Simba - 23. Simba Ch 23

“The second building is what I thought would be ideal, if you have a large project where you will need two or all three buildings, so I selected the Twist and Shout,” Uncle Nat said. “Excellent choice Uncle,” I replied, “Man, they have some strange names for their buildings,” Jack commented.

“Yes, but wait till you see them opened up, and you may understand how they got their names,” I replied. “I look forward to it,” Jack said. Once the building had fully closed up, I checked that the lock on the smaller furniture container was still in place, before we headed to our vehicles to head back home, with Jack accepting our offer to eat with us for dinner.

Two days later, Will, Chris and I attended our first day back at University, while Aaron attended his first day at College, leaving Jack to remain at the office to finalise plans for the country shows, the royal show and the festival.

The first country show is in mid-August, in just three weeks time in the town of Whyalla, which is on the way to Port Lincoln, on the West side of the Gulf. When I arrived at the project base after two lectures and a study period, I was feeling tired, but I wanted to get an update from Jack.

To see if he managed with getting a bigger site at the Royal Show, and how he did with finalising all of the country shows that we can fit in from mid August to Mid November, which is now ten country shows plus the Royal show and the Nature Festival.

When I arrived home, Uncle Nat was in his room mumbling about something, “I am home Uncle,” I called out, and he appeared shortly after. “Problems, with something?” I asked, “No, I just hate packing, it is a real pain in the… backside,” Uncle Nat replied, and I chuckled that he changed what he was going to say at the last moment.

“Take a seat in the study, I have a few things I need to talk to you about,” Uncle sat said so I followed him into the room and closed the door. “Firstly, I want to let you know that I am very proud of you, especially now with your slight disability, which I see has not slowed you down at all.

Secondly, I was not entirely truthful when I said that I had an extra surprise, when I told you about the second and third Ten Fold Buildings, one was cleared from customs today, while the third one arrives in a few weeks, as there has been some delays.

You and Aaron are not moving into a rental house on York Street, I have purchased a house for you both to live in, and now that you have a vehicle, it will not be a problem of getting to and from university. The house is located in the suburb of North Haven, with unrestricted views of the ocean, on Gulf Point Drive.

The property is across the road from the Haven Cove Marina, and is owned by Kuishi Project, it would be an ideal location, too store your buildings and use it as a display site, Uncle Nat said to me. “When do we get to go and have a look?” I asked. “I’m home,” Aaron called out before we could say any more.

“Right now, since your cousin has arrived at the perfect time,” Uncle said smiling, and I laughed. “What is so funny?” Aaron asked, “Nothing, just your perfect timing that is all,” I replied. “Come on boys lets take Jacobs car for this drive,” Uncle Nat said, and Aaron dropped his bag on the lounge and followed us out the front.

“Where exactly are we going?” Aaron asked, as we climbed in, “To our new home, which I have just learnt is actually in North Haven, and not in York Street,” I replied. “We are going to 92 Gulf Point Drive,” Uncle Nat said to me, and I added the address into the navigator of the car, before we set off.

Taking the first turn onto Gulf Point Drive, we were seeing some very expensive houses, and further up we could see plenty of yacht masts. “Are you sure we are on the right road?” Aaron asked, “I was about to say the same thing cousin,” I added.

“Keep going, we are almost there,” Uncle Nat said to me, as we went along an S bend with houses just on the left side now, and a car park and sand dunes on the other side, as the road bent to the left.

“Pull over and park on the right hand side of the road, immediately after this bend,” Uncle Nat instructed me, so I slowed right down, and seeing a high kerb, I crawled over it and parked between the road and a low pine barrier, just six metres from the edge of the road.

“Ok, so where is this new home of…” I stopped short, when looking at the jetty on its own, which has the number 92 in big lettering on the security access gate, and near the end of the jetty on the left side, was a flat barge, and on it was a cube shaped container.

“Why did you stop talking Jacob?” Aaron asked me, as Uncle Nat handed over a remote control, and I laughed out-loud, which really confused Aaron.

