The Hill

I’m currently trying to write up a bit of a tutorial for the joining of the squares of my neon willow blanket. I’m not experienced at writing tutorials, so this taking a while and turning out pretty long-winded!

I thought I should come back to it with a fresh mind another time, so I thought I would turn to an entirely different subject: The Hill!

I have mentioned Castle Hill on here before, it is a Townsville landmark, and it attracts lots of people who are keen on their fitness, as they tackle the various paths to the top, or maybe run up the road route. I’ve even seen ladies running while pushing buggies up the hill – now that is impressive!

Normally I am hiking up it as fast as I can, with no stops apart from very occasional brief pauses for breath if I absolutely need them. This time, I was taking a different friend up there to show her the route, and were doing it with a bit more enjoyment in mind and our cameras in hand.

The Hill up ahead

The route that I go up begins at the road, but then turns off onto a trail heading steeply up the side. The track covers rough ground, but is well-maintained, and affords wonderful views. From some directions you can see Magnetic Island sitting serenely out to sea. I love looking out to the island and day-dreaming about the koalas!

Other views look out over the town’s port, a less pretty vista. The sun is rising in this photo – people who know me well will be amazed to find that I am ever up early enough to see the sun rising!

There is wildlife on the Hill too, and on this most recent trip up there I heard a rustling in the undergrowth. Venomous snakes are an issue in Queensland, so I was worried about what might be causing the rustling. A quick check (from a safe distance!) didn’t reveal scales though, but rather spines!!

I got to watch it snuffling around while desperately trying to dig my camera out of the pouch. Of course, it had hidden it’s little face by the time I managed to get the camera on and pointed in the right direction, but I was still very excited: I had seen my first echidna!!!!! 

I watched the little guy for quite a while, but then I needed to carry on. The rest meant that, for a change, I got to enjoy the scenery of the path as I carried on.

I love the tropical foliage

The last section of this path is a set of seemingly never-ending steps. My legs burn and I struggle for breath as I walk up them, but I am determined to make it to the top without stopping again!

We've come a long way...

 

...but there's still a way to go!

Once at the top of the path, I normally turn downhill on the road to jog back to the bottom as normally the Hill is tackled for fitness training. This time I turned uphill on the road, for the short walk to the car park at the top.

Here there is a mister to cool you down, but it was so humid anyway that the mister made no difference. 

We took in the views from the top instead:

I live over in that direction somewhere!

The view over Cape Pallarenda

This monument is to Robert Towns, for whom Townsville was named after he founded it in 1865.

Angry skies brewing!

There are a few plantings up here too, with what for me is the Flowery Trinity of Tropicalness: Hibiscus, Frangipani and Bougainvillea.

Then it was time to head back down the road, and the threatening skies release their rain just in time to make it impossible for my camera to focus on this tree full of sulphur crested cockatoos.

 So that’s Castle Hill, all the more exciting to me now for having seen an echidna!

I’ll just leave you with these beautiful frangipani flowers that we saw in a garden at the bottom, just because they are so pretty :)

Visiting The Strand

I’ve had a couple of lazy bloggy days thanks to finding a few drafts still waiting to be published, but today I thought I’d show you a bit of The Strand, as I’ve mentioned it before.

The Strand is the sea-front of Townsville, redeveloped into a bit of a modern promenade. There is a path for cycling, walking, skateboarding – whatever you fancy that isn’t motorised really! 

A visit to The Strand pretty much guarantees that you will get to see these cheeky chappies - gorgeous Rainbow Lorikeets, one of my new favourite birds :)

The path meanders along the palm- and fig tree- studded waterfront, leading you past the grassy park areas, the water attractions and the various bars, cafes and ice cream places along the way.

There are also - this is Australia after all - municipal barbeque areas all the way along The Strand, and often there will be groups of families and friends having get-togethers, making use of the barbie facilities.

Another great past time on The Strand is getting an ice cream,

But you have to eat it pretty quickly as the tropical heat melts it to milk shake in no time!!

The water attractions include the Tobruk Memorial swimming pool, which you have to pay to use – they have lane swimming and lessons there, it’s a nice pool but I don’t have any photos.

Nearby is the water park, this place looks brilliant!! It’s free to use, and there are always kids there having a whale of a time. I’m looking forward to my friend visiting with her kids so that I can have a go there myself!

Then there is the rock pool at the far end, this is a salt water pool that I think gets its water direct from the sea, though it’s filtered for jellyfish and things! 

The rockpool is where I meet my friend with her baby, so we can do our baby-friendly work outs. We park the baby in his pram under one of these shaded picnic areas, and then we can use the space for exercising while watching the baby.

We make use of the little wall as an exercise bench, as well as for step ups and dips, and we use the nearby grass for ab exercises. A kettlebell and some hand weights, plus the ground and the little wall, mean that we can have a lot of variety to our static exercises.

