A day in Aussie Nelson history

Got our permanent residence!!!! What more can I say...

Will be off to NZ in about 2 weeks (give or take a few days) so that our visa can be issued (as it was an off shore application).

Now just the container, and we start making more history :-).

1 month and counting

Well, no photos today - and it almost feels like a 'well, it has been so many days since my last confession' post :-).

Our 1st month anniversary came and it went - how time flies when you are having fun - or is it when you are older - I forget :-).

It was a pretty uneventful week, church on Sunday (went to the same one we visited the previous Sunday), potato cakes for lunch in Civic Park in Warragul (quite yummie - the potato cakes that is, although they are deep fried, so too many of them will definitely clog up those arteries!, you buy them from the fish and chips shop, basically thinly sliced potatoes in a batter that is deep fried), and then we had some people over for a barbie, which is Aussie for barbeque. (Yup, you cannot call grilling meat on a gas burner thing a braai!) Geoff "met" the husband on the church bass players email list on the internet, and they had to come to our side of the world (from about 3 hours away) for something, so they decided to come and meet us face to face. Was nice to have visitors!

Geoff was off to Mt Gambier for yesterday and today, and they ended up driving all the way there (about 7 hours drive from our place) as the travel agent got her dates mixed up and she booked their flights for the wrong day! So meetings booked and everything, postponing wasn't really an option, and they hit the road. He phoned a short while ago, is now stuck in the traffic in the night time road works on the freeway, so it is going to end up being closer to an 8 hour drive for the day back home!

The kids and I visited another homeschooling family (well, the mom and her 4 kids) today for a while - she invited some of her friends so that I can meet some more people - and the one couple that joined in is from South Africa. Well - the wife is, and the hubby is a New Zealander that lived in Dundee (he speaks fluent Afrikaans, so he lived there for a very long time). They met, then moved to New Zealand and also Norway, and they have now been in Australia for a few years. It is really funny to hear someone with this strong NZ/Aus accent to all of a sudden speak Afrikaans like a real boertjie :-).

And then tonight I had a young Irish lad on our doorstep, he is here on a 1 year working visa, they work on the farms etc, and now and then they hit the road in a van and go sell paintings in the suburbs or smaller towns. He is about 25 I would say, and had a lovely accent (you just have to love the Irish accent!), and we chatted a bit before he was on his way - after obviously not selling any paintings to a household that cannot even afford to buy a lounge suite at this stage of the race haha. I still mentioned to him that it is so different here - in SA I would never ever open my front door (that doesn' t have a security gate, mind you!) at 8pm at night if someone rings the bell, and it is only the kids and myself at home.

Well, before this post gets too long and boring with no pictures to look at, I will end it here. But I'll be back - soon - with more pics!

Parks and swooping birds

If you have children, you have to love this country. Check out this park! Excellently maintained (I haven't seen one park with overgrown grass or weeds, or any broken play equipment!), decent toilets, and they have that squishie gym type stuff on the ground around some of the equipment where it is likely that a child may trip and fall. The rest is surrounded by mulch to make a fall softer.

This is Epic Park in Moe (about 20 minutes from our house on the Princes freeway towards the East). The kids and I met with a new homeschooling friend (K) and her children there for lunch today, and we had such a good time that it ended up being a whole day outing - we only left there at about 4.45! Needless to say two households had a very basic meal tonight for dinner, as time sortof caught up with us - and I didn't even take any meat out of the freezer before we left.

Now for the swooping birds part of the post....

Gian got 'swooped' (a common term here, as it seems to be a common experience) - meaning a bird came down and 'swooped' at him. The culprit was apparently a butcher bird, and according to K they are not usually the swooping ones, but this one obviously learnt some bad habits from his neighbours! Apparently it is quite a scary experience, as they come at you from behind, and they make a pecking sound with their beaks, and then they go for your head! Poor Gian got the fright of his life, ran to me like the wind, and after he calmed down he decided to walk around stick in hand for self defence :-). Must say - that was a first for me too!

Other than that the three of us have rosy cheeks tonight, as we didn't expect to 'kuier' for so long, and it was quite cold and overcast - so all three of us got a bit sunburnt.

Oh - learnt an Aussie expression - if you call someone an obnoxious pill, it is someone who is unpleasant, and 'hard to swallow'. :-) And another dinner/tea/supper lesson.... if you have your hot meal in the middle of the day over lunchtime, it is also called dinner. So not only is supper actually called dinner, lunch can also be dinner :-). Now go chew on that one!

