The Binacrombi Blog

Spring at Binacrombi!

And as Spring is a season of renewal and rebirth, Binacrombi has joined in with several new things happening through August.

Firstly, one of our Bina friends, Ralph, brought out a large group of workers and they constructed a new day shelter, as well as disappearing around the cabins to put in new BBQ’s and fire pits all over the place. It made for a hectic but surprisingly fun weekend, as the guys worked and the kids rode and had fun.

 

 

 

As much as the new day shelter is a highlight, the Trama Tribe have to say that the best part of the weekend was Saturday dinner. Not only was there good company but along with the blokes came three lovely ladies; Grace, Lauren and Lisa. These amazing ladies cooked an authentic Chinese meal for all of us and the Tribe certainly enjoyed it. With how far we have to go to get a decent takeaway, we certainly appreciated your time and effort.

 

 

Another new event at Bina is our association with Oasis. Oasis is set in Surry Hills in

Sydney and helps street kids, amongst a host of other activities. Through the work of our beloved leaders, Dave and Angela, Peter and I are now working with our oldest son in providing a place of respite for a few of these kids. At present we house two of Oasis’ kids with the future looking brighter and more hopeful. So if you see a few new faces here at Bina, say ‘Hi!’ and don’t be surprised if these boys come chatting. Like most boys, they seem to enjoy the dirt bikes that come our way every weekend.

Just to let you know, the weather seems to be warming up here, although we’ve had a little rain. The time is right to come visit; there are enough puddles for the fun loving and very little dust, along with more chances of sunshine. All in all, a weekend at Bina could prove to be a good family investment at this time of the year.

Meet the Family

 

 

 

Shannon (Aka Skinny dog, Shazza and ‘Oi, You!’)

Shannon has made a name for himself here at Bina as the Assistant Caretaker, Peter’s right-hand man. He’s also shown himself to be quite willing to play tour guide and whilst our Mitch loves the high flying,

Shannon likes to ride the tracks, preferring the Enduro runs.

Easy going and fun loving, I’m sure many of you have enjoyed a good chat with

Shannon when you’re up to sign the paperwork, or delivering wood and he’s not against the occasional visit or even the odd beer now and then.

At nearly twenty,

Shannon has proved himself different to most guys his age in that rather than leave home as fast as he can, he’s staying. I think it helps that we have such an incredible place to live and that we often give him the chance to visit mates in

Sydney every now and then.

Shannon has also decided to join us in giving respite to some kids from Oasis and doesn’t seem to mind the extra ‘brothers’ hanging around or using his bike.

Leaving Sydney to come to Bina was pretty hard,

Shannon had to give up singing in the Green Valley Youth Choir and leave quite a few good mates but personally, I think that the extra bonus of dirt bikes and the possibility of riding the road in the future have made it all worth while.

And out here, he can make as much noise on his drums whenever he likes and not even the possums seem to complain!

Winter at Bina ‘08

Sorry about the delay…

Winter has finally arrived at Bina. Up until now we’ve had less rain, our dams weren’t overflowing, but the river still managed a decent level. Then, last Thursday, we had an hour of thick snowfall where the snow lasted for up to half an hour afterward and this last weekend has been almost a winter wonderland with small but constant snow showers across the two days. Not much stayed on the ground but it was still good fun and even some of the guests enjoyed the novelty of it.

Needless to say,

Jerrong Road

is mostly okay, although there are a few areas where the pot-holes need to be watched, and the road can get a little slippery depending on our snow or rain fall. Thankfully, the river crossings are remaining at a manageable level even for standard cars.

 

Business is pretty steady, plenty of ‘old faces’ and some new ones, including the young fellow in the photo below. Track maintenance continues, with our latest endeavour being the overgrown blackberries along the river tracks. So far we’ve managed to get to the second river crossing out of the four, clearing the track so that’s its about a quad-width wide.

  

 

In the next few weeks we’ll be having a working bee with Ralph and friends, long times friends of Bina who come out to give a hand at times like these. We’ve also received the wood for the decking at Cabins 1 – 4, so as soon as we find a full week (Mon – Fri) without guests, we’ll get into that.

Western Motorcycles has proved to be a great support for the Bina Tribe, never failing to provide us with great service no matter when we turn up and Todd, our contact in sales, is always on hand for advice, a chat or even just a smile.

Well, that’s it from out here in the sticks. Will catch up when you come and visit and don’t forget… Come up and say ‘hi!’ before you head for your cabins and the tracks.

 

Oh! And for our 4WD enthusiasts… Lime Burner’s Track has been closed for maintenance and many of the once 4WD tracks around Yerranderie have also been closed for bushwalking only. Disappointing, huh?!

