Farm Life - 15. FAR Chapter 15

When we received very little rain during the winter months, Dad, Gramps and I decided to sell most of our cattle, while the prices are good, as we had plenty of money from the development, to keep us going for a few years at least, and we will keep the 50 breeding cattle, and see how we cope with just them.

We were also looking at doing another development project, this time on our far northern border, just east of the sand dunes on the south side of the river, were we have a 88.95 acre paddock, on the banks of the river, just downstream from Diamond Island.

We were already in negotiations with the local shire, to permit us to build a second and larger caravan park, with 280 caravan bays, 106 camping sites, a 2-acre fun park, close to the river, including a shallow swimming pool, slides, mini golf, a giant jigsaw puzzle and giant chess.

Included will be a 120-metre long, single lane road bridge, with a pedestrian bridge attached along-side, there will also be a ten-metre nature strip between the river and any development or buildings, with new trees to be planted. Other proposals include an outdoor cinema, and several cafes and small shops, a skate park and a BMX bike track.

By the time, that Summer had arrived in November, we had made the right decision about destocking the farm, as we have received very little rain since July, and the feed was very scarce.

For the past few months, we have been busy planting more trees on the original part of the farm, to provide wind breaks, to reduce the risk of losing all the topsoil from the paddocks, due to regular strong coastal winds.

We are also considering breaking up the southern half of the farm, into hobby farms, to keep the original part of the farm, going, no matter how bad the lack of rains gets.

We now had the go ahead from the local shire council, to develop the paddock on our northern boundary, with the council chipping in 20% of the cost of building the bridge over the river, plus they would build the road connecting the bridge to Kilburn Drive, the road at the south east end of town.

By the time Christmas and New Year had passed, there was still no sign of any rain, with any summer storms slipping down below the region. The bridge over the river had been completed, as has the paving of the new roads and street curbing and installing a large septic waste tank at the bottom corner of the property, and Preston and Ronny had returned from their trip home for Christmas, in time for the start of the new school year.

Work was well on the way with developing the new caravan park, with six small ablution blocks, and all the water piping and electrical have been installed and connected to the mains power, bays, plus street parking for the whole development had been completed.

Just after the bridge, there is a row of 5 shops for various types of businesses on each side of the road, along with plenty of off street parking. Behind the shops on the left side is the skate park, BMX bike track and the fun park, while on the right, there is additional carparking bays and an ablutions block and lawn area.

Just beyond that is tourist information centre and caravan park office on the right, and the outdoor cinema on the left, with the caravan park just beyond that.

At the front of the caravan park, there are 28 camping bays on each side of the driveway, along the first cross street, with each camping site having space for one vehicle, and two large tents, and there is a 3-metre wide nature strip between each site.

The first two ablution blocks are opposite the camping sites, with the first of the caravan bays located down the same side of the street. Two streets down, is the next set of ablution blocks, and on the opposite side, there is another 28 camping sites on one side, and 22 camping sites and a camping kitchen on the other side.

Plenty of semi-mature trees were being planted in each of the nature strips between the camp sites and the caravan bays, plus alongside the 18 holiday cabins, that are located at the very back of the caravan park to allow plenty of shade during the hot summer months, with most of the trees planted already standing 3 metres tall.

It wasn’t until well after the Summer holiday season, before the new facilities were close to completion, but they would be ready for the long weekend of Easter in early April, with advertising of the new caravan park and community facilities advertised state wide, with television and newspaper advertising, and with our family being the owners of the facilities, and much to my surprise, Dad put me in charge of managing it all.

After plenty of searching, and lots more interviews, I found a suitable team of staff to run the caravan park office, and a team of cleaners to keep it all tidy, and when the day came to open the office for booking, the telephones were running hot from 8am onwards.

Three of the holiday cabins, that have 2 bedrooms each, I decided to reserve for staff to share, as most of the staff were not locals and finding suitable accommodation is near impossible.

The remaining three 2-bedroom cabins, four 3-bedroom cabins and two 1-bedroom cabins are for holiday guests, with a carpark space separating each of the cabins.

In total, I have 9 staff, with four being locals. 3 staff will run the administration of the park, plus there is 3 cleaners, a maintenance man and 2 groundsmen, to maintain the caravan park and the rest of the development, which is having landscaped gardens established all over the place, with plenty of trees, native shrubs, and some smaller native plants, and plenty of lawn area, for families to relax and enjoy the surrounds.

The whole development we decided to call Southbank Kilburn, which is also the name of the new caravan park, which was booked out for the Easter long weekend, in less than one day, and with some grounds and minor building work to be completed before then, it was decided to keep access to the development restricted to staff and work contractors, even though there are a lot of locals and day visitors keen to check out the new facilities.

