Creekholme is based on 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.
It was part of the original 70 acre holding of Anthelme Thozet, the famous French botanist who made his home in North Rockhampton from 1861 to 1878. See the website www.thozet.com for detailed information on the Thozet family.
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 Creekholme is home to Susan, mother and daughter horses Luisa and Astrid, three cats, a flock of Silver Spangled Hamburgs and a flock of geese.
Chloe, computer cat
There’s also Stephen who holidays at Creekholme when he wants a break from his beach shack at Emu Park on the Capricorn Coast. There’s only so much beach front living a man can take!!
Stephen, on holiday from the beach.
Creekholme has been subject to ongoing revegetation works over the past 12 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.
Astrid and Luisa on lawnmower duty.