To buy or to build

When we arrived we thought we would probably buy a house and so have set about seeing houses that vaguely meet our criteria:
- Strong, secure roof (an unfounded residual concern leftover from Rarotonga where some houses had there roofs held on with ropes over the top of the house secured as you would a tent!)
- 2 good sized bedrooms, the main with ensuite
- Study
- Decent sized living area
- Water-hole or bore-hole (remember the drought – how else will we water the veggies). Water-holes are quite common on rural properties here, but not all of them now have water
- Workshop with power for J’s woodworkCar port/garage

We also thought we should consider exposure to the elements. Tasmania is renowned for the wind, called the ‘Roaring 40s’ that blows in Sept/Oct. The channel, or western shores, where we would like to live are also very hilly and some houses don’t get any sun at all in the winter and we don’t want that. So we have now looked 4 houses in the following order:

189 Watsons Road, Kettering
Watsons Road is the most beautiful and picturesque road we have seen and we would love to buy a house on it. The view from the house and the outside of the house are beautiful, but inside the house is a mish mash of rooms around a central staircase. We’ve seen this house 3 times and discussed buying it, but the layout of the house was too much of a compromise. If they’ll just drop the price by $200K and we can knock it down and build the house we really we want!
We took this decision after I took Rowan the builder to look at the house, but more of Rowan later….

http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=o&id=104921447&f=0&p=10&t=res&ty=&fmt=&header=&cc=&c=34069298&s=tas&snf=ras-hob&tm=1225243242

Presenting a house for sale is not a concept many Tasmanians grasp. This is the ‘craft room’!!!! The House Doctor would have had a field day!

40 Old Bernies Road, Margate

Beautifully renovated, but small. The owners are moving interstate and we could have had the 3 sheep and 4 chickens at no extra cost. OK, this almost swayed me!!!!



http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=o&id=105191327&f=0&p=10&t=res&ty=&fmt=&header=&cc=&c=6017626&s=tas&snf=ras-hob&tm=1225243615

Manuka Road, Kettering
We both really liked the potential this house has. It’s on 5 acres and although there are other houses around it’s completely private and it has a view of the ocean! But it’s in a rain shadow which means that the ground is already dry and we both believe the drought will get worse over time. Add to this that all the properties we are looking at are not on town water which means that all the water you use is rain water that you collect in tanks. So you see being in rain shadow is not a good idea. If it hadn’t been I would have bought this property – I think we could have been really happy here.


http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=o&id=105120880&f=0&p=10&t=res&ty=&fmt=&header=&cc=&c=34069298&s=tas&snf=ras-hob&tm=1225243242

48 Jamiesons Road, Margate
Really above our budget, but this is definitely a buyers market. The view was absolutely amazing, the house was dated, but just needed a little TLC. BUT you could hear the road noise from the road below. This is the main road for this area and is well used and we didn’t move to Australia to live on a main road so this one strikes out.


http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=o&id=105260872&f=0&p=10&t=res&ty=&fmt=&header=&cc=&c=6017626&s=tas&snf=ras-hob&tm=1225243615

Bob the builder
(OK, he’s name’s actually Rowan, but Bob sounds better!!!)

I met Rowan at the Watsons Road house and after our discussion J and I decided not to put in an offer. Rowan builds houses and took me to 2 of the houses he has built and they’re amazing. They’re eco homes – properly insulated (some houses aren’t insulated at all), double glazed (really rare here), solar hot water heating, the sewerage system (yep – no town water, no town sewerage) works in a way that means you can water the garden with the output, which is amazing. The houses are completely solar passive, so you don’t really need heating or air conditioning at all. Of course they are more expensive to build, but really cheap to run. Sooooo, on Saturday I took J to meet Rowan and to see one of his houses and he’s hooked and although we are still interested in looking at houses our discussions lean towards when we build rather than when we buy. So I’ve been looking at plots and here are is our top choice, I’ll take Rowan to see what he thinks:

159 Woodbridge Hill Road
1.75 acres of slightly sloping block with an amazing sea view. The only problem is there is electric power lines to the house behind that dissect the plot, but after speaking to the owner they are moving the power lines and this would be included in the contract of sale.


http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=o&id=2539780&f=0&p=10&t=lan&ty=&fmt=&header=&cc=&c=92070420&s=tas&snf=ras-hob&tm=1225241730

By the way it’s easy to tell here where a house or plot of land is on a road. If it’s on the right hand side it will have an even number and on the left it will have an odd number. The number itself denotes how far up the road it is, so 159 is on the left 1.59km up the road – simple!

To give you an idea of what we might build (only smaller!), here’s a house Rowan has built that is for sale.




God, I love this kitchen. Less of an island unit, more of a continent!!!

http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=o&id=104934613&f=0&p=10&t=res&ty=&fmt=&header=&cc=&c=80944519&s=tas&snf=ras-hob&tm=1225244681

My daily routine

We’ve been in our rented house in Kingston now for a few weeks and are settling into a routine. We get up and have breakfast and then I chauffeur J to work. This is a 15 minute drive, part of which is down a long sweeping hill which affords us an amazing view of the yachts in the harbour just outside Hobart. So beautiful when the sun is glistening on the water. That’s the main difference between the weather here and in the UK, although it’s spring and the temperatures can be cool the days are mainly clear and sunny – brill.
Anyway, I drop J off to work then drive the 15 minutes back to Kingston up the dual carriageway, or slightly longer if I take the coast road, and stop off at the beach to take Tasha for a walk. Dog walking is quite regulated here. There are only certain places that you can take dogs for a walk other than on the street and most of these you have to walk the dogs on the lead. The beach at Kingston is an amazing place for dogs. There are loads of them and they all run around like mad things playing with each other. All of them, that is, except Tasha. Never hugely social with other dogs whilst Molly was alive, Tasha is now reticent to go near any dog that isn’t a Jack Russell (she loves them – just wants to play!). Some days I have to practically drag her onto the beach. The dilemma is do I just walk her on the lead or force her onto the beach and mix with other dogs – all advice welcome……
After the beach I set about my chores for the day. These obviously include the usual of course – washing up, clothes washing etc, job applications, looking at houses and/or plots of land to buy, time at the on-line centre at the library (we will have broadband at home one day!!!) before I set off to pick up J at the end of the day. In reality I spend far too long driving about looking at potential places to live, but it is such fun……

