From go to woe Tales of the Onsen!

A Japanese bath. Doesn't sound that hard does it? I have bush rock coming out of my ears. As you can see from the photo of the pond above. I am stretching the truth because I have actually used most of the bush rock I had on the property for various projects, rock walls, ponds etc. Getting more rock, which I have no doubt I will need, will be an exacting punishment for my little obsession. Collecting and picking up rock is what is commonly known as bloody boring and hard work!

This is the onsen, or an attempt at it. Notice its lack of height and generosity of girth.

I'm sure people will be pleased to correct me if I am wrong. I have always believed an Onsen, a Japanese Bath, to be quite narrow but tall, tall enough to almost stand up in and still be submerged up to your neck. I had a pit dug in the back of the lawn when I was lucky enough to have one of those Kanga Diggers with a driver at my disposal for a few hours. This is where it started to go wrong. I thought if I was going to be emptying the water after each use (The amount of rainfall we get here each year is HUGE and we have tanks so the occasional Onsen filled to the brim would have been acceptable. ) And everyone was showering before getting in why not make it for four people. My thinking was Summer afternoons spent with a few friends a glass or two of wine, some cheese and nibbles. Or even better steaming hot water the chill of winter above the water keeping the wine perfectly chilled.

I had the kanga and its driver for a few hours and coming to the end of this allotted time I did some fast talking. I had been playing with the idea of this onsen for ages. An hour before the Kanga was due to leave I was busy fluttering what little female charms I have in the direction of my partner. I'm pretty sure at the time I was fluttering to him I was dressed in his tracky dacks, tucked into socks and flip flops (a kind of sandal) and my fav t-shirt from high school that now has so many holes its 'spot the fabric' over an old yoga top I had used at once stage to dye my hair. Hmm rrrrrrright, I'm sure he was bowled over by my fashion statement, anyway I digress.

Explaining what you want done inadequately, to the man riding on the back of the ultimate sandpit toy, is not a good idea. The driver had looked at me cross-eyed when I had told him I wanted an over sized Onsen but because I didn't want to spent three years concreting rocks into a enclosed wall that high, could he dig me out a pit. then I could use the pit sides as bracing behind a layer of rocks.

I wanted a steep sided pit about four feet wide and about the same depth. I ended up with a shallow dish about 14 foot wide and about 1-2 foot deep... Working with this small change of specs, a saucer rather than my pit.

I went with the new size with new hopes! Make it more of a traditional spa/hot tub shape. So I considered doing the stone work myself. Surely it couldn't be too hard? The more I thought about it the more convinced I became that, yes, the building of this project was a little beyond my knowledge and strength (Some of those rocks ARE HUGE). So I hired a couple of guys. The brains of the operation warned me that it would not 'hold' water so to speak. I was assured it would be fine to fill have a soak and empty. As this rock tub rose from the earth I realised my greatest problem;

My basic principal that the amount of water used wouldn't be much more than a regular bath, went out the window. We do have great rainfall but I'm not going to waste 2000 litres for an evening with cheese and nibbles! The Onsen had become a monster! it was at least twice the size of what I had imagined. Any which way I worked it I couldn't get over the fact that it was not going to be filtered or chlorinated so there was little choice in emptying it after each use. My Onsen certainly wasn't going to be the relaxing weekly ritual I imagined it to be. Wait! I could put a table of bush rock in the centre and another bench seat to displace some of the water!

Good idea in theory, yet no matter how much extra seating and central pillar table work it was still at least 1000 litres of water a soak. I could not justify using that much water for one use.

Fast forward many months and I have finally accepted that I will need to leave the water in the 'Onsen'. This is when the onsen became the fish pond. So far so good. Fill it up add some plants and fish and off we go.

Fill 1

It leaked!!

Like a sieve.

First stage of woe, empty the 'fish pond' seal it with pond sealer. Oh so far we had used three times the amount of concrete we had anticipated, paid two guys a weeks worth of cash to build it and used A LOT of very expensive concrete bonding. On the upside the rocks were free for the picking... literally.

Fill 2

It still leaked!

Like a very sieve with cheese cloth as a liner

Second stage of woe, empty the fishpond again... block up the cracks seen with more concrete. seal again with more pond sealer

Fill 3

What do you know, it leaked!

I was starting to lose hope. If the leak looked like it was slowing down I would have been hearten it was like a tap flowing out almost as rapidly as I could fill it. Pull the plug and ... I'm outta idea's

Now this rock monument is sitting there out the back. Doing nothing and looking worse. One last try and sealing it?

Concrete the inside wall totally! use the existing structure as a frame and less the water holding part of the construction.

Fill 4..........................

I'm not sure, I'm waiting on the concrete and sealer to dry fully before I test it again. Pray for me, I don't have time to do anything more. Melb tomorrow back Wednesday final bits and pieces on Thursday and the final fill. Judging on Friday-Saturday.