Frogknot

We left Dulcie about 10.30 this morning.“It’s going to be lonely here tonight,” she said just to make us feel better about going.We had to drive via Gatton to pick up our friend Andrew’s chainsaw. We had heard from another friend, who lives near Frogknot, that the drive up to the house was blocked by a fallen tree. We arrived in Gatton about lunchtime, got the chainsaw and headed up the Great Dividing Range towards Clifton. We stopped in Warwick about 2.00pm and had a pie for lunch then continued on to Stanthorpe.It was a lovely journey and it was good to be finally heading out on an adventure.I had not seen any kangaroos yet, alive or dead (roadkill) but we saw 2 dead ones by the road just outside Stanthorpe. Other weird things we saw on the journey included an another old ‘prospector’ bloke standing in a roadside layby with a surf board under his arm, a nomadic Buddhist walking along the road dressed only in orange and a man on a unicycle!?We drove through Stanthorpe and on to Glen Aplin where we stopped at the service station to get some petrol for the chainsaw.It wasn’t far from there to Frogknot.Frogknot is the house Will built with Andrew. They started in 1996. Will says it is still not finished. It stands in 40 acres of bush. The corrugated iron roof is supported by posts cut from the surrounding trees and the walls are straw bale. It has solar panels for electricity and water is pumped from the dam (pond) just beside the house.We started up the drive, which is about 1km long and twists and turns up the hillside. It was quite overgrown again after we had spent a day a few years back clearing it. We soon came upon the tree blocking the road. It was not too big and only needed one cut and we were able to lift the rest and swing it out of the way.We carried on up the drive. Roxy coped well with the road and the wheels did not slip once. As we came over the brow and the house came into view. We saw two large kangaroos bounding away as we approached. Last year we had spent a week clearing the area in front of the house and it still looked pretty good.As we got closer Will could see something was wrong with the roof. The ridge capping was at a weird angle. We pulled up outside and got out and could see that the walls had sagged even more than they had in previous years. We opened the door and went in. It looked pretty good inside and seemed just as we had left it but a large lump of plaster and straw had fallen out in one corner.There was a new crack in the back wall which Will was really upset about as that is a load bearing wall. He went straight up onto the roof.That is where he discovered the awful truth that someone had stolen the newest solar panel and in doing so had removed the ridge capping allowing water to pour into the side walls making them slump further and into the back wall causing the new crack.He refitted the ridge capping and came back down. We discovered that whoever stole the solar panel also took 2 broken chainsaws and a big metal drum! Thankfully they had not found the water pump.I don’t know how he did it but within an hour Will had the remaining solar panels connected to the battery and we had power again. He then refitted the water pump and we had running water. We lit the fire in the aga and I swept the place out. Within a few hours the place was looking much better.The area around here is called The Granite Belt. All over Will’s property there are large granite boulders lying around. We walked out at sunset to ‘The rocks’, an area of large granite boulders that look out across the valley.Will was happy to see in the garden that the mandarin tree had finally produced delicious fruit. I reached out to pick one and pulled back when I noticed a small green frog sat on the one I was about to pick! There were weird orange beetles all over the bush too and Will said they were Stink Bugs and they squirted foul smelling liquid if you got too close. Nice!As it got darker the frogs started to call and they are much louder than I ever remember them from my stays here in winter.It’s now 8.45 and the light is still on and we have internet connection, and hot water. I have not seen any huntsmen, or king browns. It’s looking good.I shall be sleeping under a mosquito net tonight...not only to keep out mosquitoes but anything else that is nocturnal and crawls!