OUR NEW HOUSE

We finally have ourselves a quarter, so as from tomorrow we can unpack our suitcases and get settled. We are really pleased with the place. It is a 1 year old detatched bungalow and has had only one previous tenant. It has four bedrooms, a family lounge and dining area and a formal lounge and dining area. Our bedroom is en-suite and we have a big laundry room. We also have a double garage which will be great for all the boxes of freight we will shortly be getting.





Had a scout round yesterday and found one or two Red Back spider webs. The kids are fully clued up as to what to look for and will report them to me and I will report them to Steph who will deal with them!!!!! I think we get most types of "Nasty" out here and I think with common sense you can avoid any unnecessary aggro. We also get one or two nasty snakes. We are situated out in the suberbs, but according to the neighbours they are very rarely seen.




We have bought ourselves a load of stuff and we will publish more piccies once we have settled in. We are really chuffed with the way things have gone so far. I am looking forward to starting work again, but that probably won't be until the end of March.

THE GOUGH MOBILE.....!

We got in touch with Mike and Lisa in Adelaide and asked Mike to find us a car. He had just the car sitting on his forecourt and duly had it freighted from Adelaide to Canberra. We picked it up on Thursday and we are really pleased with it - it is exactly what we wanted. THANKS MIKE!!

It is a Toyota Tarago and has eight seats - plenty of room for the "Rellies" when they come and visit!! It is an automatic and has a shift lever on the steering column and a handbrake that is operated by your foot .....shouldn't it be a "foot-brake" then??????? Steph has had some practice driving it and is getting used to it. The big test will be the drive to Adelaide (14-16 hour drive apparently - just a trip to the shops for the average Aussie!!!!). We will be sharing the driving.

WE MADE IT.....!

We arrived in Sydney in the morning and had two hours to get through Immigration and Customs and get to our connecting flight to Canberra. There was a big long queue at Immigration, but that went without a hitch. You must declare food, wooden items and jewellery over a certain value, so we headed for the "Something to Declare" lane, which was very very long. On our last day in Gosport we had a few items left over i.e. wooden spoon, oven glove, tin of dog food etc. and Steph chucked them into a suitcase. She had to pay duty on her jewellery (as she was planning to sell it) that she was carrying and she was being dealt with at another counter. The Customs officer was happy with the food items we had brought with us, but he wanted to see the dog food. I asked her which bag it was in - she said "one of those 16!!!!". We got the keys, and started opening, thankfully the tin was in the first bag we opened! They had to confiscate it with a snide remark along the lines of "you can buy dog food here you know!!!". Anyway, that behind us, we made it to our connecting flight and, as it was only a small propeller plane, it didn't fly very high so we had beautiful views of the hills, valleys, towns etc.

We were met by Craig, Nadine and Kel who shared our bags between them and took us to The Griffin Hotel in Canberra. Craig later took us on a drive to the look out point where you can see the entire city (see above). It was a beautiful view. We are very impressed with the layout of Canberra, the roads are great and the traffic is very quiet, even in rush hour. It is hard to believe this is the Capital City.

One down side we have come across here is the flies. When we came out of the airport they were flying all round your face, in your ears etc. Paul thought maybe we'd landed in Africa!!!

The next day we were made very welcome at Craig and Nadine's house. They held a barbeque for us (our first Aussie one!!!) and we met a lot of people who Paul will be working with. We all had a great time, and we made it to 10 p.m. before feeling the jet lag set in.

Many thanks to Craig, Nadine and Kel for the warm welcome we received and for all their assistance in helping us to settle in and get all the necessities/administration sorted out.

ON-ROUTE VIA KUALA LUMPUR

Had a fairly good flight to Malaysia, the seats and entertainment were excellent, but very disappointed with the Business Class service on this leg of our journey. The boys only had a couple of bread rolls to eat as they'd run out of the main meal they wanted, and there was no deserts left!! However, The Regent Hotel in KL was amazing. We had two fantastic adjoining rooms and the food and service was stunning. Breakfasts were great, although we couldn't get our head round Benjamin having Chicken Curry and Rice for breakfast two days running!!


Unfortuntately, the weather wasn't really up to sight-seeing as it was rainy season and it poured most of the time. We did get to the towers (above) but didn't make it up them because they had run out of tickets for that day. So the high up view is from our hotel room (17th Floor) and not the towers!!

We weren't up to sight-seeing either to be honest. We were all suffering from jet-lag and on the first morning we told the boys we must try to get through to at least 8 p.m. before going to be and there was to be absolutely no cat-napping. About a hour later the boys came into our room and found us both tucked up in bed....we stayed there until about tea-time!! They soon followed suit!

Got picked up, not by the transport that they Australian High Commission had arranged, but by a mini-bus. The car they had arranged was just a "bog-standard" car and wouldn't hold much more than 2 large suitcases in the boot - let alone the 16 bags/cases we had with us!!!!! But we got to the airport in plenty of time and checked in, then we went to the Golden Club lounge and enjoyed the food and service that was there. The flight to Sydney was excellent, the service was brilliant and we were all well fed and watered. Completely different from the first leg of the journey.