Saturday 31st

Another early start today as we were helping to move around furniture in Ian and Debra's rental property. Myles and Ian set off with Tara the dog in the truck and Debra and I set off in the car. We had errands to run as well so we would meet the boys there. We went to the butchers then picked up Debra's mother Ronnie and then headed for Campbell town to pick up some parts for the broken pool pump. Those acquired we were heading for 52 (the rental house) we got a call along the way to pick up some mower blades from Bunnings the same as homebase. We made a detour and a useless teenager with a backwards cap gave us the parts and a spanner to fit it with. As we were leaving I asked why I could smell a BBQ. Turns out every weekend Bunnings provides a BBQ so  a different charity can do a BBQ to raise money. I thought this was a fantastic idea and loved bunnings because it was HUGE. Another 10 mins and a good few hours after the boys arrived we made it. We called them inside and we all had some hotdogs from the BBQ which were lovely :) turns out instead of moving furniture the garden needed some attention and they were cutting down trees! (Can't leave them alone for a second!)

It was a long day of cutting down and cleaning branches and moving beds and mattresses but we finally finished and all looked lovely ready for people to move in the next day. The boys headed off first again and we swung back into Campbell town on the way through to pick up fruit and veg and some seafood. 

Another long drive in the dark and we got stopped by the police! A very friendly guy was doing breath tests at the side of the road all good we pulled off and were finally home! We put the shopping away and I went upstairs to call home as I had some spare credit to use up. A good half hour chat until that ran out and then it was dinner. By this point poor Myles was shattered and fell asleep on the bed. I went downstairs to help with cooking and just as we were plating up Myles' nose kicked in and he was there! We had some lovely panfried snapper with an array of fruits and veg. Everyone ate and enjoyed that very much! It wasn't until we were cleaning up that we found the chips that we didn't serve up! Oh well those wrapped up with the left over fish meant we had a little snack for tomorrow! After this we had a little pudding and headed off to bed. A lovely sleep followed as we were all so shattered!

Tomorrow is Father's Day in Australia :) 

More of that tomorrow though! 

Friday 30th

Early start today as Myles had work with Ian again and was gone by 9. I stayed in bed a little longer enjoying the warmth. And then got up to unload and load the dishwasher and put a load of washing on. It was a fairly slow day for me as there wasn't a lot to do. Myles came back for lunch and we had some soup this time remembering to dilute it but it was too watery :( we shall ignore the proper instructions next time! 

At this time I was informed that we were going out again for the evening to see a friends opening of her photography gallery/business. After this I spent a good amount of time in the sun waiting for the others to come home. When they got home we got changed and off we went for the train. We got there just in time and jumped straight on. We spent what seemed like an age on the train and finally arrived. Best of all the train was free! result we like that haha. Debra picked us up and we found the gallery. It was very lovely and had some great finger foods which was the most important part really. Myles was only slightly impressed with her camera because it was a cannon but it was a D5 which redeemed it slightly. After this Myles got to drive the Peugeot back home again. We got to the train station where we left the car and Ian jumped in the clio. This became the biggest race in the world! Debra was giving Myles directions which was hilarious but Ian knew the roads best and got in front of us and we got stuck behind a slow car. Ian only won as Myles didn't know the car or roads! And most of all didn't want to crash the Peugeot!! :(

We snailed home and then had some icecream before bed. 

Thursday 29th

Thursday came around and it was up early for Myles as he had his first day at work! Breakfast done and it was a short drive in only 5 or 6 mins. Arriving at work and meeting everyone, Ian said that he needed jump leads for the fork lift which were at home! However rather than taking my car he said I could take the brilliant little Clio RS. It was brilliant. (Daddy get rid of the diesel!!) long story short we knuckled down to a hard days work! That makes it easy for me to write and less boring for you to read. Just as I was leaving Ian said that both of them were going to the cinema tonight and invited us along too! We sorted what we were going to see and where and sort of came up with a plan. After Laura had eventually done her hair we left. Arriving at the cinema, we were shocked! 

This is the lounge that you wait in before you go in to see the film! We were only just in time and went straight in. I counted how many people were in the cinema. There were 4. Including us! So it was rather quiet. Not like the noisy British cinemas where there are 300 people all rustling crisps etc!

We sat down to watch RED 2 in extreme comfort. Ian showed Laura the recliner chairs, oh yeah there were reclining arm chairs... Half way through dinner arrived! Later on the film finished and Myles was rather excited as a lot of the film was shot at dunsfold (the top gear track).

 

This was after the film, as you can see its not much like a British cimena!

Ian offered myles the keys to the car and he drove home! Rather over excited that he could play with the paddleshift gear change on the steering wheel...

We got home, thanked Ian and Deborah very much and went to bed.

Wednesday 28th

We had an early start today getting up an ready because Ian had something that he wanted Myles to do at work for him. Breakfast eaten and a bit of garden work done Ian arrived and started to go through what he wanted doing. It's essentially data entering for a database very easy in principle. So that done it was time for more garden work. Myles very excitedly needed to move a lot of weeds and got to drive the Bobcat digger machine thing. I left him too it and hoped he didn't break anything. Whilst that was happening I started to make lunch today was cheese toasted with leftover pork and roasted onions. Myles was very pleased with this and we decided to head into Campbell town to get some glasses for me and do a little shopping so Myles is ready for fireworks shows. After a very long hour trying on glasses I finally found a pair that suited me and a free pair of prescribed sunglasses to go with them. Very excited for those to arrive! After this back home where we had a bit of a relaxing afternoon and evening. 

