The moment had finally arrived – our modular house, built off-site by Hoek Homes – was being delivered to our son and daughter-in-law’s glorious 100-acre property in Lake Manchester.
Last year, Ben and Sarah very kindly suggested that we have a house built and installed in a gorgeous little clearing on their property – a spot teaming with bird life and far enough from their own house to maintain their privacy.
This year in March, the building began and the three bedroom cottage gradually evolved complete with tiling, painting, carpet and bathrooms installed.
For delivery, the house had to be cut in half and put on to two low loaders and hauled from Lawnton, which is more than 60 km away and across the other side of Brisbane from the house site.
We had a few anxious moments leading up to the house delivery. A difficult neighbour was threatening to stop the trucks from traversing the track that leads to the driveway to the property. Although it is a shared easement, it is nominally on the neighbour’s property. They think this means they have a say in who and what goes down the track. Of course this definitely not the case, they have completely misinterpreted the rules of easements and Ben has had legal advice to this effect.
They were threatening to go to the Council (which they did and were told to take photographs!), the Police (not sure what happened) and A Current Affair (a television current affairs programme – “surprisingly” there was no interest there).
In the end we arrived at the site early and found the couple sitting in their car nearby. With some trepidation we approached them and greeted them in a friendly manner which I think took the wind out of their sails as they have had issues with a number of people in the small neighbourhood of about seven or eight acreage properties.
With grim faces they told us that nothing could travel along the causeway without their express permission but we smiled and said how exciting it was for our new home to be arriving at last. After listening to them and hearing their complaints for a considerable time and being conciliatory, they started to relent a little and were even smiling with us. In the end they (thankfully) agreed that it was best to allow the trucks through. Whew!
Soon we heard the rumble of approaching vehicles. Three support vehicles arrived and then the first of the massive trucks rolled up the easement!
Ben had previously removed the gate and some of the fencing to ensure that the trucks – could swing right towards our building site without hitting anything or falling in the front dam – or getting stuck.
It was a quite a feat and exciting to witness!
Once they were on the property there was a big sigh of relief all round! The drivers and representatives from Hoek Homes were well aware of the neighbour’s objections as they had called the General Manager the previous day to tell Hoek Homes that they did not have their permission to deliver the house and threatened that they would call the police.
Once in, the two halves of the house had to be unloaded from the trucks but before that could happen, the tyres on the trailer on which the house was resting, had to be pumped up. This was easier said than done!
Unfortunately there was a big pile of earth left over from when the site was cut and this pile sat between the two low loaders. In order to blow up the tyres, the cab of the first truck had to be detached and backed into a spot near the trailer so the on-board compressor could be used. After much skilled manoeuvring, the driver managed to do this and the tyres were pumped up.
What seemed like a very small tractor then heaved the first half of the house off the trailer.
The tractor pulled the first half of the house down the driveway towards our building site. This was to get it out of the way for the moment as the truck it had arrived on had to be moved so that the truck carrying the second half of the house could be parked, its trailer’s tyres blown up and the house pulled off the flat bed truck and manoeuvred into place.
After a lot of shunting around, a bit of swearing and exasperation, the two parts of the house were parked – not yet on the site – that was scheduled for another day!
A few days later the two halves were deftly turned around so that they could travel down the driveway and arrive on site facing the correct way ready to be connected together. The tricky manoeuvres were all expertly done by a very competent and skilful young female apprentice.
Over a the next few days the two halves were manoeuvred closer to one another on rails (that had to be installed and welded) until eventually they fitted together like a glove.
In the meantime, we were enjoying precious time with our daughter and son-in-law and their gorgeous soon to be nine months old baby daughter who had arrived from the Netherlands.
One day we drove to the Gold Coast to accompany Hannah’s childhood friend and bestie Tilly to her final wedding dress fitting (Hannah was bridesmaid).
After the fitting we took the babies (remarkably Tilly gave birth to her daughter just two weeks after Hannah’s little girl was born) for a seaside picnic and a play on the sand – our granddaughter’s first Aussie beach experience!
The two babies had a wonderful time crawling after each other in the sand, paddling and enjoying the winter sunshine!
More fun with babies was had with various play dates and coffee meet/ups and special moments at the Mater Hospital where our son and daughter-in-law’s little premmie twins had been since their birth in early May.
It was such a joy to see Hannah and Pieter meet their beautiful little nieces for the first time and for me to have my very first cuddle with Eva, the biggest of the two girls.
Later that week we celebrated at Tilly’s “hens do” which was great fun.
We started off at the Hyatt Regency for drinks and amazing food in the rooftop cocktail bar. Later we headed to “The Valley” (Brisbane’s night club district) for a private drag show and then on to a nightclub for dancing.
Such happy moments, but also some very sad times during this period as our vivacious and life-loving soon-to-be-neighbour in Lake Manchester passed away suddenly.
A magnificent memorial was held for her in another neighbour’s gorgeous and massive barn decorated with memorabilia from her life – much of it horse related, as she ran her own stud on which she bred and trained stunning endurance horses.
It was a great send off with plenty of sparkling wine which she would have definitely approved of!
Salty tales from Bali Hai on Sunday 
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