Advertisement
DAY 575
Hell, where is the time going? Our last blog was 23rd May and as I type this it is the 5th June 2010.
What has happened so far? Well we completed our 4th house sit and our friends Keith and Jan in Holt which all went swimmingly well, there were no incidents or drama’s in that time that we had to tell them about, oh well ok apart from the Tupperware lid that Caroline melted in the microwave!
Last weekend it poured with rain all weekend, I was going to say “again”, but the last time it rained all weekend was actually on 13th February, so along with many other people we were perhaps a little bit grateful for the rain, especially as they have not had a lot of it in the last 8 years. I didn’t actually mind the rain, I could just do without it being on the weekend, and of course the weekend that we are moving out too!
Keith and Jan were due home on the Tuesday after their 7 week adventure, so our weekend meant cleaning the house to make sure it was spick and span for their
return.
Fate also had another strange way of intervening in our lives, we were offered a place to stay for a week with a friend of our friends Rob and Sarah, for this we were truly grateful to Bec, as we knew we had a week before moving to our next house sit. Bec was pleased to have the company.
So once again we moved, the trailer has been taken to a secret location in Canberra to stay out of the way for a week or two, before we move it somewhere for the remainder of the winter months, maybe before the summer comes it will be sold on, but we will see how things work out.
We moved into Bec’s place, barely un packing because we knew it was only a short stay, it turned out to be an incredibly busy week, we all went to Rob and Sarah’s on Monday night, then of course it was the 4wd club on Tuesday night and then on Wednesday we went to see Keith and Jan to welcome them back home (I know a day late!) and to make sure that the house was officially handed back over
to and that they were happy with how we looked after it.
We had a brief catch up on their adventures, we updated them on what had been happening while they were away, they were so pleased with the house that they asked if we wanted to house sit in March next year, so lets watch this space and see where that takes us!
By the time Friday evening came, I was the last in from work, to find Bec and Andy sat watching TV, the sofas (nicknamed “the boobs” - apparently because they are big soft and squashy) looked terribly inviting so off with my jacket and shoes I soon joined them.
The only problem was that we had run out of milk and none of us had the energy to pop over to Woolworths (less than a kilometre away) that said our evening dinner was going to be a struggle too, 3 people, 1 cat, no energy means no dinner.
I managed to rustle up 3 Chai lattés (from some sachets we had in the cupboard) and while we drank those we formed a plan, with a short burst of energy Bec and I soon
had a quick and easy chicken curry on the go, dinner problem solved.
The rest of the evening was spent in front of the TV even Cooper joined us briefly. By 9.30 I was sat on “the boobs” on my own, by 10.30 I gave in and went to bed too.
Our week at Bec’s has been just great, her house is really nice and cosy. Bec, lives on her own, well ok maybe not because she does have Cooper the “Persian Rag Doll”, he is lovely but he is not a people cat at all. In fact I had no chance of making friends with him, he would run away from me, but Dr Dolittle (Andy) had some success with Cooper being a little bit more interested and allowing Andy to stroke him, but of course the most we would really see of Cooper is his big fluffy greyish blue tail as he disappeared behind the curtain and through the cat flap!
Copper wanders in when he feels like it, something tells me that the amount of time that he spends here he must be doing shifts in to other houses, or as Bec calls it
whoring around.
Saturday morning came, and as Bec’s washing machine died and went to heaven in the week Andy took Bec over to a place in Canberra to pick up a new one that she had already had her eye on, while they were out on their mission, I got packing.
I had a tidy up and whipped the vacuum cleaner around for Bec and soon we were packed and under way to Deakin and housesit Number 5, just in behind Parliament house, a lovely area of Canberra and our first time living on the South side.
One of our neighbours is Mr Rudd, well the Lodge where the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd hangs out when he is not in the Capital building lives there and is just around the corner.
Canberra is a lovely city, only 300,000 people so a small city, but still Australia’s Capital Territory nonetheless, and some may say the engine house of Australia and of course this is where policy is made and directed.
When I am driving around Canberra I just have to remind myself where I am and what we have done, and say wow, we are the
other side of the world, both working, and living in another country having just an amazing time.
It is a beautiful city, and dare I say it what fabulous scenery we have witnessed as the season has changed from summer to autumn and of course now into winter, the drive to work in the mornings for Caroline, so she tells me is stunning seeing mist rising from Lake Burley Griffin, the various shades of red, yellow and gold leaves, many of which are now lying on the ground exposing grey empty branches. She does keep promising to get up early one morning to take some photo’s, when she does manage to surface early I am sure she will share those with you.