Two go mad in Bruny

One of the reasons we moved to Hobart was the easy access to the countryside. So our aim is take a trip every Sunday, or at least every other Sunday and enjoy all that Tassie has to offer. So last Sunday we took the car on the ferry over to Bruny Island.
Up quite early to catch the 9.30am ferry only to find a long queue of cars and commercials in front of us. Fortunately we were the penultimate vehicle allowed on, followed by a girl who had driven 2 hours to catch this particular ferry crossing. She looked particularly relieved, as the next ferry involved a wait of an hour and a half.
We stopped at the Bruny Island Cheese Company shortly after unloading to grab a coffee, and were easily persuaded into cheese tasting followed, obviously, by cheese purchasing.

Enjoyed scoffing our picnic lunch sat on the beach listening to the surf and sea-birds, and then took our time to motor around some more of the island. We vowed that we would come back and camp so that we had more time to explore, including an overnight observation of the Fairy penguins.

(see http://www.brunyisland.org.au/attractions/details.php?product_id=9036603)

Long nose and noisy come home!

We were both really excited as we drove to the airport to pick up Tasha and Smoke and there they were, both in cages loaded on the back of a trolley. Smoke started meowing when he saw us and Tasha stopped shaking. She was so thin, not as thin as when we’d first got her, but she’d lost a lot of weight and had found quarantine distressing as we feared she would. At that moment I thought we’d done the wrong thing bringing her here.

On the way home we stopped at a beach to give Tasha a walk and although she didn’t run with joy she was clearly happy. Whether it was to see us or just to be free we weren’t sure. On arrival at home Tasha went straight to sleep and Smoke explored the whole house, every nook and cranny in a way that only a cat knows how.

It is now a week later and they have both settled in. Smoke is still clingy and wants to be with us wherever we are, but has at least stopped howling outside our bedroom door at night, thank god! We did let him in one night, but he spent the time stomping all over us or meowing at my head. As you can imagine the next night Smoke was firmly located on the other side of a closed bedroom door!

Tasha is her old self, as mad as a hatter, asking every morning for a walk, letting us know when she wants something and asking to sit on the sofa with us - OK, we’re softies! She is gradually gaining weight and I know we did the right thing bringing her rather than re-homing her.

As I type this the sun is streaming through the window behind me and Smoke is asleep beside me, where else but in the sun. I know that if I sit here long enough Tasha will join us, although 3 of us on the sofa can get a little busy – Tasha wiggles!

Mystery of the dead scorpion

Why we ask ourselves is there a dead scorpion in one of the wardrobes of our new rental house? More worrying is that when I mention it to locals that stock response is: -

‘It’s only a little one isn’t it?’ Followed by
‘They won’t kill you’

Both of these were said with a slightly bemused look on the speakers’ face! Needless to say we haven’t seen one, alive or dead, since.

Fran at the Oyster Cove Chalet

We stayed at the Oyster Cove Chalet for 2 weeks when we first arrived and Fran was our host. It’s a beautiful location. At breakfast we would look down the lawn and see the Cockatoos waiting to be fed or the so called “Turbo Chooks” running around with their babies. I don’t know what Turbo Chooks are actually called, but they’ve got really long legs and could challenge Usain Bolt at the 100m.

Fran is an amazing woman, really friendly and kind. Originally from Adelaide, she moved here 8 years ago with her partner Gary and they set up the business 5 years later. Fran has been showing me the ropes and has introduced me to the fact that it’s not what you know, but who you. The prices in shops are just a guideline if you know the right people. Shopping with Fran can be $100 cheaper than if I had shopped by myself. When we come to buy a TV, or spare bed (so you’ll have somewhere to sleep when you come and stay) Fran will come shopping with me.

Men at work

Just a note to say that we will be posting new content any day now - have been having issues with internet access.

Note: posting title is for those that remember the rather sad record called 'Land down under' by Men at work.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Intuitively we have complied with Maslow's theory and focused our immediate effort on the 'physiological' and 'safety' aspects of life, e.g. food, water, sleep, employment etc.
We already had a limited period of self-catering accomodation and hire car booked before we arrived, but we have spent a lot of time over the past week in finding and securing a house to rent (that accepts pets), and buying a secondhand car. We found that we were short of the usually expected identification, e.g. previous Oz utility bills; Oz drivers licence; etc but have managed to bluff our way through this. What also helped enormously is an offer of employment for me (J) following a third and final interview with the CEO of Etech Group www.etechgroup.com.au. I start work on Friday 3rd - gulp.
This certainly will help offset the financial haemorrhage that appears to accompany the process of emigration to, and set up in, another continent. The spreadsheet-based budget is a constantly evolving picture at this stage!

We have taken a little time to drive around the environs of Hobart and, once we have proper internet connectivity (rather than snatched time in cafes), we will post some more pictures. Here's one of the esplanade at Margate to keep you going - bit too expensive here for a house though!