Till next time... when we will hopefully have wireless internet that is more consistent than having to use a USB modem that works off cell phone towers! One downside of living in a very fast growing area is that the number of new homes quickly outgrow the adsl port capacity of the telephone exchange - which is what happened to us - so no super fast and lots of bandwidth ADSL for this home just yet (what a blow to this huge video sermon files downloading family!). So - we have a wireless broadband company coming tomorrow morning to see whether we have a clear line of sight to one of their towers - which could mean we would have second best at least.

Which reminds me of something else - in Aus the government is committed to everyone getting good broadband internet access, so if you live in the sticks and you don't have access to broadband internet of the same standard as those living in metro areas, the government will subsidise you to get sattelite internet, and it will end up costing you the same as normal ADSL - cool hey? Unfortunately we don't qualify, as we should be able to get wireless - but I thought it was cool nevertheless.

And that is all from me today folks, til next time....

Back in time to 21 Nov onwards...

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Went to our first Aussie homeschooling outing yesterday at Old Gippstown in Moe. It was 39 deg celcius!, and not at all comfortable (now, I wonder why? haha). The whole idea is that you experience life in the 1800s, which means that you also eat your packed picnic in the blistering heat.

But Gian had a good time as he promptly made a friend, Stuart. I chatted a bit with Stuart’s mom Kathleen, and all in all it turned out to be a nice morning, heat and all.

We are still looking for a car for me, and I am starting to get a bit despondent. We just don’t have enough money to buy a really good car, and schlepping all over to places at least an hour away looking at cars that in the end don’t fit the bill is not a load of fun.

Luckily Geoff has his company car (still a rental until he gets his real company car), so today we went for a drive to Neerim South, via Neerim East, Neerim Junction, etc. Neerim East is one of those 'now you see it, now you don't' towns. Has some farms and a hall - and that is it.

The countryside is beautiful, green hills and trees and lots of cows all over the place on all the farms. This is definitely a stunning part of the country, and you do feel blessed to drive around in the middle of nowhere, looking at the scenery!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Church on Sunday was not that great (slowly but surely moving down our list of possible church homes), no other children Mieke and Gian’s age, and the pastor spent most of his sermon time talking about possible one world government stories, and that it wouldn’t happen in his opinion, etc. So guess we are still looking!!

After church we took a drive to Bittern (2 hours away again!) to look at another car (just to be labelled yesterday as another ‘clunker’ by Warren haha) - but at least we got to see a bit more of the countryside, and another side of Melbourne! Then drove through to Coburg, more than an hour away, and on the N-E side of Melbourne central - that one wasn’t much better, so we didn’t bother sending Warren there too.

Yesterday (Monday) the kids and I went to Moorabbin again (an hour and 10 mins away), visited 4 dealerships, and test drove one car that was in very good condition. Warren will go have a look today, so I am holding all my thumbs (picture that!) that this car will pass his inspection so that we can get this over and done with. We have now come to the conclusion that our budget is going to take a serious knock if we want to find me a good, clean(as Warren puts it) car.

The birds nesting in the roof still driving us bananas. We put some mothballs (hoping to stink them out!) in the spot where they wanted to make their new home yesterday, and now we hope that they will feel encouraged to rather go nest somewhere else. Need my beauty sleeeeeeeeep, starting to look like I am on something stronger than fruit juice!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Warren phoned this morning, and gave the Prado at Subaru Mentone the thumbs up! Eventually, the car hunting ‘ordeal’ is over. I sent them the signed documentation, paid over almost all the money and credit we have on our name.

Happy that we don't have to go car hunting, and because of lots of nagging, I took the kids swimming at the indoor pool today - they swam for 2 hours while I did emails and got a very sore bum from the bench I had to sit on. If this is going to be a regular event I think I will take my own camping chair with me. When that arrives one day, of course….

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Our ADSL modem arrived this morning - George the postman delivered it to our front door (all packages are delivered to your front door early in the morning). Apparently he leaves your goods by your door if you are not home. What really stunned me is that he delivered a brand new DVD player still in the box (not even disguised with brown paper or anything) for someone down the road from us (he obviously misread the address and saw 109 instead of 103). That is also just left by your door! Can you imagine something like that actually arrive at even the post office in South Africa?

Anyway - so much for ADSL, after being all excited about our super fast ADSL connection awaiting my eager download button, we just heard that Telstra (like Telkom) has no ports available on our street! So we have to return our pretty black modem back for a refund.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Fetched my car, she drives like a dream, and is humungous. Can almost hear the hungry gulping at the gas - so suddenly I am glad that the speed limit is 100kms/h! That will help :-).