 

 

Meet the Family 

Pauline (AKA (by the kids we have stay) Mum)

It falls to me, the writer in the family, to do my own little blurb, otherwise it’ll never get done.

In a household of motor-mad boys whose toys just keep getting more expensive, I’m the only female and sometimes feel outnumbered and a bit overwhelmed. So, Ladies, don’t be surprised if, when you visit Bina with your partners, I come visiting. Girl talk can be in short supply. And I’m very open to you girls letting me know what sort of female touches can be done to Bina to make you feel at home as well.

I don’t mind the dirt bikes, but I prefer doing things like writing (obviously), drawing and our horses, even though they aren’t ready to ride as yet. Taking up schooling for the boys was… interesting and challenging, I find that I’m starting to learn things I’d thought I’d managed to forget.

But I have to say that moving to Bina was blessing, I’ve long since wanted to be a stay-at-home mum again and to work with my husband and even living this far out isn’t something that bothers me too much. I’ve always been more country than city. Some people ask me how I can stand living so ‘primitively’. My answer… I have hot water when needed (there’s always a teenager around ready and willing to light a fire in the donkey) and I have a toilet that flushes. Who could want for anything more? J

4Firstly, let me apologise for the lengthy delay between blogs. Life here at Bina has been exciting – to say the least – over the past two months! We’ve had holidays and anniversaries and met many new people. Guests we met at the start of our year here have become friends and even Caretakers, while we had a hard-earned break from our ‘job’. J

Many thanx to Juan Jewell, his son Ben and his mother Pat for all their hard work and an exceptionally clean home to come back to. Juan and Co. babysat the property during our two week holiday. While he packed the tracks and kept up maintenance, his son Ben acted as his right-hand man and track tester, and his Mum did more than her fair share in the house.

Our holiday from our holiday… I mean… ‘job’ began with the family going North to QLD, where we spent a couple of days at Dream World and found a new friend, much to

Shannon’s delight (see photo below). Then we spent a week on the

South Coast, just enjoying the sunshine.

 

 

 

Anniversaries include our first year at Bina, we survived a whole year! And we are absolutely loving it. No sign of unrest in any of the boys, in fact, we seem to get extras, especially around the holidays. All of us are showing the benefits of our ‘tree-change’, or life here at Binacrombi Boot Camp as we fondly call it. Wood runs aren’t quite so exhausting any more and cabins seem to come cleaner faster.

Things to look forward to at Bina… Larger parking for day riders and there are ideas being discussed on making shelters up near the circle for day riders, complete with wood fire BBQ’s. Cabins 1 – 4 will be getting a face-lift with the decking to be renewed in the near future. And finally the gym and boxing ring. The boxing ring shelter is already in place, ready for the ring to be set up and the gym has its footings in and all the structure onsite. With the builders coming in to finish it in the next two or three weeks, it will be an exciting addition to Binacrombi.

 

 

 

Well, that’s it for now. See below for the first of our ‘Meet the Family’ write-up’s.

Pauline

Meet the Family

Peter (aka: One Load, Superman, George and Sven)

 

 

Peter is the head of the troops here at Binacrombi. Having come from

Sydney where he worked as a Youth Minister, Peter has an automatic affinity with teenagers and loves to meet people. I think his favourite past time is delivering wood to the guests, the reason we’ve added the nickname One Load. While everyone else will be working hard to unload wood, Peter will manage ‘one load’, then stand and chat whilst the rest of us do all the hard work. He likes to call it maintaining customer relations!

His other nicknames Superman and George come from his constant fighting with trees. A year before coming to Bina, Peter and sons were involved in a serious boat accident which could have killed them all. Peter survived (thanx to Shannon and Mitch) with head injuries and often jokes at how he’s able to stop a speeding boat with his face. The nickname of George is because the accident involved the boat hitting trees (ask him about it, he loves to tell the tale) and he’s forever being attacked by trees and branches when we do a wood run. Think George of the Jungle…

Last of all Sven… This is Peter’s more SNAG-like attribute (Sensitive New Age Guy). He’s called Sven simply because he helps me dye my hair!

Coming to Binacrombi has been a dream-come-true for Peter and he’s in his element no matter where he is, whether it’s chatting to the guests, fixing the water pipes or pulling bikes out of the river. The hardest part about living with Peter is that he’s a workaholic but he’ll never call it that. He reckons that it can’t be work because work isn’t this much fun.

Another month, lots of changes and a few new additions…

This month saw the arrival of a new member of the family and an offsider for Peter. Sam came for a few weeks away and certainly kept Peter motivated and moving. Peter almost ran out of things to do!