Tuesday 27th

The usual slow start to the day here about 9ish we got out of bed after watching some cooking shows on TV Myles had a shower while I wrote the blog and had made breakfast. After this Myles flew into the garden and carried on from where he had left off. I did my usual jobs in the kitchen until 12 and informed Myles that we needed to go to the shops if he wanted anything for lunch. Myles didn't want to drive and as usual said "well you can always drive it." So for once I decided why not. Went to charge my mobile and post a photo to the blog and was ready to go. Myles then proceeded to wind me up about crashing his car and not being able to park. This made me nervous but I carried on anyways to prove a point. I grabbed the keys and sat in the car. Whilst Changing the whole set up of the car I was thinking that's its been 2 years since I last drove which was when I past my test.. I'm sure ill be fine... First car being a 2L 4wheel drive Subaru. The strangest part being that it was automatic and HUGE! The biggest car I have driven is a Toyota Yaris which isn't the biggest lets just say that. Nevertheless I set off down the drive way.  I pootled down the road a little paranoid a kangaroo would jump out at me... It didn't and I arrived at Aldi no problems except once putting my window wipers on instead of indicating   because the switch is on reverse sides which is a pain. I got out the car and was rather impressed with my bay parking as well! After a little self celebration I got the food for lunch and swung into Woolworth's to pick up some dairy milk to treat myself :)

After this back home to make Myles' lunch. Cheese and sausage toasties. After a very filling and yummy lunch I banished Myles from the garden and told him he had to do his white card test. (This is a basic health and safety course for anyone working in construction. Myles needs it for the fireworks jobs coming up in a few weeks.) Begrudgingly he trailed upstairs to the laptop and started working his way through it. The online course said it would take 4 hours to complete. I left him to get on with it and did a bit of hoovering. (Very exciting) I came back had a shower and he still was going through it 2 hours later! 'Maybe this is going to take 4 hours..' 

Myles then declared that he needed coffee to continue so I made a very milky coffee with plenty of sugar to keep him going! I left him another hour and came up with the last piece of banana and walnut cake and he had just finished and was on the 100% complete page! Wahoo passed with flying colours! After paying for it and signing off it had taken just under 3 hours which was great. Our evening consisted of a lovely dinner of chops with pumpkin and potato mash and lots of gravy! We watched the final of Great Australian Bake Off, which is a joke because the wrong person won! Then a bit of air crash investigation which sparked a lot of conversation between Myles and Ian because Ian has a pilots license and Myles loves planes!

After this it was about 11:39 which made it bed time. 

Lots of love to you all :) x 

Monday 26th

Myles was very keen to get up this morning as he could have even more garden time! We had breakfast in the sun and Myles swiftly started weeding again in preparation for woodchipping. Laura washed up and emptied the dishwasher and put some washing out before joining Myles in the garden. We both set out looking for the pile of woodchips and found them at the end of the garden at the top of the drive way. After loading up a wheelbarrow it was time to news paper the flower beds that the chips were going and then throwing them on top. This routine continued until we finished the flower bed. Lunch followed a very yummy Coles special of BBQ meat pizza which was lovely eaten in the sunshine. After this Myles carried on pottering in his new favorite place whilst I did a few updates on the blog (WALL.E has a few new photos as does the Gallery. If the Internet would ever be strong enough were hoping to get a videos page going as well which would be exciting.) 

Whilst I was doing this I realised that there was about 4 beautiful red parrots sat outside the window where I was working. Very excitedly I called Myles to come and see, he rushed off to get his camera and we got a few shots of them on the bird feeder. This was the first bit of nature we had seen here which was exciting. After this the usual routine of cooking dinner with Debra which was a Bolognese and Myles talking with Ian about cars. After a very filling dinner we sat down watched crime watch and headed off to bed.

24th & 25th

Hello all,

So I shall pick up from Saturday morning. We were up rather early so we could have a proper look around. It was the best nights sleep we have had in a very long time with a lovely comfy bed so we were up very refreshed. We made some toast and sat by the pool with an exceptionally good sunny morning. Deborah left us to go to work and Ian took us on a tour of the property. First of all was a walk up the garden to see the waterfalls which were needless to say beautiful. Coupled with the morning weather we could have spent all morning there. Ian showed us some aboriginal wash pits in the sand stone which were very interesting. We had a walk back through the 'bush' and Ian showed us his race cars. One of the rally cars being a Renault Clio RS and I was in love haha! After most of the morning discussing different setups we went back for some lunch. Again we sat by the pool and relaxed for a bit. After lunch Ian took us to his work and showed us around and also 3 other race cars. One being a proton rally car, another was a Clio RS and the other was a Ford Cosworth. We went back home to change a wheel on Ian's road car (Clio RS) as he had bent the rim. Wheel changed and Laura and me nipped into town to have a look around. We grabbed some essentials and tonight's dinner. We got back home and Myles did a couple of little jobs on the patio and had a look around. Deborah came home from work and told us we were having steak for dinner!! We had bought a pizza haha! A little while later and we sat down to an incredible feast of steak mushrooms onion gravy veggies oh it was heavenly. Myles waited excitedly for the F1 to come on having not watched it for 3 months excitement levels were rather high... The program came on and he fell silent haha. We watched qualifying and went to bed.

Sunday morning arrived and yet again it was a stunning morning. The bed was so comfortable we had a lay in until half 9! We got up and again had breakfast by the pool. Myles started some garden work by weeding one of the flower beds by the pool. Deborah meanwhile had cleared out a cupboard for Myles to fit a rotary draw thing that goes in a corner cupboard. After what was longer than expected to put the spinny thing together  we went to put in the cupboard but the old shelf needed to be removed. It was screwed in and needed to be smashed out as it couldn't be unscrewed. This was left to Ian as it wasn't Myles kitchen! Eventually this was taken out and the spinny thing was screwed in. Myles also hung a kitchen rail on the wall. For lunch today we were treated to our first Australian BBQ. Myles cooked the meat and we all sat down by the pool to enjoy our feast. It was so lovely, after all feeling rather full the afternoon was spent in the garden doing odd jobs weeding etc.

 Myles also helped Ian fix the swimming pool filter ready for summer while Laura did some odd jobs in the house. Dinner again was cooked by Deborah for us and it was a heavenly joint of roast pork. Oh how we have missed a roast dinner. With this came roasted pumpkin! We were a bit skeptical but both tried it and loved it!! Rather surprised we had seconds lots of gravy, onions and crackling!  Only 20 or so mins later Myles sat down to watch the Grand Prix as Laura retired to bed.

