Farm Life - 17. FAR Chapter 17

Over the Easter long weekend, I decided to leave it to the staff to manage everything at Southbank, and I made and appearance in the late afternoon on Saturday, were everything seemed to be going ok, with families everywhere, and the fun park and skate park being very popular places for the younger kids, while the river was the main area for the teenagers and adults.

Calling into the office just before it was due to close at 6pm, I handed Andrea who was at the deck, a list that I had put together overnight, of the dates of school and public holidays for this year, and the dates for commencement of booking for each of those holidays, which is about 6 weeks prior.

This includes a special condition that any bookings over long weekends, cannot be carried over to the following school holidays, and that the maximum period to stay is two weeks, which will now become part of the terms and conditions of booking to stay at Southbank, and also that the caravan park and cabins will be closed for 8 days in mid-June for maintenance and five days during Christmas, for staff holidays.

Back at home, I spent the rest of the day with the lads and my siblings, as we relaxed on the lawn outside the main house. Preston and I would be setting up a Sunday Easter egg hunt, for my siblings once they had eaten dinner and gone to bed, with Preston bringing a large supply of Easter eggs when he came up to the farm on Thursday evening.

While Preston and Ronnie were supervising the Easter egg hunt, the next morning, Dad and I were sitting down at the dining room table discussing business. “So, what are your thoughts on improvements to the development?” my Dad asked me.

“Well, I have decided to have some cabins built to house staff at the very back of the property, so it will free up those three cabins currently in use by them.

Also, in that spare space for additional shops, I want to have just two extra-large shops, instead of four medium shops, so we have a bigger variety of space available to lease, and on the other side closest to the tank, I thought maybe we just lawn that area, and put some smelly plants around the sides, to disguise the smell from the tank, maybe something like star jasmine” I suggested.

“That sounds fine to me, and good thinking about using smelly plants to hide the tank smell, although I think that with it being sealed tight, it should not be a problem. What about the other bit of strip of space just before that caravan park, which is currently just lawn area, do we develop that, or keep it as open recreation space?” my Dad commented.

“I think just leave it as open space, once we have the extra two shops and the staff village at the back, we will be pretty much full, I don’t want it to look to overcrowded, and I want to keep that nature strip between the property and the sand dunes, as wide as possible” I replied.

“Fair enough, I will leave it in your capable hands, well done so far son, I am very proud of you” Dad said to me as he smiled and gave me a pat on the shoulder. The kids came bursting into the house to show us what they had found, with the twins having the most Easter eggs clutched in the arms.

“Ok, put them into your room for now, and go and wash up for breakfast” Mum commanded, as my siblings dashed to their rooms. Soon there was some screeching, and I stood up to go and see what was happening andfound a water fight in progress between my three brothers in the bathroom, and Gertrude was soaked in water, and not looking to happy.

“Right you little devils stop that this in…” I started to say, before a container of water splashed into my face, and the twins went dashing out of the bathroom, and down the hall towards the dining room. I handed Gertrude her towel, before grabbing mine, and I commenced to dry off as I headed to the dining room.

“It wasn’t us Mum” the twins chorused when I appeared. “Yeah right, and pigs might fly” I grumbled in reply, which made Mum and Dad laugh. “Preston do pigs really fly?” the twins asked my friend.

“Don’t answer that” I said quickly intervening, before continuing. “Right you three rascals, and this does not include you sis, you boys are banned from the Fun park at Southbank for one week, as punishment for the mess in the bathroom and on us” I said to my brothers.

Mum nodded her head in agreement, “and straight after breakfast, you can clean up the mess” Mum added, as Gertrude appeared now in a dry set of clothes, and I set off to my cottage to get changed.

The rest of the day was spent just relaxing with the family, only interrupted once by a phone call from Rachel, regarding irate customers, who are demanding to be allowed to book caravan bays, well in advance, as is custom with the other caravan park.

I asked Rachel to remind the customers that this is a privately owned and operated caravan park, and as such does not follow the booking rules of the shire council run caravan park.

The next morning, I was at my office, just before 8am, and I had only just sat down, when Rachel walked in, and came down to my office. “Good morning boss, everything is sorted with that enquiry I made yesterday, there are a few guests who do not like the booking system, but we stayed firm, and they eventually accepted the booking terms.

We have everyone leaving by 10am today, with new bookings arriving at 2pm, which should be enough time for the grounds team to clean up and the cleaners to get all the ablution blocks cleaned” Rachel said to me, “Good, thank you for all of that, what about after the school holidays?” I replied, “surprisingly good actually, we have 37 caravans booked in, and three of the cabins” Rachel replied.

