The Australian Government's Community Water Grants
are part of the $2 billion Australian Government Water Fund.
It provides grants of up to $50,000 for community organisations
to put in place practical on-the-ground solutions to either help save, reuse
or improve the health of the local water sources.

Like many properties in rural Australia, Roo Gully is not on mains water,
relying totally on rain water collected from the roofs and stored in tanks for the entire yearly supply.
Sadly our big concrete tank was showing its age.
Its walls had seen better times and it very slowly seeped valuable water.

Plus, we were also struggling for water due to an increase in visitors and school groups
and we were having to truck water in way before the following rains arrived.
This lack of water was also beginning to affect how many student places we could offer
especially in the summer months, so we decided to apply for a Community Water Grant.

Work clearing the site began as soon
as we heard our application had been successful

And it was terrific to watch as this huge new tank was erected.
It would give us an extra 222,000 litre capacity.

We proudly showed off the new tank to a group attending the local NRM conference.

Then came the official launch of the tank
and a day to share our success with local community members
and volunteers who had given many hours of their time to the project.

We had lunch in the sunshine
accompanied by fine wine kindly donated
by Brian and Kerry Walker of Scotts Brook fame

Cameron Atherton of Boyup Brook Concrete
helped us officially 'open' the new tank.

And then we gathered for the official photograph.

We sincerely thank Sean Grant of Tortoiseshell Farm for his expertise in evaluating the best site
and for supervising the volunteers, Daly and Sharon of the Boyup Brook Country Music Club for their help,
Boyup Brook Concrete for completing the earth works and their kind donation of carting the first water,
Trevor, and his guys, of South West Water & Storage for erecting the tank, Scotts Brook Winery,
the many Roo Gully volunteers who worked so hard preparing the site and laying the final blue metal,
and of course a huge thanks to the Australian Government's Community Water Grants.

The best news is that the tank is filling nicely with rain water!!!