21st-22nd

Wed 21st

Nothing much happened today however, Myles has had it confirmed that he will be rigging the show in Sydney for the New Years fireworks!! Yes the one from the bridge and opera house! Very very excited about that thanks mostly to daddy and Campbell for the recommendation and the cracking reference!  Also a show on equal size for the Australian Navy, also in Sydney. I didn't believe it was equal size but apparently it's a week set up!

 So plans now semi-set in stone we had to think of an accommodation plan. For this we needed WIFI, so Rose bay it was only to find that the wifi we had been stealing now is password protected. This was not good. The only free wifi we could find was a printer in an office, so if I wanted to print something I could but not do Internet things. A new Internet tactic was needed, McDonalds was considered but their WIFI isn't up to much, it's ok to upload a blog but not for research. We then remembered that our first hostel in Sydney had brilliant WIFI, so we took a short drive down and sat outside it for an hour or so doing everything we needed online. Applying for jobs looking for accommodation etc. Battery's running low in all Internet equipped devices we headed home for a lovely healthy dinner of sausages chips fried onion, sweet corn and carrots, Tasty.

Thursday 22nd

We woke up this morning to a lovely morning yet again feeling much better that we had got a bit of a plan together and we had applied for a few bits and bobs. It was a slow start as there was nothing we really needed to do. Laura had a big tidy up of the room and kitchen while I helped by supervising. Laura had work this afternoon in the marina so we headed down and I dropped her off. I then went back into the high street to get myself a haircut. It was looking a mess and getting in my eyes and I had had enough. Anyway long story short, a good 45 mins later, that seemed like a week, I had a cut mop of hair. It wasn't how Auntie Selena would do it but a cut is a cut none the less. I then had an hour to kill so I sat in the car reading the free local paper that is thrown on our drive every couple of days and then had a walk into the marina. Laura was still working so I had a look at all the boats for sale. My favourite was a black carbon fibre stealth boat until I saw the price. At 2 million I thought it was a bit steep so looked at what else I could afford, nothing really appealed apart from a rather large boat, I read the spec and it had more bedrooms, more bathrooms, more dining rooms and more cinemas than Laura's and my house put together, oh and a fuel range of over 3000 miles! Again I saw the price and ran away to collect Laura. We headed home and sat down to dinner. Watching The news we were amazed to see that a massive part of Sydney had a powercut. Apparently it was a cable theft (not confirmed) that had wiped out 60,000 homes and all 3 phase power. So it wiped out all the traffic signals in that area. That area just so happened to include the motorway that goes through Sydney centre (in a tunnel underground) so it was closed in both directions haha. We found it hilarious but the people stuck in a solid que of traffic on their way to the airport probably didn't. A little while later Rene came home. He had asked yesterday if we like coffee and he had something for us if we did. Very intrigued we asked what it was and he went into his room and brought out some sachets of coffee powder. All different types were there from moca to latte hot chocolate, black to just plain boring coffee. He asked us to try them as we wanted our opinions on what we thought. You can't buy it in the shops as its a totally new brand and our guess is that It's Rene's new business venture. A little while later our phone rang, not knowing who it was I gave it to Laura. It turned out to be a chap called Ian. We had emailed him yesterday as he had his house advertised. Basically him and his wife work a lot and they have a house that needs looking after. So Laura would clean and look after the house while I would maintain their garden. (Very excited to have a garden to play in again as I'm missing my one rather a lot). We were chatting for a good 20 mins and he agreed that we could come down and visit, take a look at the house and they would treat us to dinner! These are people that we have never met and they want to take us out for dinner?! We sat down very excited that something was actually happening now and planned what we were going to do only for the phone to ring again. It was Ian again, he had spoken to his wife and they had agreed that rather than us drive out there to then drive back here to collect our gear to then drive out again was stupid and that if we just come down tomorrow evening and meet them with all our stuff we could stay, providing that they liked us etc... 

Even more excited we said goodbye to our housemates as we wouldn't see them in the morning (Laura had work at 7) and went to bed. 

Friday 23rd

Very early start for us today, half 6 to be precise. 3 hours earlier than we normally get up! We staggered around and I took Laura to work. It was fairly chilly on the seafront so I offloaded the worker and put my heater on while she walked into the marina hehe. I got back home and Rene had just got up, I made a life or death decision, do I go to bed or do I stay up? I elected to stay up and try this new coffee. A lucky dip into the cupboard and I pulled out a latte. I sat down to read the property section in the local paper and sipped this drink. It was a tiny bit bitter for me so I put 1, yes 1 teaspoon of sugar in. I normally have 3 1/2!! So it's muuuch healthier for me and will rot my teeth far less quickly. That made a huge difference and was actually rather nice! It was creamy and most importantly it wasn't grainy. Most instant coffee, especially lattes go grainy when you mix it but this didn't! That was enjoyed while I dreamt of owning one of these houses (again most having a 7 figure price tag). 

I retired to our room to pack but I remembered I had promised Laura that I would write the last 3 days blog so I spent the next hour doing just that. The time came to collect the worker from work and come home to pack ready for tonight!! Once home the packing begun. Laura wanted to sleep as she felt a tad boat sick but wasn't allowed. After a good hour packing up food clothes and our bed it was time for a shower. Showers done it was lunch time which is our favourite time :) cheese on toast for Myles and more marmite for Laura. Lunch polished off Michael our landlord arrived and we let him know of our departure and finished off packing, Laura making very sure her toaster was safe. We packed up the car triple checked the house was empty of our things and hit the road. Myles brimmed the car on £24.88, that's 3/4 a tank in the Subaru! Madness, sat nav programmed we started the drive and came across the Sydney traffic. Eventually after a lot of start stop we got to the highway and didnt stop for a good 45 mins until we turned off. We had driven straight into the countryside and it was beautiful. About 10 mins later on back roads we found our new home tucked away up a nice driveway, arriving at the top there was a lorry with Subaru written on. Myles was instantly excited. Nobody was home but Debora arrived after 5 mins or so. Ian was shortly after. We instantly got chatting about everything and anything really until we were invited out in the car to be shown the local town and we were treated to a meal! We had a lovely curry and again conversation flowed brilliantly. We came home and settled down to write this and are heading to bed soon. 

