Apollo Bay Accommodation

Moving to the seaside has given me many new things, but the best one is time. I’ve got so much that I decided to build my own cubby house for the kids. and not any ordinary one. I wanted this one.

Ok, clearly I wasn’t going to make it before the boys moved out of home but it was good inspiration. We live by the beach & I thought the theme was cool – it just needed scaling to an achievable level.

So here’s the plan. It’s built in 2 halves so it can be transported in a standard 6×4 trailer when we get rid of it. Front half is the bow and entry, back half is really a box house with a rear mezanine deck for steering/yelling from.

Our house was once owned by a fisherman and the backyard was full of ‘things that might come in handy one day’. Either I got a skip and spent a few days dumping timber into it, or that day had indeed arrived. There was a lot of 2×4 lengths and a lot of decking from various places. Also many bits and bobs left over from projects of a bygone era.

Once i’d done a rough useful/useless sort through it and a quick quantity survey, i realised all I needed to buy was screws and a little treated pine and framing timber. I had to be a bit creative with some of the choices but I’d estimate that 90% was made from scrap timber.

Framing begins on the front half.
Anything that touches the ground is treated pine. Most of this I had already but I did buy some extra to make it to the end. It keeps it up off the mud and hopefully extends the life of the ship a little. Those heavy braces with the circular gap are to support the front mast when it slots in.

Decking begins
I added thin strips inside the framing to nail the decking to, so it could be inlaid and flush. There was enough old flooring to cover all the level surfaces of the ship. I think the old timber adds a bit of authenticity too, maybe?

Decking and panelling
Under the front area is a space for the boys to hide in and do stuff. I added a lump of wood to one of the uprights so little Leo can climb up. He’s currently too short but this whole thing was made with a few summers of growing room in it. Visible here are the start of the strips to nail the wall planking to.

Decking done
It’s looking a bit boatlike. I had heaps of this stuff lying around. Left over from lining the carport ceilings at the cottages. You could use a number of things but let it be a little flexible as they needed to twist a fair bit to fit in these angles at the front.

Paint & flourish
I wasn’t about to carve a woman to mount on the front so I took a jigsaw to an old sign instead. A coat of paint on all to protect it and that’s the front half done. (We instantly decided to buy some paint in a more piratey colour after this).

Back half begins
This shot should give you a fairly good impession of the rear half’s layout. Obviously I bought a few lengths of structural pine for this as it needs to support people climbing all over it. Door at the front, ladder up to the deck at the back, rear hidey-hole under the deck. A 2nd mast will go up through the middle of this room and out the roof.

Decking the back
I got dad to help me lift it onto the ground and match it up to the front. It fits! Added are the window frames, ladder rungs and the beginnings of the decking.

Mostly finished
side panelling all on now. i’ve trimmed the window frames for prettiness and built the rear handrail. That mid-height beam was left a little exposed so the boys can go over the railing and shuffle around the sides of the ship, go in and out the windows etc. Perfect for Harry who wears nothing but thongs.

Into position
I got some help moving it all into position in the back corner of the yard. we put it on a mound of dirt so water would drain away from it. The front mast has been slotted in and bolted to a support near the roof of the ‘box’.

Roofing
We had a whole heap of off-cuts from the new timber fence & it seemed like a good idea to tile the roof with them. Being treated I thought they’d weather well also. I made a little pitched framework and it seems quite weathertight.

Mast work
I used another post to extend the mast up and put a cross-beam on. It needed triangular supports in there to brace the cross-beam because it will have a bit of weight on the ends with the boys climbing. The ropes to the bow (front of ship) also serve to stop any rotation of the mast/cross-beam.

We painted it a more manly colour, stained all the decking and added some ropes and ladders I picked up at Bunnings. That rope ladder at the front didn’t stay there long as Leo is at the age where he doesn’t know about serious injuries but is keen to climb everything regardless of ability. General detail shots to follow.

Telescope and steering wheel.

Shots of the inside. It has a chalkboard in there.

Overall, I probably spent about $100 and 100 hours on the project. If you didn’t have any timber lying about, there’d probably be about $500 – $1000 of materials in it but scraping bits and bobs together was part of the fun.

I doubt anyone is actually going to replicate this, but I always liked reading a good how-to while eating lunch. Enjoy your sandwich.

