I'm grateful for...

The people who work behind the scenes to make our lives as they are.
We moved to Townsville a year ago, it's a small city in the Queensland tropics. The roads North and south flood often and sometimes for weeks on end as we experienced over Xmas and new year. That meant that fresh food became scarce along with many other things essential and non essential including mail.

I know that a parcel bursting with new fabric (that i forgot i bought on some up late bender of etsy & flickr) makes my day. And just last week i received a lovely hand written thank you note from a lady who lost all her sewing gear in the floods.

This picture was taken from the passenger seat of our car while we were travelling back to Townsville from Mackay after Cyclone Yasi. When we saw this Australia Post truck we new the roads where open. What a lovely sight indeed.

Pop on over to Maxabella loves... to see what's making peeps grateful 

It's all about the kids...

Fox has been away for a few weeks now and we've all been missing him a lot. He comes home this weekend but only briefly before he's off again.
When he is away I really don't get much of a chance to sew or crochet at home because by the end of the day I'm so exhausted my eyes can't see straight. So the only time I've had time for crafting is on Wednesdays craft group (and this week got hijacked by the RAAF Air Commander coming to check out the Family centre). As a treat on Friday I popped in to see Kirsten at Pompom Rouge and did manage a bit of crochet.
But I'm starting to worry a little about the lack of craft/me time as I have 4 birthdays in the next few weeks and have not finished one gift. Watching my hair turn white by the minute. No really, red hair turns white... none of this grey business. Nevermind, I know I work well under pressure so it will get done!

So Miki had a friend over last night and today I took all the kids to The Strand. It really is as nice as the pictures if not better. There are many play grounds and grassed areas as well as a FREE water play area along a few kilometers of Townsville foreshore which also overlooks Magnetic Island.



The Rock pool & magnetic Island in the background



Rock pool



The port to the left & Mt. Stewart on the right.



The flying fox was a big hit



And ofcourse, the ice cream bribe.

Now maybe, just maybe they will be relaxed enough this arfternoon that I will have a chance to get my craft on. :)

Winter holidays

An hour and a half on the road from Townsville we drove through Paluma. The kids were amazed that we were actually driving through a cloud.



The turn off to the Lake had a cassowary warning sign. Our eldest son being petrified of birds was not at all impressed. Thankfully we didn't see one up close..



Wasn't long before the tent was up and we were ready for camp fire action.



I threw a few spuds in the coals and we had baked potates for dinner. It was totally gourmet with garlic butter, bacon, cheese, sour cream & shallots. Is now the time to mention that we forgot to pack the bbq utensils and only had plastic knives and forks & a wooden spoon to cook with. Yep, it was intresting.



The camp kitchen. We learned quickly that all food stuff must either be put in the fire or the car overnight because we were kept awake the first night by a persistant native, wait for it... giant white tailed rat!



Looking at this sign I'm glad it was only the rat and not say a snake!



Next day we drove back in to Paluma and took a stroll to Witt's lookout, a 3 km round trip through the rain forest.



It was such a beautiful walk. The smell, the shade, the colours...



The art of nature... a strangler fig having it's way with it's host. love it.



And we made it.



I think the river down there is Crystal Creek and in the distance is the ocean & some islands, i seriously can not see that far.



Fox had the gps in hand and there was a cache near by.



Many adventures to be had with geocaching & treasures to be found (& swapped).

There is a lot of wildlife around this area and each morning we woke up to the beautiful sounds of literally hundreds of birds making their morning calls. It was like a bird symphony at the crack of dawn with the most amazing sounds, you know like the ones on the meditation cd's.



Some birds didn't mind being seen and Dman enjoyed watching the "turkey lurkey show" where the brush turkey's would come down from the forest and try and grab any bits of food that might have been dropped. I guess they're the seagulls of the rainforest.



And after a relaxing few nights with nature it was home time before we knew it. We all really enjoyed staying at the Paluma Dam and can not wait for our next trip out there.

A peak at Townsville

Having my father in law visit recently was a great opportunity for us to get out and check out some more of what Townsville has to offer. We have been here since January and have seen more of it's surrounds than "The Ville" itself.



This is Townsville from Castle Hill, you can see the Ross river snaking through the city.



This picture was taken from Mt. Stuart and you can see Castle Hill to the left of the city and Magnetic Island behind Castle hill. We haven't been to Maggie Island yet but we will, most likely when it's not stinger season so we can enjoy getting in the ocean and playing around in the sand.



We took a short trip up Hervey's Range road to the Heritage Tea Rooms. There you can buy a $50 cup of Kopi Luwak... Cat poo coffee! Nope, we weren't brave enough to try it, maybe next time. Apparently its quite nice. It sure is pretty up there and what's even more awesome is that you have to go past a cute little fabric shop in a caravan park that is the only place I've found so far that sells Amy Butler fabric & the likes. : )



We are quite surprised at how flat Townsville is considering all the Hills & Mountains surrounding it. It's great for bike riding & running and is very green right now. It's just about the end of wet season though so it will be interesting to see what the dry is like in comparison.

Welcome New Year

Happy New Years to you!

We went out to beautiful Crystal Creek today.

The weather was a little showery but nothing you can't handle when the temp is 31c





The clouds were covering the hills...



Little Crystal Creek Bridge






We then went a little further on down to Big Crystal Creek



Dman & I got our feet wet (it was pretty cold) while fox tried to find a cache nearby



It's so pretty out there. When the twins return from Perth we will bring them out here, they will just love it.