We will get a photo across to you ASAP. Love to all x

Sunday 18th, Monday 19th & Tuesday 20th

Hello all it's a 3 day blog so we shall start with Sunday I guess. 

We had a very relaxed Sunday where by we spent most the day down at Rose Bay watching the world go by and using their wifi which is great. An attempt at updating the blog was made but unsuccessful due to not enough wifi :(

This is becoming a pain so were starting to look for somewhere new to stay already! Once Laura started to get sunburnt we headed back to base for a late lunch and a few games of cards. The daytime TV is getting a bit much especially with the TV from about 11 years ago. You can imagine the fantastic picture quality we are experiencing especially since Myles walked into the aerial and broke part of it off! It all resulted to us playing cards to decide whether we walked or drove to Coles. Laura won so we were driving and she won the second game of pick the highest car so Myles was driving as well. A very grumpy Myles drove to Coles where we got some dinner and crumpets :) Bath time and then we cooked dinner. We were all snuggled down on the sofa ready for Masterchef when we heard a knock at our door. Very strange, Myles investigated and found 2 boys at the door. I say boys they were 19 turns out they were waiting for Michael our landlord who was late no surprise there! We let them in and a few seconds later Michael had arrived. This was grand except the fact Laura had her hair in a towel. We weren't expecting guests on a Sunday night! Regardless Rennie came home and they went out for a drink together and left us to Masterchef which was lovely. After that it was time for bed. 

Monday 19th

Today was another lazy day as Laura was waiting to hear about her work for the week. Trusting that Simon was useless we planned to go back to Rosé Bay to speak to him face to face. Turns out that was very right it got to 10:30 and we were ready to go do some laundry and pick up insurance paperwork from Kingscross. Laura had a wonder into the bay and found Simon who was glad to see her as he had forgotten to ring her no surprises there eh? He said he would try to put her in for as many shifts as he could and also get Myles started working as well. Well if there was ever any work we would both have a job! After this a trip into Kingscross. This is a 2 man job because we can't legally put our car anywhere so one of us has to guard it whilst the other goes and does jobs. Once the insurance was sorted and washing done we headed back home to hang it out. Trouble was the buggers from upstairs had put their washing on the line! So we had to cover the house in washing! Chairs were all used and the heater turned on. Luckily the sun had gone in as a bad omen to them! Ha. 

Lunch was noodles for Myles, a sandwich and a crumpet for Laura. Very exciting things to add to our food blog. 

After this we didn't do a lot due to rubbish weather. We competed playing iPhone games and generally loitered around for the evening. 

Tuesday 20th we were awoken by a person being noisy which was rather annoying as this was the first time it ha ever happened. This was then interrupted by the Australian phone ringing. It was 9:30 and SIMON was calling. Excited by the hope of work it turned out Laura had 2 hours work on Thursday followed by a meeting about the Rotas. At this point I think a new job is needed... Regardless breakfast was next on my agenda but I couldn't make it because SOMEONE was using MY toaster... And my breakfast plate. This was rather rude but I was unphased I cooked Myles' crumpets and peanut butter then dried up my plate to use mine. Grump. After this Laura headed outside to put the washing on the line as the people upstairs had moved out! Mwaha

It was mostly dry but thought it would be nice anyways. Laura then found a hose and started playing with it leaving Myles peeking around the door wagging his finger. We then decided to wash our car. Laura was in charge of the hose and Myles did the washing part. After this more TV and lunch which was left over pasta and meatballs from the night before. As the people from upstairs had moved out we went to see if they had left their keys so we could use their oven. Turns out they didn't so we text Michael to acquire the keys. But we did acquire a mouse for the laptop which will be useful for playing MineSweeper. Next it was shopping time and as it was a sunny day we walked to Coles. We were also very very grumpy about our cheese grater we bought earlier in the week! It was useless it bent and then cracked so we took it back. We bought a new bigger and better cheese grater along with the usual things. 

Once we were home we saw the upstairs people come back and they left their keys in the cupboard! Once they drove off we ran upstairs to investigate. They had a working oven great! Myles went on the hunt for Wifi and Foxtel (SKY) cables. He was successful but the wifi didn't work. Boo. Going downstairs we had a play with the newly acquired Foxtel cables using Marks knowledge of TV cables that Myles had learnt, co-ax cable was cut, connected and finally got a TV picture. We still got the same old channels however is now the Australian equivalent of HD (just less grainy) after this we wrote this big blog. We're now off to post this online for you all to read you lucky people. The reason you get it early is so Laura won't be blind anymore as she needs mummy to find out her glasses perception so she can get some glasses. Oh and we're having KFC for dinner!!! Very exciting. Bye for now :) 

Saturday 17th

Early start as Myles' alarm went off playing 'teddy bears picnic' to wake us up. Different I do have to say. 6:30 up and at work by 7, clothes on breakfast eaten and teeth cleaned we were on our way. 3 minute drive and we were there yet again a bit early. But it was nice to have a chat online with the folks back home :) 

After this Tara my work mate for the day turned up and I was off, Myles was left in the cafe watching the lucky bum. As the sun hasn't come up yet it was still freezing out. I had many Layers on which turned out to be a mistake...  I started off cleaning the outside of the boat which was funny enough but I got very hot doing it as I had to clamber all over the boats. Myles found it very amusing watching me, how kind of him. About half way through the shift I had to get a BBQ out of the store room and got Myles to assist in carrying it. This resulted in cleaning 2 BBQ's which Myles helped greatly with and then helped me get it back onto the boat. After this he met my other boss Damian and ended up helping me clean for the rest of the shift. It was such easy work and only 3 hours today. So we had the rest of the day to do nothing really. During the day there was some English TV on so we watched that and fell asleep for a bit too. We still like a bit of Fiji time ;) 

Not a lot to report after that except going to Coles again to get bread and chicken which ended up being a big shop again. And then cooked a curry ate the curry I went to bed and Myles watched the rugby, it was the Australian Wallabies against the New Zealand all blacks.  The all blacks smashed them as everyone knew they would. 

