Paper work

Now we own our piece of rural paradise so it's time for the paperwork. The in tray has its first layer-

•    we are in a water catchment area- so there are restrictions about waste and  run off,
•    we are in a bush fire risk area- so there are restrictions about where and what we can build
•    there is the possibility that valuable minerals may be discovered - so we don't own the ground under our farm

The second layer in the in tray is very thin, it involves insurance. The phone call to the insurance company went something like
" Now how big is the house?"
"There isn't one."
"How many sheds?"
"None."
"Machinery?"
"Nope."
"Stock?"
"Nope."
"Crops, you have some crops then?"
"No, no crops."
The stark truth became painfully obvious, we had just purchased something that had an insurance value close to zilch!
Ah,  but what about third party - so money changed hands to cover that lost soul who stumbles down 'no name road' onto 'no name farm' and then stumbles and breaks his leg.

The third paper layer reveals an interesting piece of information, 'no name' farm has a name. It appears that locally it's referred to as 'Apple Gully Farm' because a creek called Apple Gully flows through it. So  on our next expedition we begin a search for signs of apple trees down in the gully.  No abandoned orchards, no feral apple trees, just the ever thriving thistles and blackberries. Those homesick early settlers have a lot to answer for.

But the apples were there all along, right under our noses.

A new paper trail, or in this case a Google trail, provides the information we need.
The vital clue was the tall and twisted limbs on some of the trees on our farm and sure enough they have a well known city cousin - the Angophora or Sydney Red Gum.
The apples in Apple Gully are the Rough barked Apple- Angophora floribunda and Angophora  bakeri
also known as the Apple Box. They don't have those flamboyant colours on their trunks like their flashy city relatives, but they solve the puzzle and 'Apple Gully farm' becomes the official name of our new venture.

The case is not closed yet, instead it's led to another interesting paper trail- the Angophora is not even a gum tree, it belongs in the myrtle family and in 1795 the angophoras around Port Jackson were given their first botanical names. It seems strange to name a tree after an ancient Greek vessel so far from the Mediterranean,  apparently the seed pods reminded the early botanists of angophoras and the name stuck.