In 2002 I met James.....we both had a dream of owning our own piece of Australia and living off the land.
As at the time I was still working full time.... we set our dreams in motion.
We had been up in QLD, Australia, on our way back home to Sydney, we had stopped off at a little country town called McLean in Northern NSW where there is a large Scottish community and as James is Scottish raised we fell in love with this little town and decided we wanted to live in the vicinity.
The town is on the Clarence River where there are many things to do & see in the whole region.
As you drive into the township, the telegraph poles are painted in various tartans of Scottish clans.
Every year McLean holds a Highland Games festival which is over a span of a week drawing people from far & wide to compete & enjoy the games
When we returned home after out trip up north I ventured onto the WWW and searched for properties around the region .
I had found about 6 to consider.Then culled it down to have a look at 3 on that list.
We flew up about August 2005.....picked up from Ballina Airport by a friend of James where we drivev to the real estates.
They drove us out to look at the 3 houses we chose.
The first one wasn't bad, with ample acreage but fell short of our desire in a few areas and in as much as the wee bridge in, was too narrow where we worried in flood time the bridge would be swept away plus too narrow for a delivery truck to manoeuvre.
On to the second house, which was amazing.....open plan living, loft up stair, walls in stained pine,resident diamond python snake was adorable............BUT, the issue was that it was only 8 acres where the dense bush was right on the door step with no means of escape in a bush fire.
On to the third & final property of which in the interim was our choice upon viewing it on the net.....
the price was right, the location was good, main road was excellent and the size being 100acres was perfect.
It was only 30 minutes from Grafton NSW.The Jacaranda town
As the vendor,from Sydney, had been made aware of our pending visit,he was there to greet us with the real estate agent from Grafton.
Whilst the property was on the market, the vendor & friends had camped on site to keep the house and surrounding areas tidy, raking & burning fallen branches and basically keeping up appearances.That's debatable.
The day we arrived on the property was a lovely warm day.
We weren't able to enter via the front gate, as in the previous rains the bridge over the creek,on the property, had washed away and was under instruction for repairs.
Plus the rains had eroded the roadway in, due to poor grading.
We were required to access the property via a back road that is quite good for a back road and is now being maintained by a neighbour who uses the same road.
We still use this road today as the road in from the front is inaccessible as stated.
We walked around the property that is heavily timbered but not to dense.There is plenty space between trees but there are also plenty fallen trees for fire.
The property has two access roads to the house but right now neither road is accessible due to erosion from flooding and has to be graded professionally.
There is a medium sized damn and a pond on the property with our own creek running through.
After we had walked the undulating land to inspect it's suitability, we inspected the house.
The house is 80 square metres in length.(Photos will be added)
It is a split level house having three large bedrooms an internal bathroom/ toilet, laundry up stairs. The whole bottom floor is lounge,dining & kitchen combined with a small stair case going to the upper floor.
The kitchen was plain but has long benches with ample cupboard space with a bottled gas oven and bottled gas refrigerator that didn't work.
There is a wood fire in a corner that is just wonderful and keeps the whole house warm in winter.
The house is run off solar batteries backed up by an 8HP generator to top up solar in inclement weather.
The house supplied by a 20 thousand litre rain water tank.
At the time of inspection the house was in bad need of some TLC.
The carpets were very smelly, thin & dirty.
The walls are badly in need scrubbing and a coat of paint.
The exterior of the house is of weather board with zinculum roofing.
The upper section of the house has fully fixed with windows to give good light.
There is a carport along side the house.
There is a veranda that runs the full length in the Eastern side of the house.
Inside, the walls of the lounge areas are fully lined with stained pine timber as is a feature wall in each bedroom.
Here on the walls can be seen, many of the knots have been pushed out by a human hand with a hammer as a past tenant, in their boredom, took a hammer to the knots in the pine leaving gaping holes for spiders to enter.....initially I had attempted to create covers for the hole by creating shapes of the individual holes with balsa wood, nailing & gluing them on and painting with a stain to blend in with the stained timber.
The house boasts full sized sliding glass doors onto the veranda.
As James had walked in another direction up to the original dilapidated now defunct ancient what's left of it house (now near camping site) with the real estate agent, I talked to the vendor,James did not know I had already made up my mind that this was the place we were looking for but as soon as he approached the vendor and my self, I could tell by the look on his face he was taken by it's charm.
