Roof over our heads

Luckily enough we applied for a slightly bigger house and we got it! It is what is here known as a ‘unit’. That means that a block of land for normally 1 house is subdivided for 4 houses. Not a big block of land remaining but the house itself is impressive. Sparkling new and built to Ozzie spec: 2 bathrooms, 3 toilets, 2 lounges and 2 dinings, 3 bedrooms of which the master bedroom has a WIR (walk-in-robe: which is exactly what it is and really what we needed to store our 3 shirts and a pair of shorts and jeans each).
So what to do with all this space? Well that's easy: running around and playing hide and seek of course. All this after spending 3 months in the old teardrop of 2 square metres!!! We're going to rent this house for a year - the minimum term over here.
The house is at the base of the Dandenong Ranges in Ferntree Gully. Great view! So we can go bushwalking in the hills but also go into town easily as the trainstation is at walking distance. The villages in the hills are all a bit 'hippie and arty' style. So there are lots of things to do: fencing, yoga, meditation, country music, rock bands (a lot of live music performances), sculpting courses, painting etc.
Also, a fair bit of the automotive industry is based on this side of Melbourne so we can start looking for jobs now (oh bugger, do we really have to?). Our little airplane is based only half an hour from here at Lilydale airfield (they like to call it aerodrome but it's just a strip of grass for f..sake).
All our belongings (the lot - 2 folding chairs, a table, two pans, some plastic plates and cutlery) are somewhat lost in all this space. Time for some retail therapy. And within two weeks we are the proud owners of a matrass, bar stools (always wanted these), a dining table with 6 chairs and white leather sofas. In addition we proudly own real glass wine glasses and porcelain plates. Now waiting for the removal van with our stuff from the UK - expected in 2 weeks!

Race day

Flying back from Naracoorte took a bit longer, as we went for the coastal route, very pretty. Of course everyone knows that if flying to Naracoorte you take the coastal route on your way up and overfly the mountains on your way back: then you'll have a tailwind both ways instead of a headwind (twice, like us - yawn).
As we still don't have a house we book another campsite on Melbourne's Westside, so we are close to town for the F1 race. On Wednesday we meet up with Peter's (former) colleagues for dinner. They all fall asleep halfway through the meal jetlagged by the flight from England. Nice one!

Thursday we get the 'golden' telephone call: we can move into a rental house on Monday! We agree that that is enough reason to have a ball over the weekend.
Training, qualifying and race we watch sat on the grass with a nice chilled white wine. Just like real fans we have a ‘general admission’ ticket, no more grandstand for us. And of course we have to try all the foodstalls with healthy options as breakfast baps, fries/chips, bratwurst etc. And we also attend the Wolfmother concert, a famous Ozzie band.
For Peter it is all a new experience – although he instantaniously gets an adrenaline rush during the start. Straight after the race we went into the pits to the Renault team (they had arranged passes for us). It was good to see them all again and had a good meal prepared by the team-chefs! Eventhough the mood was a bit depressed; compared to last year the result was a bit disappointing.

That didn't keep the local skippies from hopping around though.....

As promised: Pictures!

The Giant Koala (it's for sale, by the way)
Overflying the Grampians

Geelong beach