Creekholme
Creekholme is based on about three and a half acres of alluvial
soil on the western edge of Thozet Creek in North Rockhampton.
The land is mainly creek flats with a small area of older creek
terrace. See map.
It was part of the original 66 acre holding of Anthelme Thozet,
the famous French botanist who made his home in North Rockhampton
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Later, Thozet's land was subdivided and the blocks that today
make up Creekholme were at one stage known as Valencia, a market
garden which operated for about thirty years. Land use of the
past has left the ecology of the property in a degraded state.
Today the blocks are home to Susan, mother and daughter horses
Luisa and Astrid, three cats Tigger (now deceased), Casey and
Laura, Susan's flock of Silver Spangled Hamburgs and a motley
collection of purebred and halfbred Chinese geese.
There's also Stephen who holidays at Creekholme when he wants
a break from his beach front shack at Emu Park on the Capricorn
Coast. There's only so much beach front living a man can take!!
Creekholme has been subject to ongoing revegetation works over
the past 10 years as part of its rehabilitation. This has included
new fencing, weed removal, planting native trees along the creek
boundary, creating an artificial rainforest plot, protecting
volunteer seedlings and establishing shade clusters.
Works have now commenced to consolidate these earlier efforts
and take the property in a new direction.
The intention is that Creekholme will house a private
garden, with demonstration plots of domestic scale, food-producing
systems.
We will also continue to trial innovative techniques in rehabilitating
and revegetating the land.
By using trees to shade, colonise and revitalise the soil,
and thus enhance its water holding capacity, we aim to give
Creekholme an ecology that is resilient to whatever shocks global
climate change and diminishing fossil fuel reserves might bring.
Creekholme is now much more than just a block of degraded ex-market
garden land. Creekholme is now an entity - land, animals, plants
and people rolling along together.
Email
Susan at creekholme@hotmail.com
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