I do apologise if these are getting repetitive we aren't doing a lot that's worth talking about too much! Lots of love to you all reading this :) x

Friday 16th

1 more day till Laura had to work so we decided to go out and do something nice. We took the recommendation from Rennie and went to Coogee beach. Coogee beach was pretty much the same as Bondi but it was a bit quieter and the water wasn't quite as rough which was nice, not that we went in its winter here! (Even though we're hitting 24 degrees) We sun bathed for a long while and Laura gave herself another camera lesson and took about 100 pictures mainly of seagulls as there were so many to photograph! After this lunch and a walk along the beach to the baths of which there were none just an old sign where they used to be. They had lots of memorials for people who died in the Thailand bombings in 2003? (We can't quite remember if that's right or not?) But lots of people from Coogee died there. Including half a rugby team. 

We then realised our parking ticket was about to expire so back to the car and off to Myles' favourite place, East Gate Shopping Centre! Yay! It has Coles supermarket and K-mart which is a little like Primark but sells EVERYTHING. First stop K-Mart to get Myles some Steel toe capped boots. Then back to Coles to see what was on offer for din dins :) turns out it was curry for another day and we settled on soup for tonight. Quick drive back to the house and we were home, few games of cards played and some more abysmal Australian TV which usually consists of the News playing the same 4 news stories over and over on every channel! (We're missing Foxtel that we had in the hostel, which is Sky over here!) We bought a huge can of soup and after cooking an eating half of it we realised it was condensed and was meant to be diluted, oops. Oh well we learnt for next time, a splash of water added and it was a good dinner had. After this an early night as we were both off to work tomorrow, so Myles could use the Wifi and so I could earn some monies. 

Thursday 15th

An early start today as it was a Laura work day. By 7 we had got dressed had breakfast and were leaving the house. I showed Myles around the Bay which boats I would be cleaning and such like the headed to the office for my 7:30 start. This was a mistake in its self. 7:30 came and went by 8:00 one chap asked who I was waiting for and when I said Simon my boss he just laughed and carried on with what he was doing. I pretty much got Simons number the first time I met him, and he certainly is not a morning person. Assuming that he was still in bed I connected to the wifi and did a few things on the Internet whilst I had it. At about 8:17 Simons boss turned up and apologised and took me down to the bay to show me who I would be working with for the morning and got started. It was all rather easy just a little chilly until the sun properly came out. By 10 we were finished and it was time to go home. Happily I filled out my time sheet from 7:30 till 10. Great paid for being on Facebook and checking my emails. 

I gave Myles a ring to pick me up and it was only a few seconds till he was there as he was servicing the car at the time, how handy :) 

We headed back to Kingscross to get an email that never came through about insurance and Myles needed to go Into the police station, no no he hasn't been naughty he just needs a police check like a CRB if he wants to work with fireworks over here. 

That all figured out back home for lunch and a bit of top gear. After that we had a bit of Fiji time and had a snooze. Not a lot else happened after that, a few card games, some rubbish TV as big brother seems to be the only thing on over here! Dinner and bed.

Wednesday 14th

We had another good Layin waking up glad there are no Northerners to wake us up anymore. We weren't sure what to do today and thought about going to coogee beach as it was reccomended to us by one of our housemates but then Myles got a very exciting text! He finally had his meeting with Tim about working for Foti fireworks!!! So the day was spent waiting for that and traveling to it. First things first we tidied up our room and unpacked into our wardrobe which was great until Myles saw the state of his shirt. The rucksack had done it no good as it was so creased! We looked around the house for an iron but there was no such luck. So we had to go to a dry cleaners to get it ironed. I'm sure it would have been cheaper to buy one! But at least it was done. After this we programmed the GPS and we were off. We took a few wrong turns as we are still getting used to using the GPS but we got there well in time anyways. It gave us a while to have a look around the town and have a drink before Tim arrived. We think the meeting went well, fingers crossed in a few days we will hear back! After this a long rush hour drive back to base to cook dinner. As we finally got a cheese grater Myles cooked spaghetti and meatballs coovered in cheese, very lovely indeed. We watched a bit of a biking programme and went off to bed ready to be up early the next day to take Laura for her first proper day at work! 

Tuesday 13th

After a lovely Layin in our new bed with proper bed sheets and pillows we had breakfast and decided what to do for the day. After realising we haven't seen a lot of Sydney yet and having a car we thought we'd do a bit of traveling. We popped out the sat nav or GPS out here and headed for Bondi beach complete with sandwiches for lunch, very British! After a short drive we arrived very surprisingly to find that there was Wifi! We wondered down onto the beach for 2 or so hours watching the surfers and eating our lunch. We got back to the house at about 1:30 watched some rubbish day time TV and decided to go back out after Laura read her Lonely Planet Australia. We decided to see some more beach and port exploring so we headed for Watsons Bay. It was about a 20 min drive from our house along the coast. We had a play on the rocks of the bay took a few trails around it and read some of the history on the bay it's self. We also found a HUGE pelican which Laura was a little scared to get too near as it opened its huge beak and hissed at her. After we left the bay we went to Coles to get loo roll only and left with half the shop again! Dinner Australian Bake Off on TV!!! and then bed. 

Bondi Beach!

So this is one to tick off the bucket list! 

Just thought we would share a photo at Bondi Beach, it's not as big as we were expecting, however it's still a lovely 20 degrees!

Episode 67 - Laura's toaster

(Monday 12th) 

We have been traveling 67 days today. It was a very good day indeed it started off by Laura waking up looking at her iPod realising the alarm hadn't gone off and was up half an hour later than she was supposed to be up. Action stations! Myles was on breakfast and Laura made herself look presentable for work at 8:15. Breakfast scoffed down Laura ran out the door and down the road. (This was at 7:40 and Laura had to be at work for 8:15 and it was a half hour walk!) 