Also went to the library - again. Gian already read all the Asterix and Obelix books they had, and Mieke is slowly but surely working her way through all the Nancy Drew books! You can take 20 items for 4 weeks, 5 can be DVDs (and you can keep them for 2 weeks). Also been emailing up a storm to Kath, my new christian homeschooling friend. Going to catch up with her and her kids on Tuesday in a park in Moe, and will then try and get to meet her hubby sometime as well. Still no kangaroos!!!

Oh - and saw a strange hole in the ground across the road - wondering what makes that. Took a photo.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Went to Gumbaya Park today, and saw our first roos (in captivity of course). The park manager called the one roo over (his name is - guess - ‘Roo’ - now you would never have guessed that one, I'm sure :-)). Roo loves almonds, so he ended up having to bribe Roo to come out of the shade and closer to the fence using the almonds - so that the children can stroke it. Roo was raised by humans, and when he got too big he came to the park, he is 5 years old. Made the cutest little noises when he was happy (almost like a suckling/kissing sound). Some nasty nails on him though, he could do you quite a bit of damage if he gives you a whack.

Oh - the little sleepy fellow below the pics of Roo is a wombat. Apparently they are lethal if you run into one with your car on the highway - they take out your suspension, as it is like hitting a brick wall - they are so solid.

And that's all for now folks... More adventures to follow as we go and experience them :-).

Back in time to our first 2 weeks in Aussie

This post is an extract from my 'Nelson diaries' on Wed, 18 Nov - 2 weeks after we arrived in Australia... it covers our first 2 weeks, so get your coffee, it is going to be a long one.

So, as said on the 18th...:

**********
Been in Australia for basically 2 weeks now, and so far it seems great. We moved into our house last Thursday morning, and are now camping with a queen size mattress on the floor (at least with some nice bedding for what it's worth!), a fold out camping table and 4 chairs and one sofa bed (aka a sleeper couch).
We still don’t have an internet connection or landline, supposedly will be sorted this week, but still have to see.

One new chore is having to get rid of dead flies everyday (they are humungous - in Afrikaans we call them 'brommers' - as they buzz and irritate the heck out of you!). They have this habit of keeping to the windows, and venturing across the room now and then, but I sprayed some surface spray on the windows, so in the morning there are some corpses lying on the window sills - but that is way better than having them buzz the whole day! :-) Yuk!

Some starlings also decided that our roof is a perfect nesting spot, and they made a nest in our roof on top of our bedroom, so we have had many very early mornings. We have a metal sheeting (sink dak) roof, so they kinda announce their coming and their going quite loudly. And then the scuffling around on top of our ceiling is enough to turn you from a bird lover to someone who regrets leaving Gian's 'kettie' behind! Anyway - I aksed Rod, the handyman for Elders Estate Agents, to remove the nest and seal their entry/exit spot, but now they just found another spot - and are trying to still get in, which is making just as much of a noise.

We have spent many hours driving around looking for a car for me, and in this country it equates to many many kilometres, specially if you live out in the sticks like we do :-). My first thought was to get a Mitsubishi Pajero (because Mary Ann, Geoff's sister has her 2nd one now, and she is very happy with hers), but then Warren (Cathy, a homeschooling contact’s husband) suggested that we rather look for a Toyota Landcruiser or Prado version because it is much cheaper to maintain, and they go forever (between 300000 and 400000 kms on the clock is not strange for these cars) - so the hunt is on. I have been as far as about an hour and a half from home in Melbourne to test drive possible options, and on Sunday we drove to Indented Head, on the West side of the Melbourne ‘bay’ to look at another car. That one trip out took up the whole Sunday after church, got home after 7!

Saturday evening we had supper (called dinner - already gave you the lesson in my first post haha) at Warren and Cathy and their 4 children, which was very enjoyable. They are a great couple, and at least the kids had some opportunity to play with other children for a change. Got chowed by the mozzies, though, so will definitely take a peaceful sleep stick along when we go there again! They live just outside Warragul, close to Robin Hood (yup, you are not seeing funny) on a small holding, and you get attacked my mozzies when you go outside early evening!