“Watch the barge and you will see,” Uncle Nat said to Aaron, as I pushed the button on the remote, and suddenly the cube began to move, and Aaron jumped back in shock, as the cube lifted, revealing four legs, which had been bolted to the barge.

Within four minutes, the Tenfold Tree house was revealed, with Aaron’s expression on his face, was one of amazement, and Uncle Nat and I chuckled at this. “Close your mouth, or you might catch a fly,” I said to my cousin as I headed for the security gate, where Uncle Nat showed me the eight-digit code.

“Afya’s birthday?” I whispered, and Uncle Nat nodded his head yes, as the gate gave a loud click and I pushed the gate open and stepped aside to let Uncle Nat to pass and wait for Aaron to catch up. Once past the gate, which automatically locked behind us, we walked down the steps to the jetty, which adjusts in height with the tides.

We stepped onto the twenty by sixteen metre barge, just as Uncle Nat was finishing inserting the safety pins into position, to stop the building from folding up. “Wow, wow, wow,” Aaron said as he looked at the building from the top of the steps.

“Is that all you can say?” I asked with a big cheeky grin, “Yeah, but wow, this is even better than the other one, and this is our home?” Aaron replied. “It sure is nephew, downstairs you have the spiral stairs going up, along with a compact laundry and bathroom.

Upstairs, in the core directly above the bathroom and laundry, you have a compact kitchen, pantry and storeroom. As you can see from out there, you have four separate zones, two of them are bedrooms, one is the dining area and the last is the lounge area,” Uncle Nat said before I climbed up the stairs to get a good look of the space upstairs.

I could see that two zones, opposite each other have walls and doors, while the lounge and dining area are open space, as Uncle Nat and Aaron arrived, “This is so cool, living in our own tree house,” Aaron said happily, and I smiled, glad to see that my cousin was now very happy living here in Australia with us.

When we heard some airbrakes, that sounded like a truck, we looked out the window to see a removalist truck parked outside, “Ah good, your furniture has arrived, lets go and help the men with the unloading,” Uncle Nat said to us. We headed back downstairs, where I had a quick look at the laundry and bathroom, which were bigger than I expected.

In the end the two removalist men did all the work, with the exception of lifting the furniture from the jetty up to the first floor open window, which will be the lounge room, as it looks out to the gulf. With all of the furniture and white goods on their right levels, Uncle Nat finalised the bill for their work, including a sizable tip before the men and the truck left.

We spent the next hour getting the furniture into the right places, and made the beds, with new linen that I retrieved from the store room, and with the washing machine and drying downstairs in the laundry and the fridge, microwave and dishwasher installed upstairs, we now had a fully functional floating home.

“You may get some motion of the barge when there is a storm around. However, I think that the stone wall on the block on the vacant property across the road, will keep most of it away, as well as the barge being down low in the marina helps, as the roof is level with the ceiling of the ground floor on the neighbours house,” Uncle Nat said to us.

“Do you know who owns that vacant block of land?” Aaron asked, and Uncle Nat smiled, “We do of course, that is why there is a stone wall on two sides to block of the wind, and I have also had planted some native trees and shrubs all along all four boundary fences, so as to create more of a wind buffer.

I thought that maybe later on down the track, you may want to install a lap pool and a tennis court there, and maybe a gazebo and barbeque area, but I will leave that for you two boys to decide,” Uncle Nat said to us.

I closed and locked the lower level door and followed Aaron and Uncle Nat up the stairs, and back to the vehicle, so we could drive back to what will soon be our old home. Aaron and I decided to keep the location of our new home a surprise for a while, and with Aaron and I both having a half day of studies on Thursday, we decided to make that our moving day.

Uncle Nat had packed most of his belongings that he would not be taking with him, and have been put into storage at Warradale Barracks. On the Thursday afternoon, Aaron and I made our move to out new home, and Uncle Nat even helped us, and we sat down so Uncle Nat could let us know that he will mostly be out of contact, and that if it is urgent to send a email and he will respond as soon as possible.

Uncle Nat would be leaving in two days time, and both Will and Chris had already moved to their new home, so Aaron and I invited Uncle Nat to have dinner with us, and we did a short shopping trip before cooking dinner, which we all helped to put together. It was an enjoyable family dinner, which will be last for quite some time.

