Country Retreat - 4. Plans for the river

“Very well, I will wait to hear from you, bye,” Dad said before ending the call. “The housemaster will contact Rizen’s parents to check to see if the change to your grandparents' place is ok or not. Either way, I will be taking you over to Regan’s Ford in about an hour, once your bags are packed and brought outside,” Dad informed me. The trip west to my grandparents’ farm was fairly silent, which was a little strange, as Dad usually liked to chat when he was driving anywhere.

When we arrived and after a brief chat, Dad told me to be on my best behaviour, especially with a friend staying over, before climbing into his ute and driving back to the main farm. “I’m glad you are here, I have so much to show you and get you to help me with,” Gramps said to me as we headed inside, where my Gran gave me a warm hug and welcome, before telling me to go and unpack.

Once I had done this, I headed over to the stables and yards to say hello to the horses, who were pleased to see me, racing up to the fence line to greet me. Gran had given me two carrots to feed them as a treat, which they always enjoyed. As we were eating lunch, the phone rang, and Gramps answered it, he listened and said a few words before hanging up and returning to the table.

As we cleared the table after lunch, Gramps informed me that it was my Dad on the phone earlier, to inform us that Rizen had permission from his parents to stay here on the other farm, which I was happy to hear, and that we would drive down to Perth to collect him in the morning. Once the cleanup in the kitchen was completed, Gramps and I jumped into the ute and headed down the driveway towards the highway.

“Where are we going?” I asked sounding a little confused, “As I said earlier, I have something to show you, but it is on Mogumber Rd West on the south side of the river,” Gramps replied. “More land? Don’t you have enough already to look after?” I responded, and Gramps just smiled, as he turned south on the highway, and two and a half kilometres later we turned left onto Mogumber Road West.

Less than a kilometre later Gramps slowed down before he turned left again and stopped at the gate, which I opened for him and closed behind again once he had driven through. The first 700 to 800 metres of the drive was all bush on both sides, until a clearing and another fence and gate appeared, which I opened and closed. “This property is a fair bit bigger than the main one.

Just over 506 acres in total, and as you saw the front paddock is all bush, there is one small paddock over to the west there, that has two old sheds and tanks on it, and two other paddocks, one on either side of the driveway, that leads to the main sheds, silos and two identical small houses, which I have leased out to workers of the nearby large olive farm on the other side of the highway.

I have one herd of cattle over here on this block, and for now, we have to drive around to get to the property, but I hope to get around that problem soon, by very quietly building a raised steel bridge over the river, that is wide enough for a quad bike and stock to cross over. The place I want to place the bride is just down from our main sheds, where the bridge is being constructed by Len Archer during his spare time, as he has some engineering experience,” Gramps informed me.

“How wide is the river at that crossing point?” I asked, “Only about sixteen metres, but we must allow for the flood zone, when the river is up extra high, so the bridge will need to be about thirty metres long. We have come up with an idea to overcome the load bearing over the river, by using 3,000-litre square poly tanks, that will have aluminium plates bolted to the top of it which will then be attached to the bridge, which allow the clearance to pass under the bridge with the kayaks.

We are using aluminium so to keep the weight levels down, as it will be a kind of floating bridge, with several pivot joints to allow for the changes in height of the water level, also the bridge will be raised a bit in the middle to allow for tree branches and anything else to pass through, without clogging up the river or damaging the bridge.

Now that I have this property, I also have been working on establishing several small jetties with raised boardwalks, for easier access to the river, mainly because I have bought two kayaks, so you can enjoy paddling up and down the river when you are here,” Gramps announced to me.

“Wow, that sounds awesome, so can we go and check out these jetties please?” I asked, and Gramps smiled and chuckled at this request. “As soon as we have checked all of the stock and water points, yes we can do that,” Gramps replied. After Gramps showed me around the sheds, and from a distance we saw the two houses, we went and checked the stock, and cleaned the water troughs, before we cut across the paddock towards the western boundary.

I noticed that there was a lot of bush on the other side of the fence, and I could hear the main highway traffic not far beyond it. As we climbed out of the vehicle, where I spotted a set of slatted steel steps that go over the fence, and I followed Gramps over the fence, and down a narrow track towards the river.

“This bush here is our land too, I just keep it like this for visual and noise protection from the highway,” Gramps said to me smiling. When we reached the river, I saw a steel walkway that was about three metres wide and six metres long, that was attached by heavy chains to two solid trees about four metres from the riverbank, that had rubber collars around them, to protect the trees from rubbing on the chains.

At the end of the walkway, is a floating jetty that runs along the riverbank for about ten metres or so, as I carefully walked along the walkway and stepped onto the jetty. “Very nice Gramps, portable so it can be relocated, if need be,” I said as Gramps watched me from the riverbank. “The highway is about 270 metres from here, and this long bend ends 70 metres from here, where there is a fallen tree over the river, that stops anyone from kayaking or boating any further upstream,” Gramps informed me.

“How many jetties have you built, and how many do you plan to have?” I asked my grandfather. “Well, it is a bit over 2.9 kilometres from here to the far eastern boundary on the properties on either side of the river, so I was thinking maybe one at each end and one or two in between, but with the bridge been built too I was thinking maybe having one near the bridge, and one at the other end should be enough,” Gramps replied.

“A few minutes later back in the Ute, we drove around to the north side of the river and headed down the western boundary from the front gate, until we reached the river, where the location of the second jetty and walkway are but not quite completed, not far inside the boundary fence line, are located which does not cross over the river at all on this farm, stopping just passed the low water level.

“Are there any other fallen trees over the river on your properties Gramps?” I asked, “Just a few light branches that should be easy to cut away with a hand saw and drag away from the river. The only large trees that have fallen over the river, are on the bend at the south end, and one just east and upstream from our eastern boundary, on the neighbour's property, both of which are low to the water during average water levels, so they do create a bit of a damming effect when the water level is high,” Gramps replied.

For the rest of the afternoon, we looked at different places along the riverbanks, and using steel pickets, we marked where we thought were the best places for the bridge, and another jetty above the bridge and near the eastern boundary, that is one kilometre apart, and we decided to put the bridge, just down from the main sheds, and near the fence line, for easier access.

The following morning, we were all up early, and I took both horses for a good ride, knowing that I would be away from the farm for a few hours, as we were all going to travel down to Perth to collect Rizen from the school, and we had notified the school that we would be arriving at 10 am.

Rizen was waiting outside the student residence when we arrived, and he smiled broadly on seeing us arrive and jumping out of the car, we shook hands and I introduced him to my grandparents, before loading up his luggage in the boot, and climbing in. On the way back to the far, we chatted about what we had done for the first week of the holidays, and we arrived back at Regan’s Ford just before lunchtime.

I had arranged for Rizan to share my room, so the spare bed was already made up for him, and we would be sharing the main family bathroom. Once settled in, I suggested that we go for a walk to look around, and I showed him the two horses, before going down to the river for a short while, arriving back just in time for lunch.

“Oscar, you and Rizen can take the quadbike and go and explore. You will find those two items we talked about in the storeroom behind the garage, make sure that you wear all the safety gear, and take some towels with you,” my grandfather said to me, and I nodded my head in understanding as I smiled.