We saw it in it's raw state,saw past the rubbish under the house, saw past the man made tip, past other rubbish laying around and the unkempt state of the house and saw it's potential.
We didn't try to negotiate as we saw the big picture.
We had found our Niaroo....(reversed and saying with a Scottish accent oorain.....our own...)
We voiced our approval and said "SOLD"
The settlement wasn't completed for about another 8 weeks or so due to issues that needed to be addressed before we signed our lives away.
No.1 was upon completion of the repairing of the washed away bridge which took longer than expected.....nothing happens to quickly in the country so far out of town.
Eventually after many inspections and reports requested by the conveyances to our satisfaction, we signed the deal in October 2005
It was about a few weeks later, upon her return from over seas, a real estates employee had requested the availability to rent the house.
We allowed her & her partner to move in under the understanding that we haven't had the chance to clean up or renovate but she was willing to move in as is.....
It wasn't until about November when we both had a chance to go the the farm to see what was required to make the tenants more comfortable and as we had purchased a caravan for us to stay in away from the house we had accommodation.
Prior to going up in November I received a call from the tenants saying the solar batteries weren't holding the power & could they chop down a tree that's blocking the morning sun.....
I had initially said of course not knowing they were incorrect......but after we arrived and they hadn't yet chopped down the tree.
We inspected the batteries and found they had not been filled with water as is required and as was instruction left in writing,there-fore one battery had exploded hence killing off most of thepower supply.
Our first improvement then was to replace a new battery system costing $3800 but not until these tenants had moved out due to not paying their rent.
It was one morning whilst we were still on the property,James was looking out the caravan window and saw a man running behind the house where he appeared naked.....upon further investigation James saw the male tenant, on all fours, in a praying to the early morning sun motion.
Not a problem, his business what he does in his own surrounds but a warning would have been good.
Just stopped us from going in that direction for our early morning constitutional walk.
That was ok as there we many other directions we could take
It wasn't until after they had moved out did we see the filth they left behind....used kitty litter still in plastic bags strewn under the house.
The tenants complained that they ran out of water and had to buy in a truck load.......this shocked us and it wasn't until we had spoken to a neighbour who informed us that the tenants had left the pump on, that supplies the water from the house tank to the header tank to supply pressure....therefore overflowing the tanks and draining the main tank......I won't go into great details but surfice to say dabbling with wacky weed will make you wacky.......
It was after these tenants had left that we proceeded to remove all the old smelly carpets out of the living area....once we pulled the carpet up, I washed the floor boards before we laid down masonite.
Then laid the carpet securing it with gold coloured aluminium edging to join the pieces neatly.
I erected new curtains in all bedrooms and hired a steam carpet cleaner to steam cleaned the carpets in the bedrooms.
As the house is run on solar, the old gas fridge wasn't working so I took it to the repair shop where they gave it it's last rights....so I had to scour the newspapers to look for that hard to find gas fridge.
I found one way up near Kyogle at a place called Jiggy Jiggy...yes funny name...and off we drove to collect the fridge.
Of course every time one goes a long way to pick up an item purchased we run into inclement weather, thats the norm.(insert rolling eyes)
Given that at this time we were still both working full time we were on a time frame and worked from dawn to dusk collapsing at night.
Once the new clean up was completed we were able to re list the house to rent out.
It was only a few weeks later another couple moved in for a short rental time as they really wanted to be nearer to town also working full time and the house still had issues.
One of the issues was the gas heater for hot water.....
It appeared it wouldn't light up very well for the tenants and it just happened, that the week, they complained about it to us, was when we had returned to do some more work after a few months.
We dismounted the heater off the out side wall and took it to the gas heater repair man who cleaned it out and had it going very well.
That problem solved......next.... always a next.......
The next issue that arose was the water pressure from the header tank that feeds the water to the house for pressure.
When trying to have a shower was like pulling teeth...painful....
No matter what we tried at that point in time we couldn't improve the pressure for the shower.
The new tenants had contacted the real estate agent that handled our rental issues being the complaint that the new batteries weren't holding power.
The property manager in the real estate asked them what they were running,lo & behold one of the worst products to run on solar...fish tanks.....with filters......
Once they stopped running the tanks they regained their power.
It's all a learning curve but why do tenants think it's owners faults all the time..heavens knows...
These were nice people and we treated them very well with the end result when they were going to leave, we were told we were the best landlords they have ever had.
Very nice to hear.
Next stage to be added..........................