After running most the way Laura arrived at 8 leaving time to cool off and look presentable again. Typically her boss Simon was late anyways. After some form filling a small intro around the boats and a job offer for myles she was sent on her way to start work Thursday at 7:30. A half hour up hill walk back with a Kitkat chunky in hand and she was home again. Also a little exhausted, but no time for that! She gave Myles the Kitkat as a thank you for helping her in the morning and we both set off in pursuit of getting our car at last! 

A quick hello to our new housemates and we were off. 

This time we didn't have any bus tickets to we decided to get them on the bus as we had seen people doing it yesterday. Turns out our $2.20 tickets were wrong and we should have been in zone 3-4 which was $3.60 oh well we only had one more bus journey. 

We got off the bus back in Kingscross which we had gotten to know very well. We went to Coles to get some provisions and cheap meat. This was a feast of a shop which included peanut butter  and MARMITE!!! As in our house there is a lack of a toaster Laura wanted marmite sandwiches instead so $6.40 later we had marmite yaay! 

That done we stole some wifi from Wicked Campers to find where we would be doing our local shop and buying our new bed sheets! (Super exciting) K-mart was the shop of choice. 

Details logged we were off again, car time! We paid for our insurance but couldn't get our ticket validated as it had been in there over the weekend. Doh. So we 'lost' our parking ticket and had to pay $50 to get out, much cheaper than the $340 we were meant to pay! 

And we were off!! Finally our own transport. Myles drove and our first stop was Aldi as it was on our way home. More provisions bought such as gravy, crumpets and onions and we set off for home. Laura was very excited to have marmite on crumpets to the. Remember we weren't in the hostel and had no toaster or grill! So a very sulky Laura headed to K-Mart. After a short drive about Ringmer to Lewes distance we arrived in Eastgate shopping centre. It was huge! Had a Coles and Aldi! But we didn't need anymore food shopping, Myles spotted Lowes men's clothing shop and ran to find himself some new jeans and yet again his broke! Jeans acquired and a very happy Myles we went to a broken shop and got jump leads just incase $6 bargain! K-mart approached to grabbed a trolley and went wild! Myles headed for BBQ's and lawn mowers while I got some bed sheets duvet and pillows. Myles checked the list and we needed some bowls, plates, a cheese grater and a tea spoon. Laura ran screaming because she saw a toaster for $7.50 and promptly cuddled it and put it in the trolley. Crazily it was even cheaper than the bed sheets! Myles chose his plastic blue bowls and matching plates, but couldn't buy a single teaspoon so gave up and paid. We looked at our parking ticket which had 3 mins of free parking left until we had to pay! We ran to the car lobbed everything in the back and drove down to the exit. With a minute to spare we were out! Back to the house with our new purchases Laura made the new bed whilst Myles who had a headache hid in the huge wardrobe with sliding mirrored doors. After this we cooked dinner which was sausages with mash and onion gravy. This was very nice the news was on the tv tonight. Laura plugged in her new toaster which was very exciting and then proceeded to have a bath. This was even more exciting because last time we even had the option of a bath we were in Vegas. Laura ran a bath and had an hour soaking and generally relaxing. Lovely :) 

After this bedtime and an episode of top gear from the memory stick. 

Wifi has now been found at Laura's work so whenever she's working the blogs shall get posted :) 

Sunday 11th

Today is moving day! We were awoken as usual but for the last time by the very hungover northern girls. 8:30 breakfast and coffee time. Laura gets chatting to a man called Will who is an American who likes biking. This then ends up being a few hour long conversation about biking with himself and Myles. But he has added us on Facebook and invited us to meet up with him if we ever ride around America to show us some good driving roads. Bonus! 

After this we packed had a shower watched the city to surf marathon from our roof where there was a sky writer, who had 3 shots at writing something but we couldn't figure it out. We decided it must have been someone's running number which was sweet. 

After this we checked out but stayed around in the hostel till 12:30 as no busses were running due to the race. We played a game of snooker which took a good hour and Myles won and then pool which I won by total fluke! We said our goodbyes and set off to find our car. We couldn't take our car out of the garage without paying $320 because it had been in there over the weekend so we dumped our bags in the car and decided to come back on Monday to try and get the ticket validated so we didn't have to pay. 

Then we had issues with the busses again. So we were told you had to buy a ticket from a local shop or newsagents very simple. We went to 5 different shops none of the guys in there knew what zone we needed or didn't sell tickets. Eventually we got a ticket which turned out to be wrong but didn't matter. We got onto the bus a good half hour later  and put our tickets into the machine which is fine and sat down. It wasn't till the next day we realised the tickets were wrong. 

We traveled around Sydney past Laura's work and arrived in Rose Bay town. We headed up towards our new house arriving to no one being home. This was a problem as the owner of the house wouldn't be arriving till 6 now.. It was about 3 by the time we got to the house after having a look around the town. 

We entertained ourselves for a good hour then Myles sent Laura off with a challenge to find where she was going to work the next day. This took 2 hours for her to get there and get back. By this time we only had half an hour left to wait until Michael (the man who owns the house) to bring us our keys. Half hour came and went, so did the sun and we were getting rather grumpy and tired. Eventually he called us at 6:30 and asked where we were? We had told him at 12 that we were leaving for the house so you'd have thought he would have known that. Regardless he apologised and said he fell asleep and was on his way. 

We got our keys and settled in. 

Dinner tonight was fish finger and chip sandwiches followed by Australia's got talent and then bed. 

We don't have wifi at our house so the blogs will be done in chunks again unless we find some local free wifi! 