It’s really cold down here. Not that its a bad thing, I actually really like the beach in Winter. It gets stormier and takes on a whole rugged windy vibe. Its pretty rad. The seals are still out there braving the cold and the first whale sightings have cropped up in the last week or so but the rest of us are indoors. Except when I’m chopping wood, then I’m outdoors – but I built a new woodshed so that’s good.

Ok – on topic. I love cooking, especially in Winter when you have time and its all about warm, rich, indulgent eating. An absolute favourite of mine is mussels. They’re the best for a number of reasons and if you’re not a huge fan yet, bear with me or at least try the recipe I’m adding below just once. See number one, they’re local. anywhere along the Victorian coastline locals will grow and harvest them on long ropes dangling in the ocean. Reason 2 is therefore that they’re super fresh, which to my mind is really important with these guys because you want them to be alive when you throw them in the pot. That is then reason 3, sea water. When they open up all this awesome ocean juice falls out and will turn any dish into a seafood delight. 4 of course is they’re dirt cheap. For the cost of a crayfish, you could fill your car boot with them. Win-win.

This is my absolute favourite recipe with them though. It’s a rare occasion where I won’t use it if the opportunity arises. The soup left in the bowl afterwards is something to behold and is all down to the seawater encased in those shells.

Mussels in blue cheese

2 kg mussels
2 cloves garlic
1 small onion finely diced
30gm butter
handful fresh parsley
150gm good soft blue cheese
200ml dry white wine

1. I get my mussels from the seafood co-op at the harbour here. The boats come in every other day so they’re pretty fresh. When you get them home, give them a wash in the sink and pull the beards out if you’ve the time and are presenting this dish to others.

2. Melt the butter over a lowish heat in a big pot. Add the garlic and onion and sizzle until the onion is translucent.

3. Turn the heat up a little and throw in the mussels and wine. Stir about a little and put a lid on and leave for 3-4 minutes.

4. Remove the lid, check that they’re all(ish) open and if so add the cheese – broken into chunks to help the melting. Put the lid back on and leave for 1 minute.

5. Take the lid off, add the chopped parsley, stir and pour the lot out into a large serving dish.

6. Stand around the dish and fish them out. Use spoons to drink the seawater, blue cheese soup. Dunk bread in it. It’s a very shareable dish, all hands in and manual labour to eat but great fun. That soup at the bottom though, well you’ll just have to try it to believe me.

And the madness that arrived.

This being our first year, we were unprepared for the first 2 weeks of February, which this year was the Chinese New Year holiday.  I’m not sure if other places in town had the same experience as us but we didn’t see it coming.

Now I’m not complaining here, it was just a pretty unique slice of the calendar year. Over 2 weeks we had more than 30 Chinese national families stay in our cottages. And that’s a lot for only 8 little houses. Late in the evenings, we got to discussing some of the noticeable differences we were seeing in travel habits and trends compared to our traditional Summer customers.

1. Doing the Great Ocean Road
There are 2 types of traveller down here, loosely. The Holidayers and the Great Ocean Road travellers. Holidayers choose a destination to settle in down here and relax. Use it as a base and explore the area. travellers ‘do the road’. They start at one end and over the course of a few days, make their way along to the other. It makes sense – the Great Ocean Road is heavily marketed as one of the great driving holidays in the country. The Chinese market, to my experience definitely fall into the latter. In fact, when chatting to many of them and discussing their itineraries, it was amazing just how much they packed into their Australian holiday. Very typical was 3 days doing the road, then Cairns for 2 nights, then Sydney for 2 nights, then maybe the red centre before flying home. It’s Oprahesque! Mind you, if I had a dollar for every time I was asked if they could stay another night. It’s one thing that does dawn on you when moving around so much is that you don’t get to settle down anywhere. Staying a few days allows you to sightsee but also have a home if you’re tired, need food, kids want a rest etc.

2. Families come first
In nearly every instance, our customers were families. And not just Mum, Dad and the kids – grandparents too, and aunts and uncles. I think that’s why we appealed so much. With such large groups, the prospect of a 3 bedroom house with kitchen and laundry makes things a bit easier. Notable too is the preference for a big cookup. I even got invited to share a feast with a family one night! Without exception they all cook. And well too.

It’s good to see that Tourism Australia is making inroads into the Chinese market – even with the dollar being high, it’s still a popular desination over here.

So next time we might be a little more prepared. I might also learn a little Mandarin to help with the language barrier too. As most don’t come with roaming mobile phones, they rely on you a bit more than the regular customer – to help with bookings and travel plans etc. If you want to stay early Feb next year – book early.