Exterior of cabin at lockup

The delivery date is the week of 18th July - they will have to come a week before to put in the piers. The first photo is from what will be south-west, second south east showing verandah, and third north east.

Driveway

Well $5600 and two days and I have a driveway with a pipe crossing. The guy laughed when I said council said I needed a pipe crossing - the driveway is on crest of a hill, he said it will make a great home for ants cos it will never get wet.

Lucy's first egg

The little black chicken has laid an egg - ending my speculation about it's gender. I was keeping them locked in the cage all the time but finally gave in to their pitiful calls. I'm going to leave them out while I'm on the block - not even lock them in at night since it was the early morning calls for release which were driving me crazy. It's a risk but hopefully I can rescue them when the dogs come back, or the goanna/hawk/fox/cat. They will still be locked up over the weekend when I'm at Cathy's.

Development application

Well I have submitted the application and there has been a site inspection. As usual new stuff was brought up - I need a second water tank dedicated to fire fighting with a specific fitting (maybe not plastic he wasn't sure) and I need to enclose the bottom around the 1m piers - so it doesn't look like a transportable. Another form for the builders to make sure the cabin complies with fire standards. However, he said he would send me something soon that would let them start building the cabin, before the formal approval. Now I just need to find someone to clear the regrowth, make a driveway, level the house and two tank sites.

 Here are the guys from Clarence-Nambucca, left to right, Robyn, Bryan, Graeme (kneeling), Kim, Victor, George, Nicky and me. Graeme was my team leader, and Kim and Robyn team mates.

 This was a huge job at the marina that we started but had to leave to get back to Cairns. I was all harnessed up at the bottom of ladder when it was canceled.

 Kim and I did this job alone on the roof - chainsawing off a big clump of palms and two single palms.

 These were enemy number one (well two if you count heat/humidity). Green ants make nest with leaves and actively defend the branch by swarming on you and biting and spraying formic acid. Which as poor Kim found out really hurts if they bite you on your eyelids and spray in your eyes (she got one on each eye within two minutes). They also will drop down from above if tree is bumped.

 The trees were stripped of leaves and minor branches for kilometers. Jungle covered hills now look as if a bad fire has been through.

The marina got badly hit - Hinchinbrook island funneled the worst onto Cardwell. There was an 8m swell which lifted the boats and dropped them onto the land.

Cleanup

Typical scene, house in background is one of about 80 totally uninhabitable, piles of debris and green waste on verges. Cardwell has about 1500 residents and most houses had some damage, their local SES has 6 members.

First job

This was our first job, a classic example of a job too difficult for standard SES. It will need a professional tree lopper because no-one in our team has done the advance tree felling course (so we can only cut fallen trees) and the two broken branches could fall at any time (called widow-makers) onto the roof and do more damage.