Shopping turns out to be not such a bad experience after all (except for the trolleys from you know where!), even though many South Africans gripe about not being able to just buy their favourite brands like 'back home'. Safeway (basically Woollies, but apparently not so ‘upmarket’ compared to the other supermarkets like in SA) has a huge selection of products, and the veggies and fruit in the shops here are excellent - Woollies SA quality without being expensive. You don’t see bruised fruit or veggies in the shops at all. Meat is not very expensive, except for lamb at the moment for some or other reason. Chicken drumsticks are humungous, the size of about 3 SA drumsticks, and the chicken wings are about the size of SA drumsticks. The housebrand stuff is not like in SA - it is usually about a third of the price of the branded products, and still very very good quality. I bought Coles (like PnP I guess?) homebrand dishwashing liquid, need less than Sunlight Dishwashing liquid for a wash, and washes brilliantly - for 99c (about R7 with the current exchange rate) for a huge bottle that will last us 6 months I am sure.

Now about those shopping trolleys! The rumours are all true - they are really trolleys that are out to get you! They have an absolute mind of their own, with all 4 wheels that turn, so you end up getting quite a workout in the shop having to navigate this thing that goes like a crab away from other shoppers' ankles and neatly packed shelves with lots of tins that could come crashing down just to embarrass the heck out of you! Going straight is already quite a challenge, so don't even think about making a sudden sharp turn - ha! - no way jose - you have to already start manipulating (and pleading with the thing) to get it to go around the corners before you actually get to the corner, and if you are lucky you will end in the next aisle, and not somewhere totally different. (heehee, I know it sounds hillarious - it is - specially if you are used to trolleys that obey instantly....)

So for those of you who are contemplating coming here - if you decide to rather eat out than be beaten by a shopping trolley - think again! Eating out is expensive, pizzas for the family will easily cost about $70 (R490!), and a meal out can easily be $100. But that said, people still have takeaways, and the restaurants seem to be buzzing. Other things are cheaper again, and in the end it all cancels out I guess. Just have to get used to not budgeting by converting to rands to see whether something is expensive, but rather have to see how much is left in the budget, and then see whether there is money for something or not.

Today and tomorrow Geoff needs the company car so the kids and I are stuck at home. We are not quite walking distance from the centre of town (about an hour's walk), and the bus routes don’t run past our house - as we are right at the end of town, and in a fairly newly built up area.

Anyway - walking that far is not always an option as you can be fried to a crisp! We arrived here in the middle of a heatwave - which has been quite nice for me. It has been the hottest it has been during November since they started keeping record in 1858 or something. It was between 33 and 40 deg celcius for about a week and a half, but we have now had some cooler weather the last few days. All businesses have aircon, and most homes also have, and with aircon in the cars the heat is actually not that bad. It is also a drier heat (like in Cape Town), so it is much more bearable than in Durban. Unfortunately our house does not have aircon, and it can get to 40 degrees in Jan and Feb - will have to see whether it is going to be very uncomfortable - so far it has not been bad at all, cooler than our house in Durban on hot days, so I am sure we will cope fine.

The sad news is that we have not seen a kangaroo or wombat yet, although there are many signs next to the freeway indicating that one has to look out for them. Apparently they come out at dusk. There is a park nearby (about 15 mins drive on the freeway I think) where we will be able to see some, so we’ll go there sometime.

Something interesting here is that most (I would say 95%) of the drivers keep to the speed limits on the roads. You can lose your licence for a month here for some offences, so I think people just rather stick to the rules. The speed limit is 100km/h on the freeways and highways, which can be a bit frustrating when you drive a car that can go so much faster, and you want to get to your destination sooner rather than later. Out in the countryside (about 10kms before you get to Warragul) it changes to 110km/h - which helps a bit. But you will find that you will sit in the left hand lane with the same cars behind you, with the same following distance, for kms on end, as everyone just sticks to the speed limit. Apparently most cars have cruise control as well, which helps - as it is so easy to go faster than you are allowed to.

We have quite a few regular trains going from here to Traralgon (East) or Melbourne (North-West). Geoff took the train to work and back on Monday, and it arrived pretty much on time. Takes about the same time as driving by car, maybe a bit less even. The kids can’t wait to go on a train, so we will take the train into Melbourne sometime, and spend the day walking around there.

Oh - I had my first experience of filling up the car myself last week as well. No petrol attendants here, you stop, get out, fill up your car, walk into the shop to pay, and off you go again. Safeway also has self checkout tills, where you scan your own goods, pay and leave. In many ways this country operates on a 'trust' system - for instance if you phone to take out insurance your word is good enough to get the no claim bonus. Also saw a little stall next to the road, during one of our car viewing excursions, where you can buy lemons - difference is that there is no person looking after the stall, you take your packet of lemons, put your money in the box provided, and carry on your merry way. That is such a breath of fresh air!

