FRIVOLITY AS WE CREATE ‘PLATYPUS WATCH’

FRIVOLITY AS WE CREATE ‘PLATYPUS WATCH’

‘Pick me, pick me!’ There’s a child in all of us and, yes, we’re guilty of indulging in a little horsing-around, while building Nightfall’s luxury tent accommodation on the banks of Christmas Creek beside Lamington National Park. This week  laughter was intercepted with squeals,  as neighbour Rob and Wwoofer volunteer Kirsty rode Nightfall’s ‘chair-lift’ equivalent.  Perched in an excavator bucket above the tumbling waters of Christmas Creek,  their antics were part of work to repair a high overhanging creek-bank. The erosion-control job was always going to be tricky,  but seated in the excavator bucket they were safely able to drill holes in the steep soil face and plant Lomandra longifolia (ideal for holding the bank together).  Fortunately it was a smooth ride – Steve’s machine-operating skills are well-honed by months of earthworks,  shaping the camp to form access tracks,  tent platform sites, pier footings,  rock walls and more. Nightfall-camp-erosion-control Repair work to the bank also makes the spot, dubbed ‘Platypus Watch‘,  safe for  guests.  The elevated vantage point will soon be home to couple of deck chairs – think relaxing on dusk with a drink and nibbles or sipping an early-morning espresso coffee as you sit quietly waiting to glimpse  the secretive marsupial.  Christmas Creek’s deep pools and well-covered banks are perfect habitat for the platypus, but they also make the illusive monotreme hard to spot. Nightfall-camp-christmas-creek-post-flood (image: the view from ‘Platypus Watch’ –  three days after a reasonable flood you won’t see platypus,  but the water is an amazing blue-green) Nightfall’s private luxury tents and camp infrastructure are carefully positioned in a previously disturbed section of our 257-acre site.  We’ve now planted almost 800 trees into this creekside area to restore the gallery rainforest to a habitat typical of our mountain headwaters.  Some of the work falls under the banner of a wider SEQ Catchments-SEQ Water Upper Christmas Creek Restoration Project.  Their focus is water quality – after all, the water which passes Nightfall enters the Logan River and forms part of the drinking water supply to Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Nightfall-camp-revegetation Restoration and horsing-around aside, it’s been a somewhat frustrating week, with work on the ground slowed each day by rain from storms.  Steve and Etienne have had a muddy job,  putting pipes in the ground to get water to each tent.  The builder has also again been delayed.  Fingers crossed next week he’ll lay the last of the floors in our tents. Sadly our time with Nightfall’s Wwoof volunteers Etienne and Kirsty is also fast drawing to a close. It’s hard to believe they’ve been here for three months.   With thanks for their help, wonderful humour and great support, we wish them well on the next chapter of their global adventures. Nightfall-camp-wwoof-volunteers-and-hosts(image: Wwoof volunteers Etienne McLaughlin and Kirsty Phillips, with Nightfall hosts Heidi and Steve Ross and ‘Mr’)