Seeing that there was a huge interest in the development, and after some discussions with my father, I decided to have an open day for the locals, and any day visitors in the region, but I would only advertise it to the local town and nearby towns.

I had decided that the best way to keep a close eye on everything, was to set up an office in one of the shops at the front of the development, but I would not put any advertising at the front saying what the office is for. I chose the first shop on the right-hand side, that overlooks the river.

On each side of the main street, there are two small size, two medium size and 1 large size shops, with mine being a medium size shop, and I had the building have an entry and reception area, with a wide reception desk, located in the centre, all but two are not locals, visitor seating on each side.

Behind the reception desk is a central hallway leading to the back half of the building, with a filing store, staff lounge, two bathrooms and a store room on the left, and a meeting room and my executive office on the right. After advertising expressions of interest for businesses to lease space at the new development, and one of the large size shops has been leased to become a restaurant, and the other large shop is leased to become a bakery.

The post office will also be relocating to the new development, with it taking up the other medium size store next to mine and will also be a newsagency. One of the medium stores on the opposite side of the road, is to become a café, while the one next to it is to become the part-time office for the local shire council, and for now the remaining 4 smaller shops are vacant.

One last minute addition to the development, included a steep ramp and steps leading down to a 15 metre long and 3 metre wide dock, on the edge of the river, to allow visitors to get easy access to the river, with last of the work on the development being completed on the second last week of March.

I decided to make the first weekend of April and open weekend for locals and visitors to check out the new facilities, and I invited the local shire council to come and officially open the new Southbank Kilburn development.

I decided to make it a fun weekend for all, so I was able to organise for a bouncy castle to come up for the weekend, along with some food and drink vans to provide refreshments for all the visitors, with an unknownnumber of visitors expected.

Preston and Ronnie had decided to come up to Kilburn for the big event, even thou they had seen the development a few weeks earlier when it was nearly completed, and I drove down on the Friday afternoon to collect them and bring them up to the farm for the weekend.

After discussions with the local shire council, it was decided to make the access bridge available to pedestrian’s only, since we were not sure how many people would be coming to the opening, I offered discounted cabin accommodation to the 6 businesses that were bringing the bouncy castles and the food and drink vans, on the Friday afternoon, and staying for two nights.

Once I had returned from the trip to Perth, I took Preston & Ronnie to have a look at the finished development, which has its very first guests, that being the 6 businesses providing additional food, drinks and entertainment for the weekend.

The council had spent the past two weeks building a 154-bay carpark, and pedestrian sidewalk, along the 700-metre long stretch of the road that joins Kilburn Drive, at the end of town with the new bridge, crossing the river, to accommodate the expected visitors coming to see the new development.

New street signage just before and at the junction of Kilburn Drive and Mortimer Road, which is the main road leading into town, gives directions to Southbank Kilburn Caravan Park, the Skate Park, Fun Park & BMX track, Outdoor Cinema, Post Office & Newsagency and Restaurant.

Where the new carpark bays begin, there is additional signage, saying that there is limited parking on the other side of the bridge. After having a look around the development and stopping to chat to the caravan park administration manager – Rachel for a few minutes, we headed back home, via the 3 km-long back-access road, making sure that the gate was locked, so no one can enter the farm.

Mum as always gave us a wonderful big dinner, and as we ate dad quizzed me, to make sure that I hadn’t forgotten anything in preparation for the weekends event, which I hadn’t.

Our dinner was interrupted three times by telephone calls, the first was from the local CWA branch, who was requesting a place to run a fundraiser stall at the weekends even, which I said would be ok, and I said that they can have the use of one of the empty shops free of charge.

The second call was a similar request from the local Red Cross Branch, and I gave them an empty shop to use as well, and the third was from local Observatory, who wanted to have a promotion’s stand over the weekend, which I thought was a good idea, to promote the local sights to see.

The next day, Preston, Ronnie and I, would head over to Southbank at 7am, after an early breakfast, and the family would come over some time in the middle of the morning.

I planned to take the extra 4-wheeler buggy, which dad had bought especially for my use, with one already on site, for the grounds crew to use, along with an attachable trailer, for carting garden rubbish, and picking up the rubbish bins, so they can be emptied into the large trailer, that I was bringing the buggy in.

Behind my office, I have a two-vehicle car porch, and a double size shed, that stores away all the grounds equipment, including the buggy and trailers. Getting up as planned at 6.15am, the lads and I had some breakfast in the cottage, so as not to disturb the family in the main house, and with the buggy already loaded on the trailer, and that attached to my ute, we set off down the laneway track towards Southbank.

Once passed through the access gate, which was locked behind us, we drove around to my office, and parked my ute, before unloading the buggy and unhitching the trailer, which was put inside the shed, and the buggy was parked next to the ute. As we enjoyed a cup of tea in the front veranda of my office, Rachel and her husband Geoff, who is my head grounds person, arrived.