Tranquillity in the Mountains
Trip Start
Apr 30, 2007
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27
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Trip End
Nov 29, 2008
Brookfield, Brisbane,
Australia
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
I trust you are all well, wrapped up in your scarves and gloves back at home.. it's currently 35 degree's here and I actually find myself thinking about being at home in the cold. It's hot hot hot and getting hotter by the moment. I actually don't know how I will cope over the summer here... I think I may melt.
So last weekend (07 December - 10 December) Christine McDermott at work, asked me if I would like to join her and her husband for a weekend away from city life. Chris and Max have spent two years house-sitting for people who have houses in other parts of Australia/the world or for people who are on a long vacation. The longest they have house sat for is 3 and a half months. They only do it around Brisbane as they both work in the city but have already seen and lived in very different houses
Katie's Pad, where i am staying 4 xmas
. Some are huge mansions, some are small cottage's, some are very old and some are very new! They love it. They used to own a huge house in the bush with 12 acres of land, which was great when they had children but proved to be too much work for them as they got older and so decided to sell it, invest in an old bus (which they are currently stripping and making into a campervan), and take up the hobby of house-sitting. Chris and Max don't get paid for it, which was their choice, they just enjoy moving from pillar to post and seeing how other people live. Upper Brookfield is 20 minutes inland (in the bush) from Brisbane and yet it couldn't be any different. I actually felt like I was in Arizona! The flora and fauna is unreal considering Queensland are really suffering with a serious drought. All houses are equipped with a septic tank, therefore, no bath's or 20 minute showers, instead quick washes and re-use the water to water the flowers!! None of the doors have locks on them and there isn't another neighbour for at least a couple of acres!! The houses are numbered according to how far from the main highway you are. So if you're number 36, then you are 3.6 kilometres from the highway. Pretty clever I thought. The letter boxes (well tin boxes with a number painted on the side) are grouped together at the bottom of each hill so the delivery guy doesn't have to cycle for miles into the hills everyday, although he/she must be pretty fit to be fair
Katie's Pad, where i am staying 4 xmas
. They made me laugh, proper bogan style.The house we were staying in was all one level, with a car port under and a swimming pool to the side. Unfortunately the pool had been neglected and had therefore gone green with the algae that had started to grow at the bottom. Max spent the whole weekend making chemical cocktails and adding them to the water, by Monday morning it was looking like an actual pool rather than a swamp. They have a little out shed which homes 4 chickens or 'chooks' as the Aussie's like to call them and a kiddies swing down in the lower garden.
The house is wooden and had been extended to the rear, making the lounge/dining room a really good size. It had a veranda and a balcony off the main bedroom. The children's bedroom was in between the main bedroom and the study, it didn't have a door, they seem to be sleeping in an alcove if you know what I mean.. and yet there are two other rooms that they use as a study and a laundry room. Strange I though. Son and daughter sleep in an alcove, together. Anyway, my room was pretty small, backing onto the veranda, with a small wooden four poster bed and a dressing table. After a full inspection by Chris to make sure there wasn't any 8 legged unwanted visitors, I moved my stuff in and got myself comfortable! That's one of the downside's to being in the bush.
Letter boxes
. the rainforest homes many animals, including huntsman spiders. Chris managed to find a Huntsman in her room on the Friday night.. I sh!t you not.. it was the size of a dinner plate!!! I have never been so scared in all my life. Funnily enough I didn't get a photo.. I was too scared to go anywhere near it. Needless to say, I didn't sleep all that well all weekend. I had a four poster bed with a cream cover over, so I could just imagine waking up and seeing a huge shadow from a Huntsman over my head.. all of a sudden the film Arachnophobia was playing over and over in my mind. I am such a wimp I know.. but if you actually saw the size of that thing, you would of been as well. I'm talking dinner plate size.. it's body was relatively small but it's legs went on for miles and miles!!!
So after all of that, Max got me a stiff drink to settle my nerves and we sat on the veranda and watched the sun go down. I hadn't met Max before so we had loads to chat about.. although as you all know, it's a very rare moment that I have nothing to say. Chris made a lovely dinner and we sat and watched some TV before heading off to bed for an early night.
