Rain, rain, rain! from the moment we arrived and at almost every crutial moment. Although maybe I am being a little harsh as we had some thankful breaks in the clouds. We couldn't check in until 1pm and arrived at 6am, so sat in a cafe at Centralia until 10am and then risked the weather for the 10.30 am old town walk.   Together with the long walk from Centralia we gave up before it finished and made our way towards the airbnb. Warsaw's Old Town has been completely reconstructed from old photos as it was completely bombed by the Nazis as punishment for the Poles in Warsaw trying to protect the Jews. Everywhere you go in Europe there are reminders of the horrors of World War II. Weronika and her huge dog Peggy greeted us ... read more

After sitting through the recent SAS pilot's strike I wondered about SAS logistics when an Air Baltic flight was also scheduled to fly to Riga also at 9am for a quarter of the price of ours. 3 staff, 1 pilot and only 15 customers were on our flight. We only flew with SAS because it was part of our connection. Riga airport was modern and peaceful. Buying the bus ticket to town was extremely easy and we didn't even need to withdraw cash or change money. It was raining lightly on arrival but was an easy 10 min walk to our Airbnb and the room was ready when we arrived at 12.30. On our way to our room we spied a few Konditori bakeries and after check in fully sampled what they had to offer before ... read more

Mosman June 2017 For me it was a very short stay in Mosman. Tomas got there a week earlier than me but I finished the house sit in Toorak Gardens, in Adelaide and then started the following house sit in Oyster Bay while he remained in Mosman. It worked out tidily for us in the fact that we could seamlessly move from one to the other, without any gaps. We have got to know Boomer and Lyla, the 2 posh poodles well now, as well as their parents Robert and Barbara as this was our third time house sitting for them. They were our first house sit through the Aussie House sitters website and we feel they took a huge gamble on appointing us when we were still living in New Zealand and had few references ... read more

Melbourne 2017 Cheltenham Jan-Feb We never planned to go to Melbourne! Other than that we don't usually move around more than we have to because it becomes unnecessarily costly. There doesn't seem to be much purpose in moving when there was still so much unexplored in Sydney. As February approached I still hadn't secured the perfect house sit- the one that fit perfectly without any gaps and wasn't too hard to get too. I had obviously been way too fussy, or not opened my options wide enough. Our hosts in Mosman had been very gracious in offering us to stay as long as we needed with them but as time approached we opened our options and an offer came for Yarraville in Melbourne for early February. We still had a few days free prior and rather ... read more

The four months in Adelaide from August until December allowed us to get to know the suburbs of the city better than I had managed in 30 years of having grown up there. Four months in a year would normally fly by with routine of nothing out of the ordinary but these four months were punctuated with highlighted memories. St Peters, Aug- Oct Our first house sit was for a lovely couple in St. Peters for 2 months during which time they visited Portugal, France and Spain. We tended to 2 lovable little white terriers. A Lahso Apso called Cooper and a West Highland Terrier called Bonnie. I don't think they had ever had so many walks in their lives. We had fun with them and Bonnie promptly lost the extra weight she was carrying when ... read more