Kate's Place

 

We moved to the property on Kelly Gap Rd on a day of continual rain, but despite that, we are very happy to be here. The property was originally 300 acres which once belonged to Jim Kelly, Ned's brother. He was never part of the gang because when they formed he was already in jail for misdemeanours of the criminal kind. The family home is a little further along the road though not much remains; apparently history buffs have souvenired even the chimneys, brick by brick, over the past decades. In recent years Kate subdivided and now lives on 30 acres of her original property in her new house, which like the first one, is completely off-grid. 

We are learning as we go but have found the home cosy and easy to manage. The house is clad in custom orb, just like our Tiwi home, and well insulated. The floor is polished concrete. The solar power and battery system provides the electricity but on days of low light due to cloud-cover there is a back-up generator. Water can also be heated through the wood fire on these occasions. Water is collected from the rooves of the house and shed. All grey water and organic compost is diverted into an underground worm farm which bleeds off downhill on the property. 

We are looking after just one dog at this venue; a whippet. Her name is Clover and she seems very easy to mange. Not missing Kate too much and happy to give herself room on the couch between us. Would also happily share our bed if we let her! She loves a pat while you watch tv but is still a puppy and likes nothing better than to chase down a ball. My goodness she's fast.

Already we have been blessed with sightings of an echidna waddling by the kitchen window and another crossing the road as we walked down to the mailbox. Superb fairywrens constantly zip between the dense grevillea bushes around the house and love to look at themselves in our reversing mirrors on the car. We have to clean up their droppings each day on the

window sills despite me putting bags over the mirrors. We have a dam 80m down from the house so can watch the grebes and ducks diving and preening themselves from the comfort of our verandah chairs. These signs are all displayed at the front gate of the property and give you some idea about Kate's level of passion for the environment. 

I drove back to Wangaratta in the evening to attend an information night held by the local Landcare and Sustainability Group (WLSI). I was amazed by how many people in the room I had already met. They have a number of projects that include cleaning up the creeks to ensure rubbish doesn't enter the Ovens, bush regeneration, uptake of green energy sources, sustainable housing and environmental education. All this takes place in partnership with the local Bangerang people. We also celebrated the announcement that the Warby-Ovens National Park has become the first site in Victoria to be admitted to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas. It is only the fourth site in Australia to be admitted to the IUCN Green List and this engaged local community are understandably very proud.

We tried a couple of cycling trips along Kelly Gap Rd over the next few days. The hills are hard going and I've discovered that flying down the other side is rather reckless as the wind makes your eyes water and the stones on the surface are hard to distinguish. Have managed to stay in the saddle but definitely prefer to ride sedately along the rail trails. To get our month's tally we will be putting the bikes on the back of the car anytime we head into Benalla or Wangaratta. I've also bought some safety goggles from Bunnings to help with reducing the wind and insects in my eyes. I know, cool right?

Heather and Michael returned from Canberra on Sunday and stayed a couple of nights with us. We walked the property boundary looking for birds and had dinner around the firepit. On the Monday we all went into Wangaratta; we had our weekly puppet show rehearsal and they explored. The show has two main themes. In Act 1 I'm a feral cat, who along with a fox, is threatening the local wildlife at the billabong. In Act 2 I'm a Professor helping the animals understand climate change. Eric has two roles throughout; Hoppa the wallaby and Digger the echidna. Our target audience is early childhood students and fits well with the WLSI community education project. There are 12 roles in all and most of the puppeteers are people who are connected through that same diverse group. 

News of the impending rain bomb event hitting Victoria has been widely shared in the media so we made plans to stay home midweek. We spent a good part of Wednesday completing this jigsaw puzzle Kate had conveniently left in the loungeroom. Apart from Eric cooking and me knitting we also spent time on a drawing project. One of the other puppeteers is on the Wangaratta Jazz Festival Committee and one of his tasks is to get everyone in the community to draw themselves arriving at the festival. It was an annual event but has lapsed in recent years mostly due to Covid19 but also some committee disharmony.  It will be back this year and held in Nov. The artworks will be displayed in all the shopfronts.  Mine is finished but Eric  still has work to do. 

And wow, didn't we get some rain! In this neck of the woods it was constant but not as heavy as we've experienced in the tropics. Even so, Eric measured 250mm in the rain guage. We have some water lying around the house and the dam is full but the driveway has remained firm so we took a drive on Friday to check out the local situation. At the time we only knew one access road in and out of here, other than arriving from Benalla which we knew was flooded. We soon discovered a huge tree down across Kelly Gap Rd but fortunately we could squeeze by with only 2 wheels in the mud. Greta West was all underwater with more than 30cm over the road but we could gently drive through that. Then we had a clear run to the Hume Fwy and along it to the first exit to Wangaratta, which was closed, but the second one was open. We found John and Yve at home having decided to forego the weekend trip to Melbourne. Like us, the township didn't have massive downpours but  the nearby One Mile Creek is swollen and rushing just below bridge level. Much of North Wangaratta is inundated as the King River joins the Ovens. The caravan park that Heather and Michael stayed in just a week ago is underwater as is Apex Pk. The peak could still be ahead. Its a timely reminder for us to consider this sort of event when buying a house in town. We didn't linger today as we weren't sure if the water around Greta West would be rising or falling. We got home safely and have since investigated some alternative routes in case the need arises. 

This exploration has also revealed a better local cycling route that has less undulations, though a long, slow climb home apparently. I've been forced to have further days off after a fall where I hurt my right knee. I'd taken the rubbish down to the bin at the front gate, about a 300m walk, and on turning to come home I called the dog who barrelled up from behind and took my legs out from under me. I managed to get home, mostly on adrenalin I think and have spent the last 2 days feeling pretty sorry for myself. I'm confident now it is just bruising and swelling which will pass.