Their home was up high overlooking the cane fields near the township of Proserpine with a gorgeous female Beagle and a large garden. We were lucky enough to have our own little apartment attached to the pool in the middle of the garden, it was excellent. We fell in love with the beautiful Ruby on first sight, she was so sweet, young and full of energy. Our little Elmo was a little hesitant at first but became fascinated with her, unfortunately, they couldn't play together because Ruby wanted to run and tumble and Elmo was too old. Ruby recognised this and took him on board as an extra member of the family.
We had arrived a day early to learn all about our duties, which included how to use the ride-on mower, tools, feeding of the dog, the water pump and security.
What a wonderful Christmas break we had at this wonderful spot. We had continuous
rain for the first 3 weeks and the grass grew an inch a day. Luckily Louie already had experience with a ride on mower and found the job easy. Soon the garden started to look like a park.
The Mango Grove was covered in mangoes and at night we could hear the fruit bats greedily arguing with each other and the next day there would be hundreds of mangoes lying on the grass half eaten and going rotten.
Annie started to collect all these fermenting and rotten mangoes from the ground and set them aside to return to the soil as mulch. We also collected all the ripe and untouched fruit to cut up and freeze to share with the owner. Louie was then able to mow under the trees.
Annie got stuck into the garden, weeding and mulching where she could. The stinging ants were everywhere, so you had to be careful. We saw more wildlife during our stay, a possum on the roof and 3 snakes in the garden, luckily we were watchful for them so they didn't give us a fright.
We lived on fresh mangoes for a few weeks until the trees were empty and the bats had disappeared. What an amazing time. Some of our time was spent doing some lovely drives around the Whitsundays, going where we have never been before. Airlie Beach has a lovely beachfront pool which we really enjoyed. We had already visited the islands previously and sailed throughout the islands, so we had no intention of getting off the mainland. We were sad to see the damage done to Shute Harbour from the last cyclone.
Christmas Day was hot and humid and lots of rain.
Ruby was a bit indignant with the headdress but soon pulled it off and chewed it up!
We had some lovely walks around the neighbourhood with Ruby and met some lovely neighbours.
Annie sent reports to the owners every few days via email, which were very appreciated.
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