In brissy out brissy shake it all about!

Thursday 5th October
Woke up with the larks again! Tim seems to be getting up earlier and earlier!
Showered sorted out bags, frozen water, food and other bits and pieces. Went in to town to get bank cards, but as we were early decided to got to internet café and sort out any mail that we needed to and look at a few houses on line.
Then brekky next to bank, tim had toasted cheese bacon and egg sandwich and I had coffee and sugarfree muffin.

Into bank to pick up cards, no cards !!!! Angry or not!!! We had wasted a week hanging around waiting for the bank cards and now they said that they had not been processed as there had been some error! It was so hard because the guy trying to sort it out was Japanese and we could not understand a word he was saying to us and he could not understand us…. It was quite frustrating. I got so upset, Becka who was dealing with our account came to sort things out and said there had been a problem with the fax that was sent through to head office, so no cards! They said we would have to wait another week, I was angry and said if we had to wait around that long again we would change banks!

Becka promised that she would sort it out and get back to us, we got a phone call saying that it would be sent to the bank in Hervey Bay on Monday which was good as we were fed up trying to find banks to draw money out, and its hard calculating what we would spend on a weekend as the banks shut at 5pm and don’t open until 9.30am on a Monday!

We headed back to car and sorted out the bags packing them better and strapping them in as I was worried that they would kill us if we put the breaks on too hard!
Just before we were going to head off Becka phoned and asked if we could call into the bank or she could meet us somewhere as they had something they wanted to give us.
So we decided to head back into town see Becka and sort out car registration, Becka gave us some free tickets to the cinema as a token of apologies for the trouble with the cards, we were hoping it would be a free trip to Fiji!!:)

Sorted out registration on car which seemed easy, filled in donor cards and then set off back to car to head out to Hervey Bay via a number of places looking at houses.
Before we headed out on the long and winding road there was a so called quick stop to a tyre specialist as when I drove the car (the one and only time!) the steering felt shaky so I thought it could have been balancing or tracking that might be out. Tim eventually agreed that there could be something (us girls know nothing about cars you know J ). So we stopped to get them looked at before we headed off.

They took a tyre off and showed us, the tyre was phew parred! It was all lumpy down the tread and both front ones were exactly the same! So we decided to get all four changed at the same time so that we knew there was no chance of a tyre failure on our trips around Oz. This was going to take an hour and a half!!! So of we walked to the nearest shopping centre (just across the road) where we purchased a new stereo for the car that played cds and not tapes as we had dumped all our tapes in the UK. Then into the shopping precinct and to find some lunch and waste away time, scary huge place inside but managed to stay sane while there. Headed back to car and got talking to some guy who was a sheep sheerer and welder, travelled around and knew the places we were heading to so gave us some maps details and was generally a really nice guy.

The trip started at Caloundra then went on to
Mooloolaba
Mudimba
Marcoola
Peregian Beach
Marcus beach
Noosa

In Noosa we stopped for a walk around and dinner, it was a very beautiful place and had a really nice feel to it. It was buzzing with life but not hectic, the people were friendly and it had life in it without being too scary! J

We ate at a Mexican which was really nice food and managed to not have any hassles with meals, menus or money! There was a guy serving there who had the most amazing hair, it was full on blond curls, he looked like the mirror image of Dennis the menace !
Tim wanted to head on to Hervey Bay even though it was dark, so off we went until we hit the out skirts of HBay. There we pulled into the tourist information centre and slept in the car. Well the car is meant to turn into a big double bed, except! We had three ton of luggage in the back, so all we managed to do was to curl up on the front seats with pillows and an sheet, which we had the foresight to buy earlier in our travels!
Did not take long for either of us to fall asleep!

Friday 6th October
Tim woke early again and then woke me ……….. needless to say I woke grumpy, stiff and needing a wee! It was only 6am!! And we had not got to sleep until nearly midnight!
Tim drove down the road and found a beach with toilets and so out I hoped and then after a little relief we went for a stroll on the beach, it was beautiful and so peaceful with a few people out already walking their dogs.

