Simba - 25. Simba Ch 25

On the weekend, Jack took Aaron and me up into the Adelaide Hills, East of the city to spend two days doing a brief survey of animals in the Conservation Park in the Mount Lofty area, and Aaron filmed a lot of it, so we could add it to our promotions videos.

As I was leaving the lecture room on campus on Wednesday, I received a text message from Jack. “Two packages have arrived for you. Will you be long before you get here? Jack.” As I dashed down the passageway, I sent a fast reply, “Leaving campus in a moment, see you soon,” and I jumped into my vehicle and set off for the project.

When I arrived, I was shocked to see two containers sitting in the front car park, both have the project logo on them, with one looking like it is the expected Twist and Shout design, and the second one is tall and narrow, so I was guessing that it is possibly the K-Case design, also known as Moot Hall.

“Did these just get dropped off? Did it include anything else?” I asked Jack who had come outside to meet me in the front car park, where I had parked well away from the two containers. “If you mean the remotes, yes I have them here with me,” Jack replied smiling, as he handed them over.

I walked around both of the containers, before shouting out, “All Clear” and Jack replied, “Clear” before I pressed both buttons at the same time, and together the two containers folded out, with the Twist and Shout container taking almost a minute longer to fully open.

“Wow, awesome. Are we taking them both to Port Lincoln with us?” Jack said as we headed inside the K-Case designed building, and I put the locking pins into place as I entered. They are so different, but they can still pack up into a small box, it is amazing what Ten Fold have done with these designs,” Jack commented as we looked around both levels of the building, before going into the second building, and checking both levels.

“Shall I contact the trucking company in Port Augusta, and get them to collect these two building tomorrow?” Jack asked me, just as Chris arrived in his vehicle with Will travelling with him. “Hey Guys, I see we have two more Ten Fold Buildings, and they look so different from the other one,” Will commented.

“Yeah, one is for you to sleep in,” Chris added, which had Jack and I laughing, while poor will looked a little sad, “Sorry mate, it was just a joke, I didn’t mean anything by it,” Chris said to Will, Yeah, we are sorry for laughing too,” I said to Will.

While Chris and Will were exploring the new buildings, we headed inside, where Jack made a phone call to the trucking company, and they had a truck in Adelaide now, which was preparing to return to base empty, so they were glad to get our call.

Less than an hour later the truck arrived, and the two containers were folded up and loaded onto the trailer, and were soon on it’s way northwards to Port Augusta. I had arranged to take Thursday afternoon and Friday off from University, and I would be travelling with Jack in my car, while Aaron would fly to Port Lincoln on Friday afternoon, once he has completed his college lectures for the day.

The following day after lunch, Jack and I were on our way northwards in my project vehicle and we took it in turns to drive, so that we did not get too tired during the journey. We already knew that the trucking company had collected the Ten Fold Container at Marion, and that it along with the other two containers, were already on their way south to Port Lincoln.

Although we only planned to have just the one Container display for this show, with the arrival of the other two containers, we contacted the show organisers, and they were able to allocate an open area that would be ideal for our display.

I planned to use our usual display container to promote the Kuishi Project, while the other two containers will be used to demonstrate how they open and close, with set times when people can inspect the insides of the display containers.

We arrived at the house in Marion with plenty of daylight to spare, so we went and did some snorkelling for an hour, before cooking some dinner on the portable BBQ, and retiring early, as we had a long day ahead of us tomorrow.

We have five hours of driving, plus setting up our display ready for the weekend country show, and collecting Aaron from the airport late in the afternoon.

The Port Lincoln show was a big success, with a big crowd gathered each time we did a display of the two different kinds of containers, opening up and closing again, and we did this every two hours, at 9 & 11 am and 1 & 3 pm.

We also had alot of people come in to see the Project display, but I think it was more to see what it is like inside a fold up container building. Once again, we camped in our swags upstairs, and the three of us took it in turns to talk about the project to the visitors.

When it was time to pack up and head back home, Aaron informed me that he had only a tutorial on Mondays, so he would be happy to travel back to Adelaide with Jack, once the containers had all been packed up and all loaded onto the trucks. Meanwhile I flew back to Adelaide late on Sunday afternoon, so I can attend my lectures at Uni on Monday morning.

When we all gathered late on Monday afternoon, for a debrief on how the weekend show went, we read out the report that Jack had made showing approximate numbers of people watch the Ten Fold Buildings demonstration, as well as the number of visitors that cam inside to see the Project display.

With there now being a two week break until the next event, which is the Royal Show, we would only be using the gazebos and fold up tables for our display as it was going to be an indoor display, after a late cancellation allowed us to participate in the show.

On Monday evening, after Aaron and I had eaten dinner, my phone rang and the caller ID informed me that it was Uncle Nat calling. “Hello boys how did the show at Port Lincoln go?” Uncle Nat asked, “Good, we had the usual display for the project, plus the two containers for displays of the Ten Fold Containers, which attracted a lot of visitors,” I replied.

“That is good to hear, now I have been notified that your modular home is ready to be put into place, so you will need to camp at the project for about a week, while it is being installed. I have arranged for the trucking company that you use for transporting the containers, to collect a small shipping container, to store all of your furniture, until the house is in place.

That will also be stored at the project, so the front car park will be quite full with the additional container, on top of the others that you already have there, plus the Tree House container that will be moved tomorrow, so you need to pack all of your personal belongings and take them to the project.

The trucking company will pack up the furniture and ship it to the project for you, since you both have studies to deal with,” Uncle Nat said to us.

“So we now have four Ten Fold Containers for display?” Aaron asked, “That is correct, and I am guessing that with the Nature Festival approaching, that you will probably be using all four of the containers?” Uncle Nat responded.