On our first night in our new home, it felt a little strange, as the barge moved slightly with the strong breeze blowing outside, but also helped me to get to sleep easily. In the morning, I felt even more refreshed than usual, as I took a shower and prepared for another day at university, dropping Aaron off at College on the way, which is just four kilometres north of Flinders University.

At the end of the day, as arranged, I would collect Aaron and we would meet the others at the project after 4 pm, and we were the last to arrive. “Hey everyone. How was your first week back at university,” I said as we walked into the conference room and sat down.

“Same as usual, lectures, tutorials and lots of assignments,” Chris said, “How have things been here at the project?” Aaron asked Jack. “Good, I have confirmation for us to attend the Royal Show, the Nature Festival and a total of ten country shows, beginning from mid-August,” Jack replied.

“Great, good work Jack, has the coordinators of the Nature Festival indicated where we can set up our display?” I asked, “They have given us an information form that we need to fill in and send back to them as soon as possible, so they have a better understanding of our organisation, and decided where to allow us to set up our display,” Jack replied, before retrieving the form, and handing it to me.

I quickly scanned the three-page document. “Ok, this document informs us that they have seven categories of events, with a variety of programmes in each category. I think we need to each look at this and make some notes on ideas where we would effectively participate in this festival, which would moving the display every one or two days for the ten day period,” I announced to the team.

Chris stood up and receiving the document from me, he went to print out copies of it from the office, and Will suggested that we get our laptops too. I did not bother to get up, as I knew that Aaron would get mine, and I talked with Jack for a while, as we waited for everyone to get back.

Over the next hour we were all discussing possible options on what to do for the nature festival, with a suggestion that we have a display set up in the main hall, maybe in collaboration with Fauna Rescue SA, who could provide us with some rescued native animals for visitors to see, and also arrange for a guided walk through the Sturt Gorge Park.

It was also suggested that we get involved in events that have already planned to widen the experience for festival goers. Some of the events suggested are; Exploring the Tennyson Dunes, Reef Ramble at Hallett Cove, Under the Sea at MDC, which is the Marine Discovery Centre and the Dunes Coastal Walk, starting at Semaphore Beach.

With the Nature festival just seven weeks away, we were not entirely sure if the third container from Ten Fold in the UK would arrive in time, so we had to start working on alternative plans. We do have the tree house container, which we could make into a temporary display, and Aaron and I would have to find alternative accommodation until then.

When my mobile rang, and I saw who was calling, I smiled before putting the call on loud speaker, “Hello Uncle, you are on loud speaker wit the whole team,” I said, “Good afternoon to all, I hope that your first week at University, College and work have been good,” Uncle Nat replied. Will and Chris groaned which made Uncle Nat laugh.

“We were just talking about logistics for the Nature Festival in Mid September, which would mean having multiple locations over the ten day period,” Aaron announced. “I see, well that would mean possibly using the tree house as well,” Uncle Nat responded.

“Yes, that is what we were just discussing, since we don’t know when the third building will be arriving,” I said. “It is less than two weeks away, so it will be there in plenty of time, so you won’t need to give up the tree house, which I may say, is only a temporary thing until your permanent home arrives to where the barge is now,” Uncle Nat arrived.

“Barge? Tree house? What is all of this about Jacob?” Chris asked, and Aaron chuckled. “It is exactly that, a Ten Fold Engineering Tree House that is currently sitting on a barge in the North Haven Marina, and man did I sleep well last night,” Aaron said, and I just smiled and nodded in agreement.

“We got to check that out, and since we are over that way, you can treat is to dinner too Boss,” Will said, and Uncle Nat laughed. “Well I am glad that everything is working out ok for you all, I will check in with you again in two weeks, same day and time, bye for now,” Uncle Nat said before ending the call.

“Right, we need to start getting organised with all of this, firstly we need to triple the amount of display material that we have, so Jack, we need four more gazebos and four feather flags, all with the logo on them, we need some display boards to show some of our photographs of our work on the islands near Port Lincoln, and we will need, some promotional nick knack’s as give away items,” I announced.