We went back to the car and brushed teeth and washed with wet wipes! The joys of camping/roughing it! J

We headed straight to place where we had got the tyres changed and met the guy who gave us stacks of info. Sunrise Lodge, booked into a cabin for a week! Unloaded all the bags and stuff and then headed out to drive around and find somewhere fro breakky!
We drove along the prom and found a place doing toasted cheese and tom sarnies for $2.50 so that was it! Breakky sorted

After that we hit the estate agents and started looking hard. Found loads, but were disappointed with those that we had seen on the internet that looked fantastic houses, but were in an area of lots of land but they had just raised it to the ground, it looked barren and bleak L
Had to find bank before they closed for weekend so had mad panic, but eventually found the one where our bank cards would turn up on Monday hopfully!

Made appointment to see spectacular house in middle of town which was a funky design, the house was airy, well built, functional, but lacked a nice good sized garden. We have come to the conclusion that we can only have a small house by the sea or with sea views or a big house with grounds further out of town, so not sure at the moment which is better.

Tim is getting fed up with me because none of them feel right, he knows as well as I do that we will walk into one and that will be it, but unfortunately that has not happened yet!
Decided to walk into town for meal, but only got as far as yacht club, so went in there. It was rather nice and quite expensive but, heck we wont be doing every day and this is a start of something good I hope! So we stayed and had a really good meal, but mine was a bit on the Nuevo cuisine side very tasty but small portion, of scallops, Tim had lamb again which surprisingly enough it abundant here!

Saturday 7th October
Day off!
Today we went out on a catamaran for the whole day spotting humpback whales, bit of a busmans holiday for me but exactly what I love doing and could not be happier than just looking into the blue to find anything out there!

Tim was excited as he had not seen any in real life, only pictures, video and TV.
The boat was nice and a lot bigger than I thought! We were picked up from the cabin and driven to the boat, got on and headed out with 14 other people so a nice small group.

We had set out a bit only about 20 mins when they bought out coffee and muffins we sat and started to enjoy and then as you know it! Mother and calf appeared!! It was fantastic we watched them for a long while then headed off to see if we could find more!

Tim was moved by the experience of the next mother and calf we saw and was close to tears they were just huge gentle giants playing with their babies in a safe bay, it was fantastic to see.
We came upon a number of mother calf pairs I think there was 5 in all but no bulls, one pair were in full swing the mother teaching the calf to breach it was a spectacular display and was simply the best of the days so far.

Tim was worried about taking tinnies on the boat but they were ok about it and he was glad when we sat and had a few after the experience! The only niggle was that they did not provide water to drink sot we just drank our beer!

We were dropped back and decided to walk into Scarness for drink as we were not hungry after BQ on boat. Did not manage to walk far as it was so dark, not many street lights here, so nice for spotting stars. So we headed back to cabin and had a drink instead.

Watched a bit of TV, first time since we have been here that we have watched anything and guess what was on!! The Bill! Laughed our socks off. Strangely enough or not, I fell asleep!
Sunday 8th October

Mums 70th birthday!!! Must phone tomorrow morning! (seems strange phoning the day after!)
Woke early again, I am not getting my full 8hrs and am still cranky, was not amused as it was Sunday and I thought I could have a lay in ………….. wrong!

Grumpy Ronnie went for a walk on beach with Tim to chill, found some fantastic shells for my little baby, so will post to him even though I should not, I will wash and make sure very clean J
Tim let me drive the car!!!! FAINT!!!! Strangely, he now says he gets car sick if anyone else drives, not sure what happened in the UK as I drove us around there! (or was it he just wanted to drink then!!??) J

We then went to look at houses Tim had found, it was ok but neither one or the other of what we want. Tim is getting grumpy as he just wants to buy a house now! He keeps saying he is fine but gets grumpy when I don’t like them.

Stopped in town on the sea front and got some brekky by the sea in a café on the beach, it was beautiful to sit and watch the sea, all the children playing and families out for breakfast together. It was really soothing and peaceful. I headed into a nice little gift shop as the woman Robyn there was really helpful when we went in the previous day. So had a chat with her about houses and renting and things, which she gave me a few tips and then I purchased a few items and we then headed off to get some car stuff and food shopping. We ended up buying some window shields as the noise the wind makes when you have it open traveling as speed is too much. When we got back tim decided to fit them while I wrote up the blog! He was getting rather short trying to fit so I went out to help him and we sorted it, by which time he was really hot and sweaty, so for the first time ever Tim said he was going for a swim in the pool which is about 5 meters from the cabin, so I watched as Tim gingerly inched his way into the pool, his face a picture of relief and contortion as he edged in. Then finally he took the plunge and got in! With huge deep breaths he swam across the pool and then admitted it was lovely once you were in! So I decided to join him!

