Wildlife around the Castle.

We live very near the State Forest and are often visited by the local wildlife. So when tourists come and expect to see Kangaroos jumping down the main street of Brisbane, at our place it is true.



A Wallaby (small type of kangaroo) in our backyard.



This wallaby brought the family, there is a baby in her pouch.




Another marsupial; the easily recognised koala. While this one isn't in our back yard (as we have no gum trees) it is in the trees along the walking track behind our house.


We are cheating in this photo but the wombat is Ka's favourite Aussie animal it had to make it onto this blog. This wombat lives at Dreamworld and Ka got to play with it as part of her birthday present from K.



We have many bird visitors to our yard here are some lorikeets. They are colourful and very noisey and often wake you up at sunrise.


Kookaburras have a very distinctive laugh and love fishing. They are also very loud and are the biggest birds in the Kingfisher family.




There are many spieces of cockatoo but the most common visitor to us is the sulphur crested cockatoo. They screech loudly and love to travel in groups. You can tame them and they learn to talk very easily.



These cockatoos are eating on some passion fruit off our vines.


So much for the cute and cuddley animals.



We saved the worst till last.
Unfortunately Australia has many animals that can kill you, fortunately this isn't one. This is a huntsman spider, it can grow to about the size of an open hand and although they will bite they are not poisonous. They are, however, very ugly.

If spiders and snakes are not your thing be sure you visit us in Winter when only the cute and cuddley are out and about.

The Castle

It's not a house it's a home, and
a man's home is his castle.

Our castle was completed in 1997, however, you never finish a home and as our family and ideas grew so did our castle.


Our place as it was when Ka first arrived in 2003.




The back of the house which the local kangaroos liked but we were not happy with.




Getting stuck into the new garden; and a new finished home for our pineapples.




Garden edges were Ka's next project for me. They made the gardens neat and mowing easier and it didn't matter that we had never bricked before. We became such champion weekend warriors that we edged every garden we had - and some new ones we made.


With plans for a dog the fence became our next project.






Digging the foundations and doing the brick corners first.






The poles went up next.




And finally the wood.





The finishing touches were done by us. Ka painted the wood and K bricked in the bottom gaps - with some help from little Sven - so that our puppy couldn't get out.



The next project proved our biggest so we enlisted outside help. With the birth of our first child a matter of months away we took the big decision to build up and add another story to accommodate our growing family.




The materials arrive.




First the roof came off and the new frame went up.





After the frame came the walls and a temporary roof to keep out the weather.





Next the walls were filled in and the roof constructed and tiled.




The outside was then rendered and painted.






The finishing touches were put on.





And finally our new home took on its new shape.




In Ka's 4 years here we went from this....................................................................to this.




And we were very happy with the results and our new castle.......its always ready for visitors!