G'Day all,

Picked myself up a large bush block that has this cleared area I intend on building on. I have my own ideas on where I think the building would be most advantageous, but I wanted to see what others thought without muddying the waters initially.

The top of the attached map is North. It's in the Southern Hemisphere. Climate is subtropical, rainfall is 1000mm. Contours are in metres. The blue area on the map is a potential flood zone, there is a small creek flowing through there. The boundary corner in the bottom left is 1km from the driveway entrance. The block is a 1000x800m rectangle.

Looking forward to discussing your thoughts, cheers!

that much water near me I would build on the highest elevation of the land, and place my fields n plants between me and all that water.

To clarify, the only access to the property is via a road that connects to the southwest corner, making the portion of the property on the north side if the creek inaccessible during floods?

Also, what are the contour intervals? The intervals for each plan appears to be different?

It depends.

What do you want to do on the land? What sort of area will this occupy? How much water will this need, and what are your options; groundwater? Able to pull from creek?

What is the soil like? Better near the creek?

Is that an annual flood line, or hundred year, or ?

So the driveway runs down the left side with some spurs leading in, and connection to road is at the top left?

F Agricola wrote:To clarify, the only access to the property is via a road that connects to the southwest corner, making the portion of the property on the north side if the creek inaccessible during floods?

Also, what are the contour intervals? The intervals for each plan appears to be different?

Until the OP replies, I think per his statement that the SW corner is 1km from the driveway and the property is 1km by .8km, I'm guessing the driveway is near the NW corner.  And looking at those two maps, if I can squint good enough, it looks like .5m contours on the first map and 5m contours on the second.

bernetta putnam wrote:that much water near me I would build on the highest elevation of the land, and place my fields n plants between me and all that water.

It's actually not all THAT much water, the creek is a series of pools most of the time and it's catchment is quite small further up from here. But I am leaning towards what you are suggesting.

F Agricola wrote:To clarify, the only access to the property is via a road that connects to the southwest corner, making the portion of the property on the north side if the creek inaccessible during floods?

Also, what are the contour intervals? The intervals for each plan appears to be different?

You are correct that the western road is the only improved access, but the entrance is to the north, not the south. So it's the cleared area that is inaccessible during a flood. Contours are 0.5m and 5m.

Dillon Nichols wrote:It depends.

What do you want to do on the land? What sort of area will this occupy? How much water will this need, and what are your options; groundwater? Able to pull from creek?

What is the soil like? Better near the creek?

Is that an annual flood line, or hundred year, or ?

So the driveway runs down the left side with some spurs leading in, and connection to road is at the top left?

I want to re-tree the cleared area over time, but with species of my choosing that will create a better and more diverse eco-system than the existing bush on the northern area. Plus, it should provide enough forage to sustain a large duck population that will be my main business. And obviously a majority of food for myself with lots to give away to friends and family without worrying about how much the wild birds will eat.
I have the 20ML dam, creek and ground water to draw from.
The soil is grey loam with a lot of organic matter, I have not tested it as yet.
That's not an annual flood line, that's the maximum extent of any flood, from all events recorded. Correct with the road.


One other thing I forgot to mention is that there is a lot of unburned piled timber the previous owners left after clearing the area, so I envisage that becoming a massive amount of Hugelkulture which I will form beds with when I start with the earthworks next year.

The center of the cleared 'boot' where the contours turn east-west, and the toe where things flatten out, look interesting.

Various gotchas that come to mind for those sites...

How are you planning to access the water in the dam if setting up on the far side of the creek?

Where is that dam water going, if the dam goes? Earthquake country?

What are the neighbours near that border like? Likely to change drastically?

Any concerns about having a really long driveway? (or powerlines, if you were planning on any?)



Hope you will share more info about your duck planning, sure there would be good interest.

Dillon Nichols wrote:The center of the cleared 'boot' where the contours turn east-west, and the toe where things flatten out, look interesting.

Various gotchas that come to mind for those sites...

How are you planning to access the water in the dam if setting up on the far side of the creek?

Where is that dam water going, if the dam goes? Earthquake country?

What are the neighbours near that border like? Likely to change drastically?

Any concerns about having a really long driveway? (or powerlines, if you were planning on any?)



Hope you will share more info about your duck planning, sure there would be good interest.

For the Dam water, I was considering running a siphon from it to the "laces" area of the "boot" where I would build a pond since it is the lowest area. I have not calculated the flow rate through various size pipes for that 350 length as yet but with only a few metres of fall, I doubt it will be excessive. I plan on using this pond as a central area for the ducks, where their shelter would be near. My initial plan is to use the water from this pond to irrigate swales since it will be rich with duck manure and then have the siphon refill it. The other option is two siphons, one from the dam to the creek and then from the creek to the pond.

The "dam" I'm talking about building is not technically a dam since it has no wall so it's really a pond and can't really fail, perse. The existing dam would flood a significant area if it failed and I need to do some maintenance work on it to prevent this. The runoff from it enters the creek. (I edited this paragraph since I misunderstood the question).

The neighbouring blocks are very narrow, long and the houses are at the opposite end, so much of the land around the boot area of the block is up to 800m from the nearest house and the land at the bottom of those blocks is unlikely to be used for much in my opinion.

Running 1km of powerlines is likely to cost more than my house so I'll be totally off-grid. No dramas with a long driveway really.

I am just trying to come up with ideas for ducks currently, they seem like a good way to add fertility, provide an income and lots of easy protein while also being quite cheap to feed if I design specifically around having them. I'll be very interested in what others have done with them too.

Thanks for your reply!

I would build on the knoll at the center of the property. Zero chance of flooding, good sun and air circulation, easy access to the largest portion of the property, pretty remote from all neighbors. Some uphill area that could theoretically be developed for water catchment for gravity feed to house area (depending on actual conditions.) There is enough land that taking some flat space away from agriculture is irrelevant. I think it would be convenient to your duck pond idea, if I understand it correctly.

If it were my land, I would first find a place for a dam or a big shed high up on the land, and then would pick a house site I could gravity-feed the water to. I would also probably build a bit higher than the record flood level, just in case.

Also, I would observe wind patterns and sunlight at the possible house sites, to see if there are spots that are already sheltered from strong winds, or places where it will be easier to grow food and have a passive solar house on. Knowing local bushfire patterns is helpful too.