pigs for the first time on our property. I realized immediately they were just rocks… thanks for the wake up!

We woke at 830am, the swag was really warm and felt an immediate temperature change when Chris got up and opened the little hatch door. I had a good sleep but Chris tossed and turned.

We had Bacon and Cheese Sandwiches for breakfast with 2 cups of coffee. Chris immediately went to work and I couldn’t contain myself and had to check the trail cam. No midnight visitors to the Spring! We were hoping to catch a glimpse of our late night “growler”, potentially a possum or Quoll!

Saw a Red Belly Black Snake by the dam, he seems to be a regular inhabitant, we remain at distance from each other and have mutual respect.

My walkabout took me down the Telegraph Track, aptly named as such due to the existing old telephone lines that traverse through the property. I found a chunk of Quartz with red running through it’s cracks, and an old shooting target semi buried in long grass.

The long walk was very relaxing. Always good to explore new sections slowly, looking for any sort of history about the property.

Our neighboring farmer visited around lunchtime, offered us some Lambs to be killed before next weekend. The thought initially turned my stomach but he said farm kill is less stressful to the sheep as opposed to carting them off to abattoirs. I will see how I feel when they are delivered in an Esky…! Our neighbor Damien is good for a laugh, he’s a classic shearer with some classic stories, as friendly as they come around here!

We couldn’t believe how fast time flew on Sunday, after Damien left it was 1pm!
I started to pack up and Chris rushed through the last sheets. When the wind stopped we cut up as much as we could only stopping when the wind returned.
We installed 20 sheets and the rest will be completed gradually in between the big jobs.

Bathurst Burr