They set up camp by a stream and apparently it teemed with rain the first night. Living in a tent in an area prone to heavy rain would have been uncomfortable to say the least. It is recorded that the pair soon built a rough two-roomed hut with a roof built of bark, which, when peeled off the trunk of totara trees, could be flattened out like a thin sheet of wood and that this endured the storms of many years. The area where this first shelter was erected later became known as the Bark Hut paddock. It is known that a couple of years later Julia came to keep house for Fred and her brother Pat.
The two young men set about clearing the land by cutting down the scrub and clearing it of forest except for the tallest trees. This was left to dry out over the following months and eventually burned. Because of regrowth, a second burning was often necessary before grass for grazing could be sown. The old adage about earning your bread by the sweat of your brow applied. Their tools were minimal - axe, adze and cross-cut saw. The clearing of land would continue throughout the following decades as also did the acquisition of more land, both freehold and leasehold.
As the other Sullivan boys, John, Lawrence Jnr and Mick became older, they too treked inland to assist in the clearing of the bush and the cultivation of grassland suitable for the grazing of stock. The school teacher, Henry Williams, also assisted at weekends whenever he could during the time he lived at Gillespie’s.
Over the years the Ryan family had gradually acquired considerable land holdings in the area, but these were eventually advertised for sale by auctioneers, Mark Sprott & Company, on 4th November 1903 in the Grey River Argus probably because of the death of Ryan Senior.
On 17.9.1903, the same newspaper advised the transfer of LIP land from Patrick Sullivan of 40 acres and LIP over 90 acres to his brother, Michael Sullivan. Patrick had died at only 29 years of age ending the remarkable adventurous pioneering saga of his short life.
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