At the start - part one

 

 

In 2012 we purchased a 65 acre block of land in North/East Victoria which in a previous life had been a cherry orchard that was left unattended and neglected for almost twenty years. Their was a large water storage dam, originally used for watering the trees, about 150 old and overgrown cherry trees, and a small single roomed building with an attached open fronted shed.

Nothing else existed, all the irrigation pipe work had been removed, the orchard was full of rabbits, weeds and most of the trees had been overtaken by growth from the root stock below the grafts, and a large number were split or dead. However the soil was very productive, a deep rich granitic loam, and given water we believed it would grow almost anything we planted.

A neighbouring  property was producing avocado's and olives and also a number of other successful fruit trees as well.

 

The farm was naturally divided into three areas, the north east section was the lowest and had the cherry orchard and dam on it, the southern section was the highest, and had the best views to the south but was dry and not very productive, and the western side that followed around the contour of the hills was still in its natural state with large amounts of native vegetation and exposed granite sheets and boulders.

The only building on the property was a basic stone and corrugated iron single room building with an attached open fronted shed, it had a rainwater tank, no power and affectionately called the weekender by us. We were going to spend the time we needed to sell our previous property by fixing this building up to use as our weekend accommodation where we could stay and carry out some work and repairs on the farm.

 

 

It even had a couple of water tanks and some sort of wood fired hot water unit at the rear, inside there was also a small wood heater and an old wood stove for cooking on. Just what we needed, what could go wrong!

We also had the benefit of a large dam on the north east corner of the farm, but as all the irrigation pipe was removed, or if any sections were left, the fittings had been removed and left open for a number of years, we could not pump water from the dam at the moment.