“Good, and don’t forget to make sure there are no bookings, from the 8th to the 17th of June, which will be our annual maintenance break” I replied, “Yes, I have already done that, so no problems there, and I have done the same for the Christmas break as well” Rachel responded.

“Any problems over the Easter break?” I asked, “Yes, we had a few groups that decided that they wanted to party into the early hours of the night, and I had to remind them that there is no music or noise after 10pm, but they seemed to ignore it the first time.

The second time I had Geoff as backup, and they soon got the hint” Rachel said. “Good, just make sure that you have each of the guests read and agree to the terms and conditions at the time they have booked” I said.

“Will do boss, I better get back to the park office, catch you later” Rachel said as she left, and although we had only been open for a few days, I had a list of supplies that needed ordering, so I got to work with getting the order done, which come up from the northern suburb of Joondalup.

About an hour later, I received a phone call from the modular building company, who informed me that they are currently loading three trucks, and that they will be in Kilburn in less than two hours, to deliver the first 3 two -bedroom staff cabins, with 2 one - bedroom cabins to be delivered tomorrow.

I instructed the man to bring the trucks via the farm’s main entry, ensuring him that there are firm gravel roads from the highway, all the way to the back gate of the caravan park, which is where the new cabins will be located, with a 6-metre space between each cabin, and a 6-metre backyard space from the back of the cabin to the rear boundary fence.

Once the cabins are in place, I will have a local fencing contractor build fencing between the cabins, so each cabin is on a small block of land. By the end of the week, all five of the new staff cabins had been installed and connected to plumbing, gas and power, with the Andrea and her son - Finn moving into one cabin and the cleaners - Marg and Sandra moving into a single bedroom cabin each over the weekend.

With two other cabins available, I made the offer to the other two couples, saving them from spending so much on renting a house in town, and they said they would consider the offer and let me know. Once the staff had moved into their new cabins, the others were cleaned ready for guest use, and on the computer in the office, there status was changed to available, and quickly snapped up by guests to use during the remainder of the holidays.

Late on the Friday afternoon, I was tallying up the income from the Easter long weekend, of which all the accommodation fees were made electronically, I was shocked to see that we had made a total of over $55,900 before tax and expenses, which is mostly wages, as the development has two deep water bores, providing all the water needed.

We also have the roofs of all of the ablution blocks, shops and park buildings have Solar power panels, which provides all of the required power for the whole development village, so what we had come in over the weekend, was a small part of covering the costs of building the development, which Dad informed me, costed $920,000 which was the majority of the amount we received in profits from the first development.

I was just about to switch off my laptop, when I received an email from the local shire council. “Dear Mr Grantham, now that your Caravan Park is fully operational, it has been unanimously decided by the Granville Shire Council, to reduce the number of camping and caravan bays at Kilburn Caravan Park, to return the space back into open A class reserve for the whole community and visitors.

Once the Autumn holidays are over at the end of this month, the four camping spaces, and Caravan bays, on all 12 rows, closest to the river will be closed off from the caravan park, with the relocation of the limestone wall, and that area of the wood fence dividing the recreation park will be removed, and new lawn replacing the dirt roads, to make the recreation park area bigger for the community.

It was decided not to consult the broader community on this issue, as it relates to Shire Council property on an A class reserve, and the change will be beneficial to the broader community, instead of just the paid users of the caravan park.

We look forward to a good working relationship with your family business, which has already benefited the community with jobs, additional community facilities and new businesses in town. Regards, Councillor S.Overton, Granville Shire President”. I was a little surprised at this announcement, and I printed out a hard copy of the email to show it to Dad.

“Well this is a big surprise indeed” Dad said after reading the email, “it will be more beneficial for us, but hey will still have limited caravan park facilities and camping at the back of their park as usual, plus their five holiday chalets, it just means that we will get the bulk of the business from now on” I commented.

“Yes, but we better be careful not to take all the business away from them, it looks like the council still wants to have a small caravan and camping park there” Dad said to me.

“I did a basic calculation of the space, it is about 160 metres by 50 metres that will be taken from the caravan park, to be added to the recreation park, which I think is good, as there had been so much space, has been taken away to build a bigger carpark area, and there is hardly any lawn space left, for families to sit down for a picnic” I announced, “Just as long as they don’t take some of it away for more carparking space, I am happy with the change” Dad added, and I nodded my head in agreement.