Remember, back in April, when I posted Front Steps Pt 1? Approximately six months later and I have progressed all of about four months in the history I am trying to document! Yes, the photos below were taken between Christmas and New Year, 2006. (27-30th)

So far, Dad has dug out the old sandstone steps and replaced them (with recycled concrete slab sections). Now he has dismantled the old sandstone dry wall and is moving it in, so the edges of the steps are concealed and locked in.

Notice the steel bars? It's amazing what you can do with a trampoline.

Can you see the reason for the steel?

Da daa! The handrail. Yes, it is a eucalypt sapling - specially chosen and chopped, out on a friend's block.

No laughing, you have no idea how many comments and complements we've received in regards to this handrail!

The only object that has been more commented on, amongst our friends and within our community, is our new front fence - but you'll just have to wait a little longer to see that structure for yourselves! Watch out picket fence: you won't be standing there much longer.

Date: 13.09.06
Time: 1:30 - 5:30pm










Slick: much more than a Carpenter Joiner.

Gradually the stone walls began to grow, carving order out of the wilderness . Mounds of earth, stone and concrete began to resolve into pleasing lines and useful spaces.









Of course none of this would have happened without Dad's landscaping genius and sheer hard work! I assure you, the clay Dad had to struggle with was No Joke.

On moving onto the property there were already old sandstone steps up to the front gate, but they were old, sunken and wobbly - a liability. These sandstone blocks were taken up and set aside. They were used when Dad rebuilt the stone walls (which had also become tumbled and rickety) over the edges of the new steps, once they were finished. Unfortunately I only have photos from the middle of the project.




We began at the bottom and worked our way back up the hill. The proper calculations were done though; the steps didn't work out evenly by accident!




Above photo take from across the road. The railway is behind the photographer.



And our final photo ...



A sneak peak into the future (December 27th, 2006). All the steps can be seen, while the stone walls are being re-built over the edges to finish it off and tie it all together.

Note the fence. It didn't last much longer!

On May 19th, 2006 our several tons of basalt rock were delivered from a site not 40km away.


Rock walls, here we come.


Our trench was coming into use finally.


This was Dad's early morning exercise for some time to come. (We would wake to the chink of the crowbar against stone.) Once begun, the demand for rock walls seemed inexhaustible, and then after the walls came the pillars...