“Not sure yet Uncle, it will stretch the resources very thin if we did that, as we were going to set up a display in the hall of the project too, but I guess we could use one of the containers instead,” I replied. “Well, I will leave that up to you boys to decide, I better sign off now, as it is fairly late here in Canberra. I will keep in touch, bye for now,” Uncle Nat said before ending the call.

Quickly we washed up our dishes, and headed to our rooms to pack up our belongings, and loaded most of it into my vehicle, before grabbing a few boxes that we still had and packing all of our linen, kitchenware, laundry and cleaning supplies, before retiring for the night.

Over the next week, Aaron and I visited the site of our new home, as we watched it been put into place, but unlike the other buildings, which are on stilts above the water at street level, with a jetty below it, our new home would be a little closer to the water.

Sitting on a floating platform, that adjusts in height with the tide, just like the bottom half of the jetty does, with pylons keeping the barge in place, and our vehicle parking space was on the side of the road, with a semi-enclosed carport, once a retaining wall had been built, to stabilise the ground. When Aaron and I arrived at North Haven at lunchtime on Friday, the finishing touches, were been done to the carport, and the builders handed over the keys to our new home.

Looking around the house for the first time, we found some unexpected things, like the master suite, located on the lower level, along with a small lounge, laundry, kitchen and dining room, while upstairs has the main living area, a study library, second bedroom and ensuite bathroom, and a wide verandah.

Having kept most of our belongings in the vehicle, we began to move everything into our new home, and we did a few trips to and from the project to move everything over, using a borrowed trailer to transport all of our furniture and white goods, instead of having the container transported to the site.

We had also managed to get rid of the other small container, that stores all of our office furniture, and promotional display material and supplies, which we stored in the main hall of the project.

I was looking at buying a large covered trailer that can transport all of this to every display site, when attending shows, so we do not have to worry about another container to transport, so all we have now are the four - Ten Fold Containers.

With just a week remaining before the Royal Show, the team was now spending all of our spare time preparing for this event, as it would attract the highest volume of visitors for us, and it would be all hands on deck for the week ahead of us. Aaron, Will, Chris and myself spending just the bare minimum of time at university and college, so to be able to operate the display at the show.

Aaron and Jack took on most of the workload, but I skipped a few tutorial sessions to assist as much as possible, and we were all glad when the week had finally finished, and all of Sunday was spent doing absolutely nothing, and we all gathered at my home in North Haven for a BBQ dinner.

During dinner, I received a text message from Uncle Nat. “Check your email. Uncle Nat.” This confused me a little and I frowned, which Aaron noticed. “What is it?’ he asked me, “A cryptic message from Uncle, I need to check my emails,” I replied, as I headed inside to get to my laptop computer.

Once I opened the email, I hit the print button before reading the email. “Holy snakebite, this is… wow,” I said to myself, unaware that Aaron was at the doorway of small lounge. “What is it that made you say that cousin?” he said, which made me jump a little.

“Boys, as the legal owners of Kilimanjaro Distributions, I am happy to announce that you have received your first contract, to provide facilities for a period of six months for a joint research project between the CSIRO and the Australian Army, to be based on Macquarie Island. Congratulations, regards Uncle Nat,” I read aloud to Aaron, who whistled in surprise.

“Wow, that is amazing, congratulations, but what did he mean by legal owners as in plural,” Aaron asked me, and I smiled, “because cousin of mine, you are joint owner along with me, as in equal partners,” I replied, “Wow; now I didn’t expect that, thanks. So what now and where the heck is this Macquarie Island?” Aaron responded.

I chuckled at this, “Macquarie Island is in the Southern Ocean, and is the most southern territory of Australia, half way between Tasmania and Antarctica, 1,500 kilometres south-east of Tasmania and 1050 kilometres south of New Zealand,” I replied.

“Wow that is a long way from anywhere, does it have anything on the island?” Aaron asked, “It used to have a Australian Antarctic Research Division base on it, until fairly recently, but it was shut down because of Earthquake damage and Asbestoses contamination.

They have just spent the past three months cleaning up the asbestos contamination, and the area where the base was located, is now a restricted area. I am guessing that the new location will be further south on the west side of the island, where there is a bit of a flat area and a semi-sheltered bay,” I replied.

“So we are providing them with facilities, which ones will we be sending to Macquarie Island?’ Aaron asked me, “I think we will be sending two of them, the ‘Home and Away’ for their living space on the ground floor and some research space on the upper level, and the ‘Twist and Shout’ which will be the main research facility,” I responded.

I scanned the second and third page of the email, and smiled. “According to the additional information, they are wanting the research project to be on location at Carrick Bay, and that the HMAS Canberra will be anchoring just out of Port Adelaide at the start of the third week of November, to collect the containers and transporting them the 2,700 kilometres to Macquarie Island,” I informed Aaron.

“How will they get them onto and off the ship?” Aaron asked me, “They have a transport ship, otherwise known as a giant helicopter, which can lift very heavy objects. It will take the Naval ship about 6 ½ days to get to Macquarie Island, so it will be close to December when it arrives, and that is perfect, as I will have finished my exams by then,” I answered.

“Does that mean that we will be travelling to Macquarie Island too?” Aaron asked, “Yes, as we are the only ones with the remotes to open the two buildings,” I replied with a big smile, and Aaron laughed, “So how do we get there?” Aaron asked.

“Easy, we catch the CSIRO research ship – Investigator, which leaves Hobart on Tuesday, November 24^th, to arrive at Macquarie Island on or about Monday the 30^th of November.

We just have to get to Hobart before it leaves, that will mean a flight from Adelaide to Hobart via Melbourne, leaving on Monday at 7.50 am, and arriving in Hobart at 12.30 pm,” I replied. “That is just two days after my last exam,” Aaron said.