mortiz044

Life has been very hectic lately with tradesmen and landscapers so we decided that we needed to get away for a mini break - "mini" being the operative word!  We could only manage four nights but even that was better than nothing! We arrived at Kauri Creek camping ground just after lunch last Sunday.  We were very pleased to see that there were not many other campers....about six camps over the whole area.  We knew that we were going to be in for a quiet time! It didn't take long to set up our camp right beside a small inlet.  It was the perfect spot for us to launch our kayak and that, after all, was the main reason for camping at this spot.  We haven't had the kayak in the water for many months and we were both looking forward to it. After setting up camp we sat back and watched a bushfire quickly spreading on the other side of the lake. It had been ignited by some campers who had let their campfire get out of control.  We could see from our vantage point that the ru

The brief to the Landscaper was fairly simple. Give me a formal kitchen herb garden. They nailed it! We went from this......  and slowly transformed it..... Into this....... I am beside myself with happiness because it is exactly what I pictured!  All those squares (apart from the outside ones that are filled with mondo grass) are now filled with herbs that should grow very happily.  We have planted ground cover gardenia below the retaining wall and have planted spider lillies along the pool edge.  The two pots contain blueberries.

or Spring Creek Falls as they are known locally, are situated at the top of Spring Creek that ends at the Mowbray Valley just south of Port Douglas. Our hiking friends rang us last week to say that they were going to hike to the falls and would we like to join them.  I didn't immediately say yes as from past experience these hikes can be quite difficult.  However, Philip was very keen so we said yes.  In hindsight I probably should have gone with my gut instinct! We didn't start our hike until almost 9 a.m, as there was a bit of a mix up with the meeting place.  I had googled the falls and my guess was that the hike into the falls would be about 3km or 6km return.  It ended up being a bit more than that.   Our friends had pre-warned us that we would be walking through the creek for most of the way with occasional rock hopping. The first few kilometres were a relatively easy hike because we were able to follow quite a well worn path that hugged the creek. The next few kilometres