First Impressions

So what is Australia like.... different. Everything is just that little bit not usual: the road rules are slightly different, chicken tastes wierd and there are no power cuts (too odd)! When I signed up for this trip I knew I was going to have to live without tanganda and biltong and I mentally prepared myself for that. Recently however it has been reported to me that there is no cream soda here... WHAT!>>!?@ There is stuff called creamy soda and it comes in red or brown... yes you are reading this it is not green, not green!!!! and apparently is not worth drinking :( There is also a void of nik naks and mazoe... sigh.
Everything is digitalised which is so cool but  I think that to a passer by i must look slightly below acceptable IQ cause I get so confused. We went on the train and you buy a Myki card that you scan in and out at vague stations. James and I seriously over swipped our thing at every station before realising that they were not baracaded and everyone around us was just walking past... lol! The trains are amazing they stop all over the place and are fast clean and reaonably priced. We took a trip out into the country to visit the Martins, very good family friends from when we were kids but hadn't seen in 10 years. It was so great to catch up and make contact again :)
One day driving home I was half asleep on the backseat looking out the window mindlessly at a rubbish truck that was driving in front of us. It slowed down and I watched for the routine of the men jumping out and running madly at the dustbins. How surprised I was when a crane like thing came down clamped the bin and turned it upside down into the truck before returning the now empty bin to the curb!! Only then did i realise everyone had the same style dustbin and that they had colour coded lids... crazy!
On our first trip to the mall it was discovered that CNA does not exist and it was impossible to find the equivalent shops. I would have been hopelessly frustrated and over shopping if it werent for the novelty of the odd shops they have in the mall. An entire shop of socks and a shop dedicated to shaving equiptment!!! Again I had the feeling that while looking up aimlessly at the shop names above the doors I must have looked of below average intellect. Malls here are way cooler here... far less boutiques and lots of shops like the crazy store in South Africa, maybe I will start enjoying shopping more :D

Leaving and Arriving

Once we got off the plane in Joburg we rushed off to get James's car and drove down to Rosetta in KZN where we drank lots of wine and rum, played lots of guitar hero and spent some time with some special people :) A day night trip to durban involved a lot of getting lost on the roads a few poor attempts at ice skating and a great catch up dinner with Nix and Gina. Our time there was limited as unfortunately we had to get back to Joburg to sell the car before hopping on a plane 2 days later. So the question was is it possible to sell a car as easily as it was to buy a caravan...? We roamed the streets of Pretoria stopping at random second hand car dealerships till we found one that gave us a price we were happy with but decided to check in Joburg the next day to try grab an even better deal. When offered almost half the value for the car wherever we tried there, we took a trip back to Pretoria and sold the car at the first place we stopped at for a really good price :D It also meant we could take the Gautrain back to Joburg and try that out. I approve! Its clean and fast comfy.
Stayed with some family for a night or two and then hopped on the plane for the never ending trip! 25 hours Joburg to Melbourne!! I managed to sleep on the first plane and James slept on the second so we did ok but still arrived shattered and ready for bed! I would recommend Ethiad Airways to anyone looking for top quality service at a really good price! James's dad Dave, and his friends Peter fetched us from the airport and we have been staying with Peter and Helen since on the most comfy air bed you could picture!
The following picture was written on the wall in Abu Dhabi where we had our lay over and i thought it really applied perfectly to what we were on the way to. The photo of us is on the fancy Ethiad plane we flew in. The dreaded journey was over and now the adventure was to begin...

 

Packing and Goodbyes

"2 days I recon", James decided it would take to pack up our little flat... so we started with a week to go and packed just bit by bit. With James chucking it all out and me packing it all in, it was a stress. I was forced into realising that I was going to have to accept that every soft toy, scrap of paper or note and photo frame I'd ever been given was not going to make the cut :( My only great (but temporary) loss was not being able to bring my guitar :( :( On reflection James was probably right in that it is about a 2 days job, BUT the small print was that it needed dedicated packers which was not a category we fell into and I found any excuse to do anything else. Mostly this involved drinking tea and eating wedding cake while playing settlers of catan with mum. However on other occasions it involved creating more mess attempting a fondue in our little kitchen with 9 people. Brett was told he wasnt hot, Dean threw 30 seconds cards in frustration while Joe killed us with his general knowledge, Neil and Deanne looked at us like we had lost the plot, Ben asked awkward questions and Gwen kept us in fits of laughter.
Gwen treated us to a sunset cheese and wine event located on the side stop street half way down boundary road in the pumpkin car... epic!
After a braai a few days later glow sticks were let loose on the gang and we followed the natural progression of a Friday night and..... broke into a golf course. As if that was not enough we cut the glow sticks and covered the balls, the green and, by the end, ourselves in blue and green glowy goo.

Well done you lot, top marks for being game for such nonsense :)

The Start of it all...

Step 1:
Tie a knot... for the second time... just to make sure ;)
We got to see most of the special people in our lives and share a most fantastic day with them!!






Step 2:

Take time to pack up and plan the next step by calmly googling options....oops i mean accidentally buy a caravan online... Lying in bed browsing ebay one night for types of caravans available and what we should expect to pay for what we want, we came across one thats caught up in a bidding war...30 bids in but hours to go to the end of the auction, we recon its going way too cheap for the bidding to be done...sooo all those hours on ebay without placing a bid can be frustrating and we increased the bid by $25 giggling to ourselves how silly we were. Waking up in the morning i had already forgotten and James casually downloaded his emails... what do you know we won the bid and we now owned a caravan. The previous owner wanted to know when we would be picking it up and all we could do was look at each other realising we were half a world away from the country town where the caravan is, without anything to put it...we had accidentally bought something we hadn't even seen!!!