A Ring-Tailed Possum came to say 'Goodnight.'

The sad tale of Chiquita.

So.........when Will was living here at Frogknot with Andrew, Andrew and his Mum, Con, went away to England as Andrew's Sister, Trevanna who was then living in the UK, was getting married.Chiquita was Trevanna's pet chihuahua but Con had inherited her when Trevanna left for the UK.While they were away Will looked after Chiquita here at Frogknot. After two weeks Andrew came back but one day while both he and Will were out at work they came home to find Chiquita missing.They searched and called for her and eventually Andrew found her poor headless body lying beneath a tree. Will can't remember if they ever found her head......but they believe that while they were out that day poor Chiquita was carried off by an eagle.

Chiquita's Grave.

What?! This is Australia!Yes, it was minus 2 this morning at Frogknot and Roxy's windscreen was all iced up. The sun soon came out though and we decided to have a relaxing day but it turned out to be be very busy.

To Takarakka.

So........this time last week we set off early on our escape to Carnarvon Gorge in Central Queensland. We knew it would take us about 9 hours to get there so set off just after 6.30 am. We were just heading up the Great Dividing Range into Toowoomba, just under 2 hours later when we got a phone call from Wendi to say that Will's Mum had fallen again half an hour after we left.Shirley had managed to get her back into bed but she had some cuts and bruises. Wendi said she was on her way over to Celtis St and we said we would hang fire in Toowoomba for awhile until it was  clearer whether we needed to go back or not. We found a 'Subway' and had a breakfast roll and hot drink and Will rang Shirley. Dulcie had slipped in the bathroom but did not appear to have broken anything. Shirley said 'Keep going.'We decided we would because we could still turn back if necessary but we still had a long way to go and if we hung around in Toowoomba and it was eventually clear we did not need to go back we would have wasted travelling time, so we kept going.We were near Dalby when we got a text to say 'All O.K. Keep going,' as Dulcie was up and dressed.We stopped in Chinchilla for a break and had a little walk down the main shopping street to stretch our legs and wandered into a hardware store and came out with an antique looking, revolving, tea light chandelier.........as you do. It was a completely impulse buy, but we both loved it and thought it would be great for Frogknot. We found space for it in the packed up Roxy and headed onto Roma.We had lunch at Roma.......a pie from 'Bakearoma'! They didn't have the Mango Chicken Curry one that I wanted......it is always the way! I had a chicken and mushroom one instead.We got more petrol in Roma and headed on to Injune. It was the last day of June so we were in Injune in June. I wanted to try and get a picture of a woman in the street which I could caption ' June in Injune in June,' but didn't manage it.From Injune we headed into the Central Queensland Highlands and eventually at about 4.30 pm arrived at Takarakka Bush Resort near Carnarvon Gorge...it was packed! The World and his wife were also there.We pitched out tent under four Macrozamia trees and settled in. The guy who was in the tent next to us came back from his day in the Gorge. He was there with his son, Nick. He never introduced himself but I shall call him 'Limpy' as that day he had walked right down to the other end of the Gorge, to Big Bend and back and it was about 22 kms and he never quite recovered from it while we were there at Takarakka. Limpy seemed to know the guy in the text next to him, Todd, our next-door but one and 'cracked open a few tinnies' with him and chatted awhile.We had our tea and sat for in the darkness before going for a shower and we were in bed by about 7.30 pm.Limpy wasn't the most thoughtful of neighbours and was banging his boots together at about 10.30 while still talking loudly and I still had not been to sleep......but eventually I must have.

Frogknot repaired.

So.......I think I mentioned last time that we were at Frogknot that the ceiling had started to sag and we added a new pole to hold up the bit that seemed to be sagging the worst.Will was fearful that the roof was going, but when we arrived yesterday, even though the ceiling was worse, he thought that only the ceiling joists needed replacing.We took the ceiling down today.......what a mess it made.....especially after my two hours of cleaning after we arrived yesterday!The joists had been completely eaten away by termites and were so fragile and light the wood felt like cardboard and crumbled if you tried to hold it. The termites seemed to be long gone and tiny black ants had moved in. As Will took the ceiling down he was showered in ants, he passed the ruined wood to me and I carried it out as the ants swarmed all up my arms. I don't think I could have done that a year ago!We went into town and got some wood for the new joists and then came back and fitted them, re-packed the insulation and screwed the corrugated iron ceiling back up again. It was not an easy job getting everything lined up in the right place and it does not look as good as it did originally but it is far better than it was yesterday!  I can't believe we did it all in a day and before it got dark!There was a lot more sweeping again.....but the place is shipshape once more.Time for a bath on the rock........under the stars........there is not a cloud in the sky!