Leaving the city

Sunday 1^st October

After stuffing ourselves silly with breakfast, drove up to Burpengary to look at some houses. Everyone was shut at the first place we went to, headed to Burpengary, one agent was open, got details of a couple of houses. First owned by pom, nice garden but house was cack, there was another for sale in the same road but on a corner plot, big garden even more cack house but cheap. Went up to morayfield, beautiful house, beautiful gardens, beautiful views and nice owners. We likey, “I want that one”, was the phrase of the day!

Headed to Redcliffe to look for more houses and find the humpy jetty so we could look for whales. Cold as the sun was setting and late so headed back. Passed car parked up for sale, stopped to look as did someone else at exactly the same time. They didn’t know what they were doing and headed off, Y phoned geezer, and we took it out for spin. Likey, left deposit and headed back. Blue/silver Mitsubishi pajero 1996 and 3K cheaper than those in Moorooka where all the car dealers were – also saved us the trip back there to look at cars in peace with having the dealers hassle you and the trip tomorrow to actually buy something. So well pleased that all car shopping had finished J

Had dinner at riddlers, Y had chicken ceasar salad, T oz pizza, with a little drinky

Got back to room and faded very quickly again! When will this tiredness end!!??

Monday 2^nd October

Y made massive fruit salad for breakky! Will last for days! Headed into town, quick check on internet, registered for medicare (oz NHS), got loads of money to pay for 4x4 and had ice cream. Y got trainers and cream for sore blistered feet, they do a lot of naturopathic stuff which is great. Sorted car insurance and RACQ cover! Got back, went to redcliffe to get 4x4, headed back, then back again, never ending circles and it was not the sat nav that go muddled it was just what we had to do!! No houses according to agent that would fit our criteria. Bought some car bits to sort out car, Y wanted an air freshener that looked like big bird gone wrong! Bought eski for food and beer to keep cold while we travel around Oz! Came back, missed curry house on way back!! Not sure how as we had passed it three for four times in the last few days. Changed, back to find curry house, found another one and ate, food was average, but Babs cooks better curry! Bought a bottle of red but decided not to take in as corkage varies from place to place and we were too tired to even drink it!

Tired and ready for bed again!

Y made egg rolls for tomorrow and sorted out all water chilling, chocolate etc !!!

Sorted out bits to get ready to pack and leave the hostel tomorrow before 10am bet it’s the one day we end up sleeping in for a change instead of getting up at 5am like every morning!

Tuesday 3^rd October

Woke up at 6am!! Yippee!! A lay in at last! If the people in the room next to us had not got up so early we might have slept in a bit later! For the first time I don’t feel groggy 10 mins after I have been awake! Tim went and had shower, I sorted out bags, then sorted out breakfast of fresh fruit salad and warmed croissant with orange juice J then Tim went to sort our car and I finished packing bags.

Finally sorted out bags and car ready to rock and roll, with help from the hostel owner to get the bags out the easy way! He then told us we were leaving a day early! Here we go again as we did this in the Maldives! But we managed to get our extra day changed to Thursday when we need to get back to brissy to pick up the bank cards.

Set off and made our way to Byron Bay via Southport, tweed heads and the gold coast road it was beautiful. Stopped at a car mart to buy bag ties as Tim put on the breaks and all the luggage slide forward into our seats! I had to go find toilet and then we set off again.

Stopped Tweed heads beach (surfers paradise) wondered around as I was feeling sick in the car as it was so hot, feeling faint and nauseous L what am I going to be like when it is really hot!? Then went on to Byron Bay as Tim said I could have a swim there as I was so hot. So as we were getting into the central part we saw the light house and headed towards that.

We went right up to the top and decided to wander around and take in the views, it was fantastic, Tim took loads of pics hopefully we will get the site sorted so you can start to see some.

We then headed into town to look at some houses and then decided it was too much like Blackpool or Brighton! Far too touristy for us viewed the two houses they found for us but did not like them as they were very cramped in and not very nice.

After that Tim says all he wants to do is head to Hervey Bay and sort out a house there as the one we like is still for sale. So we headed out of town and into Bangalow it was nice but not the place we thought it was going to be. We then found out it should have been Nimbin which is know for its hippy status and joint smoking chilled atmosphere! So 25 kms, of windy wiggley roads and complete and utter darkness, including a wallaby we arrive in Nimbin! Looks very hippy culture, but hard to say as it was all closed and very dark, found signs for a backpackers and decided to give it a try!

The guy who is running it at the moment, David, its his birthday today so we might joint him for a drink in a mo. Room is very nice, and elephant theme with purple curtains and purple mossy net over bed. The only problem is that the duvet is feathers, so Tim has thrown it over my side as he will wheeze and sneeze all night! Bit cold up here in the mountains but I am sure it will be very pretty when we see it in the morning!

Car is going well and no hiccups yet! Touch wood

We decided to go for a quick drink with the loacals who were staying but realised 5 were from the UK, Ireland, Leeds and Manchester I tyhink! We had a drink of white wine which was ok after a long drive but not very tastey as it was a box wine. I had had a glass of red before we went to join them. We were introduced by Daivd to everyone and they were all soking dope! The air was quite heavy witht eh smell. So we sat and chilled for a bit, then David said his friend had come form Brissy to play the digereedoo and we were going to sit in a tepee and have a sweat session!

When I told Tim what it was all about he got panicky and did not want to go, but it was really nice inb side and very airy, felt really nice. We had a play on the digi and the gitar and then sunk off to bead while the others carried on smoking and drinking.

Wednesday 4^th October

Woke later !! 7am which was a nice change, it was so calm and peaceful and the gardens around the house were beautiful so we strolled about and took loads of pics then had breakky J. Tim cleaned the car and we headed off to see the town! Of Nimbin or should I say sinbin!!?

SCARY TOWN!

It was very hippy like lots of weirdly painted shops and lots of people wondering around trying to sell us pot! We then bought a cheese and spinach roll which was really nice.

Headed to Burnett heads to look at more houses, only one was ok but not very exciting at all!

Bit disappointing

Moved on to and found a couple of houses we liked and one was right on the intercostal water way but not much back garden. We might go back for a look inside another day, not too sure about the area but it seemed really beautiful but not a calm sea, only surfing waves!

Tried to find the guys daughter who dropped us to the airport, but we could not find the bay !!! Pain when you don’t know the area much, Tim starts to get cranky after a time of driving, but he still wont let me drive, so all I do is fall asleep through boredom. It is really frustrating at the moment all this driving and doing nothing.

Got back to hostel in Brissy and went out for dinner at a place called the customs house just like back in Poole, its run by university of Queensland and very nice. Disappointed with my meal a double baked soufflé which I was expecting to be like one we get at the guildhall tavern in Poole! Tims meal looked great a lovely piece of lamb and cooked nicely. There were no puds on the menu that I liked either! Fed up with trying to get decent food for me they don’t seem to cater for the veggies much.

Not sure that another 3 weeks of looking for a house won’t send me mad! Its so much harder when you don’t know the areas as some have seemed really nice houses and when you talk to people they say that the area is full of ASBO people! L

The more we look the more the people tell us about the areas, but we have definitely decided on areas we don’t like so that is easy!

Y

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