01-18/19-2025: Krishanda Park

The name Tony and Liz have given to their property is Krishanda Park, from the names of their 3 children Kristen, Shane, and Linda. Each time we visit, we absolutely marvel at the beauty of the place and we call it a resort.

They own about 100 acres. They built their house from a shed and have spent decades working to beautify the place with plants and trees they they have cultivated and grown in their greenhouse. The many variety of palms around the house and pool really give it that resort look and feel. The other wonderful area is a huge gazebo they built on top of their huge water tank, which is an outdoor kitchen complete with grill, dishwasher and all the accoutrements necessary to layout table settings and feed lots of people. In the center of the gazebo is a huge table with a very large lazy Susan in the center. Here’s a bunch of photos of their beautiful property.

During our visit in 2023, we met Jack, a young wallaby that Kristen had rescued after the mother abandoned the little joey. She raised it for a while, and then brought it out to her parents. Liz has continued to bottle feed Jack, even though he’s now 5 and should be off the bottle. He comes nearly every day. Liz feeds him a bottle of milk and a carrot. If the screen door is open, Jack comes right into the house and eats the dogs’ food. I was sitting in their lounge watching tennis and Jack hopped in and startled me. What a surprise to see a wallaby in the lounge.

Tony and Liz have 19 head of cattle and two have given birth over the past week. The calves are really cute. The newest one is still unsteady on her feet, but the older one frolics across the paddock and kicks up her heels. Very cute!

Although there were some periods of sunshine, most of the time it was pouring rain. Both nights, the rain was so hard that it woke everyone up beating against the metal roof. Nobody went into the pool during our stay.

During our visit in 2020, there had been the terrible bushfires all over the eastern side of the continent. Tony was successful in preventing his house from burning and he was able, along with the help of his grandson, a firefighter in Tasmania, to keep the fire damage at a minimum around his property. Good management practices of keeping brush clear and bushwhacking throughout the woodlots saved the day, that and having several dams (ponds) around the property so that he had a ready source of water to fight the fires. If you look back at some of my Australia posts from January/February 2020, you’ll see photos of the devastation of bushfires and some from Tony’s property. I’m happy to say that during a tour around the property with Tony, everything looked lush and green. Although there are many burned out trees still evident, it is amazing how the forest takes care of itself.

I saw this lizard while driving around the property with Tony. It was a big one!

We got a scare when Tony reported finding a dead wallaby on the property. It possibly had been hit by a car and dragged along for a while. It was then attacked by wild dogs that ate the head. Liz would be able to identify Jack from a torn ear he has, but that identification wasn’t possible due to the missing head. We were worried that the dead wallaby might be Jack. We all waited anxiously for Jack to appear and the next day he did. We were all relieved. Kangaroo and wallaby strikes by cars are a very common problem, just like hitting deer in New York. They do tremendous damage to a vehicle because these animals are very solid. But for now, Jack comes for a bottle, which Liz gladly supplies whenever he hops into her kitchen.

Saturday evening we drove into Coff’s Harbor for dinner at a place called the Jetty Beach House. Tony and Liz’s two girls, Linda’s husband and one of her sons with his girlfriend, met us for dinner. It was a nice evening.

On the coast there were gale force winds. The surf was pounding. It was quite dramatic watching the weather from the Jetty Beach House.

Saturday evening we watched tennis, of course. Liz is a fan and she keeps up a running commentary. Margaret and Clare played cards. Tony and Lou caught up on the news with each other.

Sunday started off rainy, but in the early afternoon the rain cleared and the sun came out. Linda came out for lunch. She had recently been to Malta and other places in Europe and was a riot telling stories about their travels. She is so funny, and she’s gotten the gift of gab from her mother.

Christine and I went for a walk down the driveway. We just love being at Krishanda. We passed by Bert and Ernie, Tony’s huge moving solar panels that track the sun’s movement.

Lou, Margaret and Clare drove into Coff’s Harbor late Sunday afternoon. They intended to walk along the jetty at the harbor, but a big storm blew up with strong winds and rain. They went to the Big Banana, a popular tourist destination. This area is called the banana coast as there are lots of banana plantations up and down the hills just inland from the coast.

We had dinner, enjoyed each other’s company, watched tennis, and turned in. Tomorrow we head back to Rylstone.

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