7th, 8th & 9th

Not a lot to tell about the past few days. I think our blogs are going to get more and more boring for you to read....
Anyway we have been lazy with our blogs so we are going to roll 3 days into one blog!
so starting off with the 7th. nothing much happened today it wasn't that productive as Laura was job hunting all day. After the job from the call center was turned down because of the distance to travel to it, so it was back to the drawing board. Many jobs were applied for but nothing really looked appealing  We turned our attention to accommodation. Our hostel is one of the cheapest in Sydney however being jobless it is only costing us money. We found a country house in a national park whose owners wanted a house sitter to look after their cat. Basically it was 7 weeks free accommodation a little while later a woman rang us and said she would love to meet us so that's that sorted! it is however 2 hours from Sydney we called it a day there and headed for bed. 

Thursday 8th came around and it was a wet day! yes we woke up to rain but, that's not bad as it is winter here and its our first wet day. Being the morning it was we had a bit of a slow start and checked our emails. We saw we both had an email from the branch manager of Westpac telling us our bank cards had arrived!  We took a walk down and were instantly recognised! We finally got our new bank cards so won't get charged silly money for using our normal ones anymore! We had a walk around Sydney to find a car parking space. We thought parking in Brighton was hard! The WHOLE city had permit zones and you have to be a resident to get one, so this means the car still hasn't left the garage as we have nowhere to park it. Because of this we are planning to move hostels to find one that has a bit of parking. We had a walk along the marina as it started to drizzle and had a lovely look at the boats in there. There was a rather large variety from sailing boats to catamarans to powerboats to rather large vessels worth millions. (the type of boat you see in Monaco) feeling very very poor and a little damp we headed back to our hostel for the afternoon where we seem to be spending most of our time! Again we were looking for jobs etc. Dinner came around and Myles made a Chinese BBQ thing with sausages and rice. Again a little was saved for lunch the next day. After dinner we went to bed feeling sorry for ourselves that we hadn't been employed yet.  Talking of the next day it came. 
Friday the 9th, we looked out of the window to a lovely sunny morning so we spent the morning job hunting. Myles snapped and couldn't take looking at the laptop screen anymore so we went into the city. Walking in the phone rang offering Laura a job! So one of us is now employed! Basically a cleaning job however it is on the rather expensive boats we were dreaming about! So we are a little more relaxed now as we have $2000 a month coming in! We headed to the Sydney post office and collected our tax file numbers! They only took a week to come even though the tax office said it would take 2 weeks. (A step up from the English Tax Office!!) On the way back we came across a Nikon specialist and we got a replacement part for Myles' camera. so Laura is happy and now was Myles. Seeing all the super cars driving around in Sydney we felt poor again and went back to our hostel to have dinner and write this. This evening was also productive as we have found some accommodation for the next month! For $290 a week we have found an apartment in the marina where Laura is working. It has a double garage, double bed and a private room! NO MORE DORMS for a while!! We await to see if we have it tomorrow! Bye for now missing everyone at home xxx

An exciting 2 day post! 5th & 6th

5th 
Today was another job hunt day, Laura got an interview 30 mins after applying for a job and then realised ts 2 hours away from our hostel.. OOPS!! At least it was only for a call center, note to self Sydney isn't as small as Ringmer!
Myles had a sleep and we started an epic game of Rummi. Were going to keep score for the rest of our time in OZ to see who the overall champion is. Other than that we had food and our daily allowance of Dairy milk, 4 squares each which is the highlight of the day! Were slowly giving in to buying things from home its so tempting! That's about all we did really!

6th
Today was a more promising day as Myles was meant to have an Interview (YAY) This was for a fireworks company based in Sydney called Foti fireworks. But Tim was ill. So it has been rescheduled for later in the week so you will have to stay tuned!! (Oooh cliff hanger)
After this we spent the morning playing cards again till lunch. After this we did some research and a little on the the blog, a bit more job seeking until 4 when we went to have a test drive of the Subaru we looked at earlier in the week. We took it for a drive around the city and well we pick it up tomorrow!
After this we had a bit of dinner, more noodles and eggs.
More cards bringing us up to 70 games Myles is winning by 83 points.
Lots of love to you all x

Sunday 4th August Tourist day in Sydney

Today we stuck to the plan and headed out for the general sights in Sydney. We took a long walk down to the Botanic Gardens first which was lovely saw lots of interesting birds and such like. After passing through the gardens we saw the Sydney Opera house. All very lovely and classic tourist photos taken we moved onto the Sydney Harbor Bridge, again same photos very lovely. 
After this well we were a little stuck of what to do, so we wondered around for a while until we found the Sydney observatory.  We spent a good while looking around there and took in the view in the sun and decided to head back.
We wondered through some markets and shops when we found a sweet shop which made rock with all different shapes inside it. [Again back to the food blog] 
It was amazing to watch them cut it up, they just shattered the ends off long sticks of rock and sized them perfectly each time. We watched for a while and got a free sample which was very nice. If were back in the area we shall acquire some more as it was very yummy (:
Continuing our journey back to the hostel there were even more street performers than before and we stopped to watch a few, the first being a contortionist which was very good she put herself into a rather small box and we were off again. Next were some aboriginals playing didgeridoos, they were better than all at the leaving party. [sorry guys]
 Back past the bridge, Opera house and through the Botanical Gardens and we were in Coles. 
Coles is where we have been doing all our food shopping, best part is they have an English food department. So far we have managed to restrain from buying silly English things but today my eyes got the better of me and Dairy Milk was purchased. Dinner things bought we headed back to the hostel.
We like Australia but strange things are expensive here like biscuits and any fruit and veg. Therefore we shall be unhealthy and live on steak as its bloody cheap over here!! [Food blog bit over]
After our very cheap dinner of noodles and fried eggs the Australian phone rang!! [Very exciting indeed] Here's me thinking we may have got a job, Myles ran off somewhere quiet came back and announced that we were going out. Today someone called about us buying a car. We have decided against a van because they are grubby and are so obvious that we are backpackers. So after looking into a few things we have decided to get a 4 wheel drive and went to look at a Subaru Legacy WXR 2.2L!! Wow... For Australia this seems to be a fairly small engine as most seem to be 6.2Ls!!!
We met a German chap called Tim who had just finished traveling in Australia. We looked at the car and drove it around the car park. We are having a proper test drive later in the week so will let you know how it goes then!!
It seems pretty good so far so fingers crossed we will have transport soon which will make job hunting much easier for both of us!!
Thats about it for today really. 
Lots of love until next time! xxx

