This morning I picked up George Bell from his bush camp house out by the racetrack (he's off to Perth for a week). I love his place - it's basically a compound of live-in sheds surrounded by jacaranda trees, about 5 km out of town, nestled in the bush. George needs to sell it and move into town. The only power is by generator, there's fireplaces and the coolgardie safe, it's in shade all day, rough as guts but charming. Just making conversation, I asked him how much he thought he'd get for it. "I'd take eight grand for it," he said. I nearly drove off the road. After work, I went out again and sat on top of the bus, looking at the compound and the lovely trees, thinking. Hmmm.
"This is crazy," I said to myself, then hopped back in the bus with the dogs and headed off down the Wiluna track. Fifty kilometres further on I found Gary in the grader. "George wants eight grand for his place," I said. "I don't have that much," he said. "I do," I replied. We both looked at each other for about two seconds. "Buy it," said Gaz. "OK," I said, gave him a kiss, and headed off in the bus again.
So I have some research to do! I think the place is actually on a leasehold, which means I'd own the buildings but not the actual property; usually what happens is you get a 99 year lease on the land area, so it's more or less like owning it, I need to find out more. It's a brilliant place. A small solar system would run the basics, and we could run the genny when we need to use the washing machine. I don't know what we'd do about air conditioning. More importantly, will Gary be able to put up with the alpacas?
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