With Sam’s help, there’s new guttering on Cabins 5 & 6, a new round-about up near the Caretaker’s Cottage and new pine log fencing lining a slightly larger day rider parking area. Being a jack-of-all-trades, Sam’s given a hand to fixing our hard-working trailer and had a great time hauling chain-lengths of tyres down to the Forty Acres for re-distributing. And if that’s not enough he’s also helped Peter with cleaning cabins, kept Mitch amused with all manner of stories and proved to be an exceptional cook that had Peter putting on a few extra kilos he’d only recently gotten rid of.

Sam, we’ll definitely miss you when you go home, and not just for your excellent cooking!

New additions to the family are the much loved replacement for Brandon’s stolen RM85, which sees

Brandon needing to start near the tyres and stop at a jump. Yes! The bike’s a bit big, but

Brandon’s loving every minute of it.

Another new addition is Peter’s quad, a Suzuki King Quad, although Brandon’s got his eye on that one too! The King Quad will make getting out onto all the tracks a little easier, there’s some out there that are built for bikes, not 4WD’s.

For these new toys we have Western Motorcycles to thank. As usual, the boys at Western’s looked after us very well, including adding to our small supply of spares and Todd Holden is the man to ask for if you’re looking to enlarge your toy collection.

Well, that’s it for us for this month. Just letting you know, the Trama Tribe is heading off for a much needed holiday in the first two weeks of March and Bina will be under the excellent management of Juan, who’s proved to be a vital friend in keeping the tracks rideable and the place half decent.

Tomorrow will be the 1^st of February and the Trama Tribe is looking forward to our first holiday, not that we don’t live a holiday every day! What else can you call a place and a job like Binacrombi?

The school holidays were a surprise, not the regular visitors, but the weather. Christmas Day was a cool 15 degrees, we’ve had a couple of days where we had to put the combustion heater on and a few weeks where it was too hot to work by mid morning. We thought that the river might be about to stop flowing but a sudden downpour and a flash flood yesterday has topped it up nicely.

Just like every other kid, the Trama boys have begun their school year, but theirs is with a difference. Instead of a classroom, we have the Rec Room. Instead of silent students with their heads down, we have MP3’s playing (softly, of course) and regular discussions on who’s studying what. The only problem I have is getting them to start at 8am and stopping Mitch falling asleep on the lounge as he studies Geography!

As Angela reported on the web site, Bina has had a few facelifts over the past months. Juan Jewell and Co. have done a great job on the jumps and clearing a few tracks and Peter has managed to tidy up a few cabins, eg. the Dorm now has tiles around the fireplace again.

Our exciting news, also reported by Angela, is the new buildings going up. Today the builders set the footings for the boxing ring and will be back in the next week or two to build it. We’ve waited almost a year and Angela and David have waited a few more than one, so it’s a definite step forward.

Well, that’s it from us here at Bina. We’re looking forward to celebrating our first ‘birthday’ on the farm in April and for the cooler weather, since it’ll bring even more guests. Will catch up with you when you drop in to sign up.

Peter, Pauline & Co.

 

It’s been six months and a full winter and guess what? We’re still here and still loving our “tree change”. Not that the experience hasn’t been full of challenges but that just makes it more fun.

We’ve faced winter weather that hasn’t been seen for maybe thirty years; rain, snow, wind and frost to the point that we had two weeks where getting off the property was impossible. There were so many trees down that getting to Taralga, normally forty five minutes took us two hours and that was when we cleared a third of the road of trees and the Council cleared the rest, thank goodness!
But the snow had to be seen to be believed. More than just the photo of the Table Top absolutely covered was the time where we stood on the verandah of cabins 1 - 4, taking a break from cleaning, and watched the weather go from snow to rain and back to snow again. And then the river rose - overnight!

With the memories of the weather comes the many guests and the many laughs we’ve shared with them. It’s now become possible to see the ‘regulars’ and those that turn up frequently and to share Binacrombi memories with them.

We’ve also managed some repairs and improvements in our time here and, as much as it feels like a holiday, our work has been pretty constant.

Rainbow now sports a new retaining wall and, with the help of one of the regulars, Juan, the Dorm also has brand new retaining walls and a wider driveway. Thanks to Lee, another regular, the Forty Acres now has a rhythm section in the straight and Peter has improved the Step Up to a safer level.

 

So much has happened in our six months, so many new memories and new friends that it would be impossible to keep this as short as it should be.
Simply put, the Trama Tribe is thoroughly enjoying their new home and their new way of life and we’re looking forward to not just the regulars returning but also to the opportunity of welcoming new faces at Binacrombi. And without a doubt, our older boys are enjoying their new dirt bikes and looking for new friends to head out riding with.

A special thanks to our friends at Western Motorcycles at Penrith for the great deal they gave us on the dirt bikes.
Pauline