On Saturday morning, after a lovely morning tea and cheese and biscuits, Max took me out on his trike for a ride around the hills
My Room
. It was so much fun. They have microphone's in their helmets so we can chat and also connect your ipod!! We spent about half an hour driving around, the tree's seem to touch the clouds, the hills go on for miles and miles and there seems to be horses everywhere!! We stopped along the way as we thought we spotted some deer in the bush, turned out to be a lama farm. A bit further down the road was an Emu farm as well, although we didn't stop to take pics of them, they can be viscous and they run pretty fast!!
Sunday I went with Chris and Max for a barbeque with their biker friends! They had taken part in a 'toy run' which is where they all take toys, parade along the road with other bikers and give toys to a children's home/hospital. People stand on the side of the road and give the bikers more toys to take with them. It all sounded really emotional actually, people were cheering along side the road and were saying "thank you" as they passed, some were even in tears. They had all decorated their bikes with tinsel and stuffed Santa's, they looked pretty good coming down the road, all glistening in the sun.
After the barbeque we headed over to see the bus
The Chooks
! Chris & Max brought an old bus two years ago and have been spending odd weekends stripping it ready to turn it into a campervan. It's taken them two years to get all the old paint off and put new paint on, seal up all the windows, take out all the seats and put in a new floor. They have also built a room for the toilet and sink and another room for a shower cubicle. Then behind these rooms will be the bedroom area and a ramp at the back for the trike. The front wheel of the trike sits under the bed so Max has spent time making a frame for the bed with enough room for the trike wheel and 15 drawers to go underneath! It's hard to explain but you can kind of see from the pics what I am on about! Then at the front will be a kitchen area, a pantry and a lounge area. It's all marked out on the floor where it will all come out to and although it sounds like a lot will be crammed in.. it looks like it's going to be really spacious. They have brought lazy boy style seats for up front so they can relax as they drive the millions of miles across the country and a flat screen TV which will be put on the wall. They've even got a washer/dryer to put in! It's really exciting for them and to see it is to believe it. They have done a brilliant job so far and I've asked them to keep me updated on it! They are aiming to have it completed by 2010.. then they can come over to England in it for you all to see!!After taking pics of the bus and getting bit by green ants we headed to Chris & Max's granddaughter's 2nd birthday party
View from the veranda
. There were 20 kids there from newborn to 7 years old. Thankfully Max had a problem with his ipod so I spent most of my time on the computer in the office.. away from the kids!! This was meant to be a relaxing weekend after all!! We were only there for an hour or so.. another barbeque later and a bit of birthday cake and were back on the road and heading back into the mountains.Monday morning seemed to come around so quickly, Chris woke me up at 6am.. I wasn't so pleased about it. I had enough time to brush my teeth and chuck on some clothes then out the door and off to work. I was at work by 6.45am.. that's not right surely! I went into the carer's room, which has a sofa in it and went to sleep for an hour. Then I got up and started work. I left at 2pm as I was finally having my hair done!! The last time I had highlights put in was back in September when Audrey got here, she used me as a model for a job interview.. which was sweet. A full head of highlights and a hair cut all for free!! This time I had to pay though, although not that much to be fair, managed to find somewhere relatively cheap. Really pleased with my new barnett although it's not as good as it would of been if you had done it Cheese!!!! I miss having nice things.. nice hair, nice clothes, waxed eyebrows. Being a backpacker sucks big time.
Oh well only 10 weeks left in Australia.
View from the veranda
. I'm actually quite sad about that point. I miss you all so much and want to come home to see you all but life out here is sooo different and I know I will miss it when I get home.
Oh well, off to see The Gossip tomorrow.. that should be interesting!!
Love you all
Keli xxxxxxxxx
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P.s. Forgot to add the pics from Google earth of where I am staying over Christmas and New Years.. this is Katie's new pad in Coogee, which is just outside Sydney near Bondi Beach. Looks nice doesn't it?!
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