House sitting The Whitsundays

The list requires some explanation so here goes…

Norman is the reason we are here. A large breed dog, consisting of (this is a guess) some deerhound, wolfhound, maybe a smattering of Lab. His Mum calls him her $40 special. Norman, like us, is feeling the years creeping up. His legs don’t work as well as they should, but his hearing, eyesight and sense of smell are as sharp as a puppy. His soul is kind, his eyes are wise, and his nose senses illness. He has taken on his new role of caring for Neko (our cat) with vigour. Under Normans watch we can be sure no harm will come to her. When it comes to this truly special dog, we can safely say we have fallen head over heels in love. It has been a pleasure to get to know such an amazing animal.

26 Degrees is the average winters day temperate for June/July/August in Midge Point. The average nighttime low is 12 degrees. This is winter! Need we say more?

Soldier Crab Art festoons the main beach in Midge Point, home to a lot (that is a colossal understatement) of powder blue soldier crabs. Every day at low tide, armies of soldier crabs storm the beach to feed on detritus (this must be true because Wikipedia says it is). They munch their way up leaving round pellets of sand in beautiful artistic displays. It is mesmerising to walk amongst the shapes to see what one can find. Maple leaves seem to pop out often. Might be a Canadian thing!

Ocean Blue does no justice in describing the colour of the water in this part of the world. It varies from baby blue to aquamarine. And, it’s warm with a year-round temperature of about 25 degrees celsius. Yes, you read it correctly, 25 degrees!

Space is a wonderful thing. We are house sitting on a 5-acre property. There is something to be said about waking up every morning surrounded by nature. The sounds vary with many species of birds, more frogs than you can poke a stick at, cane toads and very loud gecko’s all vying to be heard. We love this feeling of space, so much so that we bought 2 acres in the Queensland Sunshine Coast hinterland. Yup, homeowners again, this time with space.

People come into your life and you know, you just know that you have met forever friends. We started this housesit with the intention of looking after Jodi and Steve’s dog Norman. We will leave this housesit with the pleasure of making new friends that we are sure to see again. It goes without saying that such a special dog would have awesome people parents, and he does.

Jodi and Steve are surrounded with great neighbours. Next door is Ken, Norman’s best friend outside of family. Norman picks good people, Ken is good people. Across the street is Ellen and Trev. They invited us to local bingo where we had the pleasure of meeting some awesome locals. Ellen and Trev have been great with assistance in living here. They bring goodies (so does Ken). They keenly think of our interest in animals when the local wildlife passes through their property. We can’t stress enough how much we appreciate these lovely people. It has been a pleasure having the opportunity to get to know them.

Sand flows forever in The Whitsundays. We share Norman’s love of the beach and the daily walks across the sand are memories we will hold forever. There is magic in sand. It warms the body, buries all stresses and sprinkles the skin with a feeling of serenity. We love to sit captivated by the ocean and sea life. Norman likes to dig and fish in the shallows. It’s a match made in heaven.

The buggy is an “all terrain vehicle”, that transports us along several well-worn trails, spitting us out near the mangroves so we can make our way along the sandy beach until we reach the mouth of the river. This is where we park for our daily beach walk. When driving the buggy, don’t get in Norman’s way as his focussed concentration is what keeps it on track.

Driftwood can be sparse on some Australian beaches. Not here. The warm sand slides between your toes as you trek along looking for the perfect piece. This beach is driftwood heaven for those of us who like to collect it, or for those of us that like to chew it up into little pieces. We will leave it up to you to guess who likes what!

Wildlife spotting is always exciting. As animal lovers we love to see old favourites such as wallabies, kangaroos, emus, kookaburras, possums, pythons and various others. We are uber excited when we see new and interesting beasties. The frogs have already been mentioned, as have the cane toads. We had the opportunity to see a beautiful green tree snake and an echidna. Not to mention the various hawks and wedge tail eagles that soar above the cane fields. The sea eagles and kites are regulars on the beach and we are surrounded by stone-curlews.

The Mayor of Midge Point, on the list because we can’t count and because his story is so important.