Saturday 3rd

Today we had a nice relaxing morning, we got up had the free breakfast and had a shower. We carried on from last nights job hunting with not much success. Our plan is that if Myles doesn't hear from Foti we will be leaving Sydney. As nice as it is, it is rather expensive and not a lot of fruit picking available! Also cars are expensive which we knew anyway so we will find a way of travelling to cairns to buy something up there. Lunch came around and we finished off last nights sweet and sour rice. Still job hunting. This continued until a pre dinner snack as someone was cooking steak! Vegemite on toast was created and enjoyed then back to the hunt. We both stayed pretty much on task today and applied for a few jobs, fingers crossed we hear back from a few!! Dinner consisted of Heinz soups bread and toast! Steak and mushroom for Myles and Tomato for Laura. Cheap easy $2 dinner! Just what we like at the moment :) 

Aside from our food blog we have updated the blog photos and WALL.E's adventure photos you will all be glad to hear! 

We have booked another 7 days in our hostel until our tax file numbers and bank cards arrive so we are in Sydney a little longer! The rest of the night we plan to hang out and watch a bit of top gear that we aquired in Fiji and generally chill out. 

Tomorrow were planning to do a few more touristy things which will be lovely as we haven't even seen the harbour bridge or the opera house yet!!!

Friday 2nd August

Today we were up fairly early as we had an appointment at the bank! We headed down and were ready for opening times. The branch manager recognised us straight away and took us into his office. Long story short we got a joint bank account set up so we can work in Australia. First big job done. Next thing was getting an Australian phone, we went to a Vodafone shop and chose the cheapest phone possible. We got a lovely little samsung. total spend $45 (including $10 credit)! Around £26! Second job done. Next thing was getting a tax file number, it's similar to a NI number but not if that makes sense? We took a long walk to the Australian tax office, took us about an hour and got that sorted. Third big job done. On the way back I had remembered I had promised to take Laura to Westfield shopping centre. So we had to have a walk through. I told her that Westfield is always badly laid out and we would get lost. We got lost. A good half an hour later we managed to get outside to find a road and started to navigate our way back to the hostel. Eventually we got back to somewhere we recognised and started to head back. We stopped to look at cars/camper vans/and 4x4s as some transport. We eventually decided on getting a four wheel drive car as a 4x4 or a camper is obscenely expensive! We looked at a 1998 Toyota land cruiser with quarter of a million miles and it was $12,000!! Same for a camper. We looked at a Subaru estate and seemed fairly nice, good on fuel unexpectedly large and over course four wheel drive. We didn't buy it but think that's going to be the sort of thing to buy. On the way back we got dinner, we only bought a sauce as we can get FREE rice in the hostel! Also a couple of cans of soup for Saturdays dinner. Total cost of dinner tonight $3.75 for 2 people! Great success. We got back and started looking at cars, anything that's any good we couldn't afford so we gave up and made dinner. As the rice was free we went a little overboard and cooked wayyy too much but that was ok as it was lunch for tomorrow! We sat down and started job hunting. Myles hasn't heard from Foti yet so starting to loose hope a little there... We finished dinner and all the noisy Liverpudlians came back so we ran away and hid in our rooms after investigating the roof garden, we had a reasonable nights sleep once people went to bed!!

First day in Australia!

We got up bright and early in Fiji and checked out of our hostel. The woman never asked if we had a tab so we couldn't answer the question. It would have been yes but that's not the point. We walked fairly fast to our taxi and hopped in. We got to the airport and broke out the cable ties to make our bags as handling proof as possible. All tied up we stood in the Q and waited. We checked I'm fine and proceeded to the anti terror department where we were deemed not to be terrorists and we were allowed to fly. We had a look around the airport, the terminal being about the size of a hamster cage and found a seat. Our plane was called nice and quick and we boarded. Upon getting to the aircraft the cabin hostess crew lady told us we were upstairs! We were on a Boeing 747 (big plane). I thought upstairs was 1st class but it wasn't sadly but it was however away from everyone else and there were about 50 of us upstairs so it was fairly quiet. We approached the runway and said goodbye to Fiji. We held hands as the engines spooled up and we shot down the runway. It wasn't a long runway in the slightest so we had to be off the ground quickly and we were! With not much Tarmac to spare haha! Looking down on Fiji is much better in the day than at night. You can see things not just the occasional light! The sea was beautiful and you can see all the coral from above. We settled down and had breakfast and a lovely cup of tea. The films weren't working for some reason. We could only assume they were on Fiji time and still asleep so we amused ourselves until we had a sleep. We approached Australia and started to descend. We flew straight over Sydney seeing the bridge and opera house before flying over many buildings before we touched down. Another brilliant landing. We got through immigration fine until we got to customs. Here is where we thought things would get interesting. However we just said no to everything and they were pretty happy. They just wanted to see our shoes to make sure we weren't going to contaminate their country! They were happy that we were clean and we got straight through. No idea what all the fuss about Australian customs is about! We went through the terminal and found our transfer to our hostel. Seeing Sydney on the way to our hostel and it looks like a cross of America and England it's very weird. Anyway we got to our hostel and went to our rooms it's pretty nice it's only a 4 bed dorm. We went straight out to explore the local neighbourhood it looked fairly poor, no different to the back streets of Brighton but all had expensive cars? We got further into the town and saw loads of AMG Mercedes, Ferraris, Range Rovers, even a new Rolls Royce! So people don't seem to be short of cash here! We did out shopping for dinner, our hostel has a great kitchen so we an cook for ourselves. We grabbed some mince, tomatoes, onion and pasta to make a nice plate of pasta. It turned out ok actually! Later on in the evening one of the staff at the hostel was doing free toasties so we made good use of that! We did a little computer work and went to bed.