View from Moonlight to the Southern Ocean 

Like a liner leaving the dock.

Well physically there are now things happening on site. Trenches are being dug, reinforcing steel has been delivered, beating the latest 8% price increase, ready to be tied and put into place for concreting. Though we cannot pour concrete until the building inspector checks the steel and the trenches to ensure that the work has been carried out in accordance with code.

This start process for someone who has been waiting just short of 5 years to get going seems to have taken an age, but in the background the project team has been validating data, almost preparing the ingredients to ensure that the element that takes the longest will be ready for delivery when required.

Now the footings are in, the bricks etc to take the slab laid, orders for the intensive pieces of pre-fabricated steelwork placed to attempt a smooth process. For me as the person telling the bank to issue the cheques against work not completed or spent not directly in my control the process feels strange, though I continue to remind myself to keep the foot on the cost brake as once the capital is spent in construction you cannot return it.

Once, I guess whilst this all feels slow hence the liner analogy what is really happening for those who have an interest in the building of Murcutt is that the chassis, the underbody is being constructed onto which the visual elements of the building will be attached.

I am not unfortunately going to Moonlight until early July as I am attending a Tourism trade show in Perth next week, but I am itching to go down to site. I have ordered a satellite dish so that we can stream information relating to the construction back to Sydney as a management tool for resolving construction issues as they arise.

Weather Forecast for the Winter of 2005

Construction in the winter in the Otways is not going to be easy. The winter rain brought by the Antarctic weather systems are fairly constant. They deliver the wind and the rain at temperatures that minimise evapo-transpiration, whilst keeping grass growth to a minimum producing wet and spongy conditions to work in. The combination places pressure on the dairy farmer to manage the pasture to keep paddocks in reasonable shape and to maximise the opportunity through drainage that as the temperature rise and sunshine hours increase that the grass gets every chance to grow.

For the builder these same climatic conditions have an impact on their ability to build. So getting the team onto the buildings concrete slab is a key part of a winter build programme avoid the traipsing of mud and clay across the site. Last winter was the wettest for 20 years, this year the forecasters are predicting that the winter period will yield circa 40% of it’s average rainfall, whilst this is good for a builder, remaining dry and potentially minimising the number of days lost to inclement weather, whilst giving good momentum to the build programme at Moonlight, for the dairy farmer this could present a difficult season if the dry conditions run into spring.