Meet Our Team

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by ways in which people find peace and wellness in this human experience. Discovering Yoga at 15 years old as an amazing way to manage teenage anxst started me on the never-ending exploration of Yoga. It has been an integral part of my life since then, which gave me a sense of groundedness to provide care for families and children during my first career as a Registered Nurse. From these days as a nurse I’ve taken with me lessons about life, death, and mind-body-connection in times of illness and wellness. I met Rory on a several month trip to Central and South America when passing through Guatemala in 2016. Both of our lives were in transition and we were quickly in love and wanted to share our lives. Later that year we spent a month in Portugal together and decided to put our passions together – Yoga and Natural Building – and start something together. It all happened very quickly. It was all very heart-led, and continues to be. Building Cara Creek Eco Lodge with Rory since 2017 has been a journey that has led me to realize that living closely with nature and living a Yogic Lifestyle complement each other. We started off in a tent on the land with many trials and tribulations in the process of establishiing Cara Creek. Adapting to living off-grid, exposure to the elements, reflecting on who I am and why we are doing this has contributed immensely to deepening my personal Yoga journey. I’m humbled to share Yoga (especially with nature as me co-spaceholder at Cara Creek) as a Yoga Teacher, a Yoga Therapist and the Founder/Lead Trainer of Off Grid Yoga School which offers annual Yoga Teacher Trainings.

Food has always played a massive role in my life. From growing up on an off grid farm in rural Somerset where the kitchen really was the heart of the home, sharing seasonal home grown produce with extended family and friends, to years travelling the world from Australia, Asia, the Arctic circle, and the Americas to the Mediterranean and Portugal. Through all my travels, I found myself returning again and again to work as a chef. My own experience of food sensitivities and allergies has inspired my creativity to find intuitive culinary solutions for healing and wellbeing. This personal journey has been instrumental in exploring creative food combinations - and embracing the fun of experimentation! As part of the Cara Creek team from its opening in 2019, I’m honoured that hundreds of guests have delighted in my food creations.

I have been involved with Cara Creek since 2021, first joining the project as a volunteer and, whilst living at Cara Creek, falling in love with the surrounding area and buying a Quinta nearby. It has been a pleasure working alongside Ashley & Rory as the business has grown, mostly behind the scenes as photographer, content creator and web designer. Before moving to Portugal I studied photography, cultural history and curation before working in luxury marketing. One of my favourite elements of working for Cara Creek is escaping from my laptop and photographing our incredible retreats, yearly yoga teacher training and offering bespoke portrait sessions to students and guests.

The Big Dogs at Cara Creek are often found up top, keeping an eye on everything. Hank will always accept a butt scratch and loves bing a very good boy. Shiva is gentle giant, more reserved with new people but deeply loyal and completely silly.

Since I was a boy, designing, creating and building structures especially outdoors has been a favorite passtime. I studied Civil Engineering and worked as a Project Manager in Ireland, England, New York and Australia in between exploring the World with a backpack. I settled in Ireland during my mid 20s for long enough to complete a Master’s in Sustainable Architecture during which my main project was designing an off-grid home. I suppose that is when seeds were planted for Cara Creek. Upon completion of the Master’s, I got the travel bug again and quit my job in Ireland to go to Guatemala in 2011 where I volunteered to build houses in the highlands. I realized how much I enjoyed the hands-on experience of building compared to the project management side. It became clear how much more sustainable it is to use local and natural materials when building. I had a taste of the off-grid life in Huehuetenango, living extremely basic and using a bucket with holes in it for showers. Here is also where I was first introduced to and intrigued by Meditation by some fellow volunteers. Creating Cara Creek with Ashley has allowed me to try out various natural building techniques and realize the dream of a project I started 10 years earlier. I’ve honed my building skills, learned from mistakes, and found a new passion in designing and building Timber Frames. Meditation and Yoga have become a more intricate part of my life since living here, and I’m really grateful to be able to continue to build and create here and to share the space with those who come on retreat.

I love supporting Ashley & Rory with their inspiring retreat center which they have created. As a previous office manager in various large scale hospitality enterprises and as an entrepreneur running two successful holistic businesses I know what it takes to run a holistic business and how much the back office work can take us away from what we really love to do. In my role at Cara Creek, I enjoy a combination of supporting, connecting with hosts and of course sharing some yoga classes. I am looking forward to building relationships with the team as well as with hosts and visitors. I have already been inspired by so many of the people I’ve met here, and am looking forward to many more inspiring encounters.

For more than a decade I’ve worked as a copywriter and marketing consultant, helping small businesses doing good work tell their stories and connect authentically, both on and offline. I’m excited to be working with dear friends at Cara Creek and being part of the growth of Ashley and Rory’s vision and the community they are building at Cara Creek. As a yoga student for over twenty years, I’m forever humbled by returning to the mat as I grow and evolve, and understand how my practice weaves its way into everything I do. A writer, mother and nature lover, I’ve lived off grid in Portugal since 2014.

The Litte Dogs are most likely to be found near Ashley. Hugo and Harvey are genetically brothers, from the same litter, really! Hugo will do anything for a banana and Harvey is always happiest when in the Yoga Shala sitting with Ashley when she teaches.