Caroline and myself may not agree on the place but I would swap 1 night at Sailor Creek on the Old Telegraph Track (Cape York) for a month in Canberra, we would be spoilt for choice with the places that we have seen, however if you want to see what was at Sailor Creek, have a look back at our blog day 338 “Sunday best”, and you may agree with me, such simplicity.
The adventure
so far is going well, despite work it is still an adventure, I do have to keep pinching myself when we look at what we have done.
So we are in Deakin for a month, then on to Griffith for another month, Bec has given us the green light to stay at hers as much as we want which is nice, and the offer is very welcome, it feels like having a home to go to in amongst mini adventures (Thanks Bec!)
So we arrive at today’s blog day 575 and we change gear slightly moving from 4wd and down to 2 wheels, oh I should actually say 1 wheel drive as we take to two wheels!
The day starts with Andy bringing me a cup of Chai Latte, we both seem to have acquired a serious liking for this drink. A few chores of the morning were done, not to mention of course one of our most important chores for the coming weeks is look after the cat, Aung San a beautiful friendly little Burmese cat who is relying on us to keep him fed while his owners are away in Canada, we think we will
be ok with that, we can feed ourselves so feeding the cat on top won’t be too difficult!
However by 10.00 we are having morning tea with Rob, Sarah and their 3 children, Jackson, Zac and Nick, we are all excited about getting on two wheels and heading down to lake Burley Griffin to do what we have been promising ourselves since we arrived in Canberra and that is to hire a couple of bikes
A short while later we find ourselves at Mr Spokes just off Commonwealth Avenue, and while Rob unloads their bikes from the back of the ute, Andy and I wander off to get kitted out, after filling our details on a piece of paper, some cash exchanged hands and before we knew it we were sat on a bike each sporting the latest line in bike helmets.
In a short space of time we were on our way but a kilometre or so in one direction it was decided that it maybe a bit too much for Rob and Sarah’s youngest, Nic, so we headed back to Mr Spokes where Rob hired a bike with a trailer, Nic was seated in the
back and then we decided to do the short Central Basin Loop which is a total of 5 kilometres.
Off we set cycling past Sunday walkers, joggers and the occasional other cyclists. For a cold day there were a lot of people out enjoying the fresh air and who could blame them, officially winter it is a great time to be out enjoying the scenery with the winter sunshine.
In a short space of time we cycled over the small bridge to the Carillion, which is, Canberra’s bell tower, fortunately timed just perfectly, the bells started to peal. We stopped for a few minutes breather and then as we headed back over the bridge and onto the main circuit again to the sound of the bells that gradually faded.
Over the Kings Avenue Bridge and into the parliamentary triangle, where we find the Garden of Reconciliation in behind the National Portrait Gallery, Rob was keen to show us because he did the lighting for the garden.
We all found the bike ride easier than anticipated and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and made an agreement to do it again next weekend. We thought we would do the same
circuit and then following that we will build up to the 13km circuit before doing the West basin which is about 21km and one day me may even get to ride around the complete circuit!
We thought a break for coffee would be good before heading home, we stopped at a cafe, and as a treat we all ordered some cake, it was not long before Zac and Jackson were non too complimentary about the cake, we thought they were being a bit harsh with their description of the cake and even more surprised to find that they were not even going to eat it, after I while I put my fork in and took a sniff, oh, big mistake the cream was decidedly riffy, I think using the word off was a bit too polite it was further gone than “off”.
It was so bad that they removed all of those cakes from sale, when we went to pay the bill we expected to just not pay for the 3 cakes that were off, but the manager let us off the whole bill, it was a nice gesture but we were more than happy to pay for
the rest of the coffee and cake.
Time was ticking away and there were chores to be done, clothes needed ironing for the week ahead so we headed home, in now what is the opposite direction of the Hanily family.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.268s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 11; qc: 30; dbt: 0.222s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Gary
non-member comment
Hi.
As usual, a great blog. Sounds like the house sitting will be an on going thing. It looks like you might be moving around a bit. How does this affect the employment? Griffith. We visited there on our first trip to Oz in 1996. We have our camper. The Kamparoo Vactioner. Basic model, but will suit our needs. No off road for us. Might be a different story if we ever get back to Australia. So much of the wonderful places are off road. Take Care and ENJOY