Later we went to view more houses and for the first time found one we both liked from the outside it ticked all the boxes on our list! All we need to do is take a look inside!
Saw some more on route back to cabin.

Got back hungry and made cheese, spinach, onion and tomato wraps, nuked then for a bit to melt cheese and washed down with red wine for me and beer for Tim, watched Starsky and Hutch movie and fell asleep!

Monday 9th October
Woke about 4am, got up at 5am to phone mum to wish her happy birthday, had trouble phoning from call box in lodge so took car and drove to beach front where I spoke to mum and dad, wishing mum for her birthday and which talking watched the sun come up over the beach and glow golden and warm on me, so much so that I needed to tak my jacket off. Mum had had a quiet birthday but had had the usual call from Jim & Shirley and a card giving mum grief about her age!

It was nice to hear their voices, dad was watching a program on polar bears and mum was telling me how bad the weather had got so bad so quickly they had put the heating on. Chatted for a bit then headed back to cabin, as I drove in to lodge a flock of larakeets were screeching and making a racket but are so beautiful. Tim was up so we went and took some pic of these parrots, must have been about 60!!!

Tim polishing car, me writing blog and soon to have a swim in pool.
More later folks
J

Swim was lovely, day got worse weather wise and mood wise, the weather turned very overcast and very humid, stiflingly so! The house we really liked with granny annex and pool was more expensive then we wanted to pay as it needed a lot of work done on it! It was an old queenslander but it was not very nice inside and needed too much work doing on it for the price they were asking. So just as we thought we found something it was all gone again.

Had to go to car shop again as somehow the fuses had blown on the electric wing mirrors, think Tim was messing around playing with everything and it just went boom! Men they have to fiddle! J So after another visit to the car shop back to town look at a few more houses and then to bank to get cards! The cards were there!!!! Yippeeeeeeeeee!!! Freedom from getting into the bank almost every day! Bad news was after a talk to the mortgage guy (who was a bit of a plonker) they were not prepared to loan us any money until we had jobs! Even though we only wanted to borrow $150k and $100k of that would be paid off once we got our bond money back next year! So we either have to get small house without mortgage, get jobs or rob a bank! J the big problem is that once you have a house in these areas it is hard to sell as there is so much prime land always coming up for sale that it is a buyers market, which is good for us but bad if we only want a small house for a year!?

Got back to cabin, cooked some food (first time for Tim on the BBQ this time in Oz) and then chilled with some beer, we then went out for drive to view more houses find internet café and just chill, strangely Tim let me drive, perhaps it was the beers he had been drinking earlier!!
Came back looked in papers for jobs and houses, made a call to a house for sale just around the corner, the guy hardly spoke any English so it was hard to make an appointment even harder when I could not understand what road he said, think he was Italian, but he could not even tell me price of house! Will be interesting viewing tomorrow!

Watched TV, reading books and fell asleep! Exciting stuff J

Wednesday 10th October
Two weeks today we have been here in Oz! Gone so quick and seems like we have done nothing but sort out paperwork!

Tim has gone off this morning to take back the CD player we bought as it had no front plate on it !!! The nearest one is 80k away in Moorochedore !!! God this place is so big!

I have stayed behind to fill out application for job with local council as a ranger in Hervey bay so please keep your fingers crossed for me! I would rather have a job on the whale watching boats but looks like it has to be permanent not casual otherwise bank wont lend money!

Thinking that there must be other mortgage brokers in Oz, will have to search on internet.
Might go back into Tinkerbells shop to see the owner Robyn as she has give us some really good advice .

Ok signing off to fill out form …………………. Tell you more later!

PS copied this and not sure where all the Js came from so ignore!

love and hugs to all
Y&T
xx