We alternate running around the perimeter of the pool area, with staying with the baby and doing the static exercises (so the baby is never on his own at all). 

Such a beautiful view to accompany our running!

Then afterwards we get changed into swimmers, and take it in turns to have a dip in the sea. It’s ‘Stinger Season’ here, the time when there are most jellyfish around – some of which are potentially deadly, so stinger nets are put out to create jellyfish exclosures in which you can swim in relative safety. There’s still some risk, but it’s hugely reduced.

The photo below is taken from where we had a beach tent set up so that the baby had plenty of shade while we were relaxing after our workout. The white rectangle thingy from the beach into the sea there is the top of the stinger net.

In the same picture, the hill you can see in the background is Castle Hill – this is the one I walk up a couple of times a week. It is really hard work, and I still have a way to go fitness-wise before this becomes a comfortable walk!

So there we are, now you know The Strand a bit, which is where my picnic blanket will get most of its use once it's finished :) 

A Few Things...

I am officially employed again!! Hooray!! It’s the first time I’ve had a proper paid job since October 2013, so it’s well-needed.

I have just got back from my second shift at work, so now my induction is complete and I am ready to start working properly. It’s a casual contract though, so I have no idea just yet when that will be!

The job is working as a Community Support Worker for a non-profit Disability Service Provider. My main role will be working in the Community Inclusion Program. For this I will get paired with a person who is living with a disability, then work with them to support them to set and achieve appropriate goals. There is also the possibility of occasional work at the Respite House which the organisation runs.

Today I was at the Respite House with the other new Support Workers (6 of us in total), so while we were there we got to meet a couple of young people who are guests there just now. The people stay there just for a short time, a few days or maybe a couple of weeks, so that their families can focus on other things – maybe there are other children who need attention, maybe there is illness to deal with, or maybe they just need some time to regroup as they are coping long-term with the complex needs of their family-member.

I’m looking forward to starting work properly, although I realise that it will be challenging, and at times difficult. I’m also nervous about meeting ‘my’ family for the first time, as I know they will be judging me to see if they think I will be a good fit for the person I will be paired with to support – I really hope that we will like each other when we get introduced, and that I won’t let them down!

Obviously the nature of my work means that I can’t write about any specific things, but there may be times when I can write general stuff that doesn’t breach any confidentiality (or basic privacy and respect!) if I feel I want to include work stuff on here.

Another thing I’m feeling quite pleased about is a very simple idea I had to help out a friend. She moved to Townsville in January, and I met her as my husband and hers work together. She really wants to get back into fitness stuff, especially running – but she has a gorgeous little baby boy who is just a few months old, and babies don’t really go well with running and the gym and stuff! Of course while her husband is around she doesn’t need to worry about the baby, but in their job our husbands are away a lot, and can work erratic hours.

So my very simple idea was to meet at the Strand – the developed sea front area here in Townsville - park the baby in his pram at one of the shaded areas. I brought some equipment; a couple of hand weights and a kettle bell. Then we took it in turns to run a loop, while the non-runner did static exercises (arms, legs and abs) and watched the baby!

So simple, but so effective. I’m really glad I thought of it, as it was fun to work out with someone new (although we weren’t actually working out together), and my friend seemed to really appreciate the chance to get out and exercise, while not missing out on time with her baby – or worrying about finding a sitter. Brilliant!

I'll try to write out a program of some kind in case anyone else likes this idea - you could do this if you both had babies too, the only problem is when they start to get too big to sit happily in a pram...


As for blankety developments for Cherry Heart’s Blanket-Along on Ravelry, I have made some progress, although it’s kind of backwards progress really!

I haven’t made much progress with the Sunshine/Aspen willow squares – I’m only up to 5 of them:

I’m not sure what direction to take this part of the project: all squares the same? A couple of different, but similar, patterns in the same colours? The same pattern, but with a couple of extra colours?  I definitely like the simplicity of these squares though, so I don’t want to do anything over-the-top with them.


Speaking of over the top… I had made up 12 squares of the crazy neon colours, and needed to work out how to make these work, as I didn’t really like them together: 

I added some black to see how that would help, as I didn’t have any other colour that I thought would work as a background. I put in the first row of black hooking around the stitches below, rather than into the tops of them. I really like the effect of this stitching: 

But still I had to accept that this wasn’t really working. I mean, I REALLY didn’t like how it all looked together! So, some more frogging will be required as I removed the last few rounds – I’m going to experiment with having coloured centre motifs and the squaring-off part in black. This way I can include the multi-coloured yarn in a less eye-aching way!

I made a couple of motifs to start with, to test out the idea. I like the multicolour centre best, rather than the multicolour on the outside, so I'm going to make more of those:

I’m hoping that take 3 will be a keeper – not sure how many more times I can face undoing and redoing the same project!