And talking about fresh air - hayfever unfortunately comes with the fresh air. Itchy nose and eyes, and sneezing myself silly! Think Mieke as well, as she coughs a lot at night - but Betanoid seems to sort it out for her. I remember having similar symptoms in Somerset West years back - lots of the same vegetation in our town here, so I guess that explains that one.

Hopping from hayfever and sneezing to church... We visited xxx (sensored for obvious reasons) church on Sunday. Was really not great. More notices than anything else, and no life in the church. Very stale, up and down to sing a few songs (literally singing a few songs - and only about a tenth of the congregation actually sang! - no worship) here and there inbetween notices, and just not our cup of tea. We found another 3 or 4 possiblities in the local gazette - so I guess we will be spending the next few Sundays church hopping if God doesn’t make it obvious in some or other way where we have to go (which I am hoping for!) - will be great to find a cell group to fit into sooner rather than later.

Our rental house is actually very nice, even though the ‘study’ (which was supposed to double up as our guest room, guess not anymore) is just an extension to the ‘entrance area’, with no door or anything - just really an extra space to the side, through which you also access the garage. That was a bit of a let down, so now it seems that the school room will have to double up as the guest room - or else we have to do school somewhere else… will still see when our container arrives. Apart from that, the house was well thought out, with sliding doors between the ‘formal lounge’ and the living area, and another one between the ‘living area’ and the bedrooms. That will definitely help, as little girls have really big noddy ears when the grownups talk about grownup things in the lounge :-).

It is also nice and big compared to our house in Waterfall, and lots of built in cupboards. Our ‘pantry cupboard’ is a wide 2 door cupboard in the kitchen with lots of space for groceries. Also have a 2 linen cupboards, one wide 2 door, plus another wide 1 door. The funny thing here is that the bedroom cupboards (called robes) have no packing space, only hanging space. So it is standard to have a chest of drawers in each bedroom - here it is called a ‘tall boy’.

Every house also has 3 wheelie bins - one for rubbish, one for recycling stuff (cartons, paper, plastic bottles, tins etc) and one for ‘green waste’ - as in garden refuse. So now we are active recyclers as it is just so much easier than having to schlep off to the nearest recycling bin.

The kids and I went for a walk, we actually seem to live in a very nice area looking at the houses nearby. Lots of house and land package places going up (plot and plan).

This pathway runs around the area where we live - in SA it would probably be called an 'estate', but here there aren't gates or security fencing around the estates.






This is the view towards the South, taken from the pathway above.










And if you stand in the road by the trees in the previous photo, and look back towards our 'estate, this is what you see.







2 young men came this afternoon to measure our windows for fly screens (for very obvious reasons, as mentioned earlier!). Actually the flies are not that bad (more than in Durban, but not bad at all) - we dump about 6 to 8 flies every morning - apparently it is MUCH worse in Perth. Anyway, this reminded me of something else - here you take your shoes off at the door when you go visit someone in their house. So I guess all those socks with the holes in will have to go. Now that is a good thing!

The parks here are also very nice - well maintained, and it is a pleasure to go sit at the park with a book (when you don't have to shop for cars that is!!) while the kids get rid of some of their energy!

**********

Well, that was it after 2 weeks. I know a lot more happened, but my laptop didn't see very much of me with all the driving around doing car shopping.

And there she is, ladies and gentlemen - my new baby car :-).

Please forgive me jumping my own queue in my own blog! Yes, I know the idea is to post chronologically so that you can follow our story from day 1 to today, but I am so far behind it is not even funny, and I have to show the fruits of my 2 weeks hard labour of driving around to find a car (and having to cope with two extremely bored children who have spent more time in the back of one car trying to find another car, than anything else), and whining about wanting my own car the rest of the time. :-)

The car was looked after extremely well by her previous owners, has only 152000 kms on the clock, runs on petrol or gas (called dual fuel), and should last me another 10 to 15 years no sweat. The gas thing - yup, you fill up with gas (it costs about 50c a litre compared to on average $1.18-$1.24 per litre for petrol, depending on where you fill up), and off you go! Oh, and I have to mention - no petrol attendants! The first time I had to fill up I off course landed the slightly faulty pump - which was great for the nerves (didn't want to blow the place up on my first day!)

Anyway - the gas thing is going to save us quite a bit! Have to run through a tank of petrol for every 3 or 4 tanks of gas to keep the engine running optimally, but hey, it is worth it! (Anyway, have to save enough on fuel costs so that we can afford to replace those gigantic tyres when they retire!!)

