My husband Rob was working from earlymorning till late at night. Besides looking after the cattle, he cemented the rainwater tanks, dug a septic tank for our new inside toilet and built a laundry on the back of the hundred year old homestead.  He even constructed a bridge over the creek that could stop our access to the road in wet weather. The homestead was two kilometres from the dirt road and the running creeks were often swift and dangerous after rain. Later he also constructed a three-bay car port off the tool shed and a huge machinery shed using bush timber logs he cut from the paddocks. At night he was working on the interior of the old homestead with the intensive task of lining the 12 foot high walls of the huge living room. Money was a problem so he used feature board in the oak pattern that gave a wonderful elegance to the room of yesteryear with its unique scroll-patterned pressed-metal ceiling.This large room had plenty of space for lounge and dining room furniture, also book cases and cabinets if we wished. Two of the rooms had fire places which backed onto each other, sharing a chimney. One of these rooms was a small living area but large enough for the much-loved pool table, a necessary piece of  furniture with four boys in the family. The other fire place was in a small bedroom and was never used.  I could not imagine having a fire in a bedroom.  Queensland would have been a sudden learning curve for the European settlers building steep roofs that never saw snow and fire places that were used for only a couple of months of the year, if the weather was frosty enough.

 More tomorrow about the old homesteadin the Australian bush.

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