She also came with roof racks, a bicycle carry rack, some suction thingies so that you can drive with a canoe on the roof (think we will give that one a miss, last I looked we weren't very high on the yuppie scale), all left in the car by the previous owner. So all in all we got a really good buy.

Celebrated my aquisition with strawberries and some really really yum choc chip icecream for dessert (called sweets here, by the way). And tea is supper, and supper is a snack after dinner and dinner is supper. :-)
OK, I will do that slowly again...

Tea is your main evening meal, supper is a snack after tea.
Tea can also be called dinner. And having a cup of tea is morning tea or afternoon tea.
One lady on a South Africans in Australia forum that I am a member of said they realised their mistake when they invited Aussie friends for supper, and they couldn't understand why these people ate with such 'lang tande' (sorry, Dave, have no idea how to say that in English, ask Kerry to explain!). Turns out they had dinner at home, and came for the after dinner 'snack'.

And now it is time for me to retire as it is 23:11 already! More 'next time chronological' blogging to follow sometime this weekend.

Our first 3 days in Aus

5 flights over 2 days later (me), 4 for the kids and 3 for Geoff, and we landed in Melbourne just after 6pm on 5 November 2009.

Our Sydney Airport experience was a breeze, apart from lugging all the hand luggage with us - 4 laptop bags (squashed to the brim with everything we could fit in around the laptop and in every little nook and cranny), 2 rucksacks, my handbag, 2 small suitcases and a carry bag, pillows, you name it!! And there is a limit to how much a little 8 year old can carry!

Not too bad if you have a trolley, but there are no trolleys after you head to the boarding gate - which feels like MILES away :-).

We wizzed through customs (think they gave us one look and decided to not even start on the 3 overloaded trolleys) - they told us to go straight through - I didn't even realise, I thought our gate was for the 'Melbourne' people, but Geoff told me later that they told us we could by-pass the 'customs check'. (These inexperienced
international travellers mmmmm.)

We waited for about 30-45mins for the bus to take us from International to Domestic, and then waited another hour or so at the boarding gate at Domestic Departures and Arrivals (arrivals and departures share gates!).

By now we were fairly tired and not very photogenic anymore haha.

The Sydney-Melbourne flight was short, just over and hour. Some more carrying of hordes of hand luggage, but this time Geoff's new boss met us at Melbourne airport with a very welcome extra two hands, and then he dropped us off at the Holiday Inn next to the airport where they booked us in for Thursday night.

This is the view over the airport, and to the North-East, from our room in the Holiday Inn.

(you can click on the photos if you want to see the bigger version...)

Friday the 6^th we drove to Warragul via a car dealer that I found on the net (and so the 2 and a half week car search "ordeal" began!), and we arrived at our motel after getting our bank accounts sorted out, and paying our deposit and 1^st month’s rent to get the keys for our rental home. We then went and had a look at our new house for the next year, which turned out to not be such a bad place after all, and we even have cows grazing on the farm right across the road!!

On the Saturday we started our comparative price shopping for our fridge, washing machine and tumble dryer, and a few other bits and odds (hair dryer, kettle, iron etc). It works like this - you go to the one major supplier, get a quote, then go to no 2, they will better no 1, then you go to no 3, then back to no 1 (you get the picture), until you are tired and the children hate shopping with a passion, and then you settle for the last one you visited and wipe our your credit card. :-). All this was done in the hottest November weather Australia has had since they started keeping record in 1858 - between 33 and 40 degrees!!!

Our first Sunday we went to the Uniting Church and were welcomed by a lot of friendly old people (emphasis on old), after which we drove to Traralgon (about an hour from Warragul) again to get more prices. We eventually settled for option no 3 just before closing time on Sunday, even managing to get enough discount to be able to afford a stainless steel fridge/freezer! - which includes a free 23” TV!! Which is a good thing, as Nonhlanhla inherited our antiquated TV back home, and there was no money in the budget to replace it!

We also got some nice bedding from HarrisScarfe - all on sale! (Christmas time is a good time to have to shop for stuff!!)

And back to the motel. The Freeway Motor Inn Motel was not too bad, although we had to share a bedroom with the kids, and they don't do lunch or supper, so after a few days we were seriously looking forward to a decent home cooked meal!

And that is instalment 1 - quite a bit more to follow, but this turns out to be quite time consuming, so seems it is going to take a while to get this blog all up to date. I also took some video on the trip from Melbourne to Warragul - will post that sometime as well.

Watch this space!!!