Kangaroos and Koalas

It is amazing how quickly the three weeks with my parents have passed. We had a wonderful time and while Karlheinz worked away at our little neglected garden, mum and I went to see the Koalas and Roos in Lone Pine. They are so cute!!!
We had great fun watching the Koalas eat and sleep (that is all they seem to do in life) and run after Kangaroos pretending we have food for them. The little Wallabies seem a bit friendlier than the big ones! Even after 5 months in Australia I still laugh out loud when I see them skip along! What a fantastic country!

Quality time with my parents

My parents are visiting at the moment and I can finally do all the sightseeing things I have been wanting to do with them. We found a nice apartment on the 11th floor in Broadbeach on the Goldcoast where we now all get to enjoy some beautiful autumn days with blue skies and endless beaches. Bliss! This is the view from their balcony. I could sit there for hours and listen to the waves...



Last Monday we celebrated my dad's 70th birthday! Wow! I cannot believe he really hit the 70 mark but he keeps assuring me it is true. We took them to the Outback Spectacular Show for some true Oz spirit. It was great fun.



Craig had to participate in one of the silly competitions and was running through the arena is a little boat with a few other lucky winners. God we laughed so much! It looked so silly! Thankfully the competing team had a little accident and his boat won! HURRAH!



Afterwards we went to a cocktail bar for mojitos. I don't know a lot of people who celebrate into their 70th in a trendy cocktail bar, am very proud of my dad!

Next Sunday my parents will come over to ours and stay with us for a week. Karlheinz has got quite a few projects for garden landscaping and my mum is on a mission to teach me a thing or two about baking. Hee hee. Excellent.

Oh yes and inbetween Craig is working in Canberra and I am doing job interview after job interview so its not all fun and games, in case you were getting too jealous!

One week in Melbourne

I just came back from a wonderfully exciting week in beautiful Melbourne in the far South of Australia. What an amazingly European-style city, full of people from all over the world, zillions of students and foreign travellers, museums and parks and galleries and little boutique shops everywhere, sunny squares and modern architecture, sculptures on every corner, big impressive facades and churches and a big river running through the middle of it and so much to do!



The famous International Melbourne Comedy Festival was on and we saw a couple of very good comedians and giggled lots. I especially like Stephen K. Amos from the UK. I always wish I could remember more of their jokes to use them myself but… it does not seem possible!


We stayed with Craig’s friend Leisa in her lovely house in Carlton which is very close to town. While Craig and Leisa were working hard all day I explored the city, visited the Melbourne Museum and the National Art Gallery, the Aboriginal Art Museum, the State Library (see picture) and of course some of the spectacular shopping districts. Many people have warned me that the shopping in Melbourne is outstanding and I have to say I was really really impressed. There are so many small local labels with really different approaches to fashion and materials, I loved it! There are shops with DJs doing their magic, shops with graffitied walls, shops with a bar in them, anything! I am very proud to confirm that I have resisted buying any shoes or fancy clothes (apart from a fleece and some socks cause it is freezing 15C only and we got here with a subtropical Queensland wardrobe!) and vowed to come back once I have received my first pay check!
Well. As you can see I had a wonderful week of me time and am very very happy.



This morning Craig flew back to Canberra for work and I flew back to Brisbane. There is quite a bit of work to do in the house before my parents arrive on Friday. At the moment our spare room is so crammed with boxes and other stuff that I cannot even pull out the sofabed!

Family reunion in Nanango

On Easter Sunday we drove two hours north west to a place called Nanango to join a family reunion of the Hunters. This is Craig's mother's mother's side of the family. Thankfully Craigs brother and wife and two sons as well as Joanna and her man Kane came along and we managed to find a bottle shop and had a really fun day!
There is even a street named after the Millis Clan, how cool is that!?!?!? As you can see I was not allowed to be in the picture yet... Grin.


We all had dinner at Rob and Jackies place in the evening and played with the puppies. They are so cute at 6 weeks. I wish we could have one!

Easter in Oz

We went for a lovely walk on Good Friday and explored some of the local rainforest! It was a wonderful day and I can honestly say I have never seen so many spiders in one day!!! And we even saw one little snake! Craig's jump was quite impressive!

another addition to the Dobell palace

Here I am, sitting under the new lovely pergola doing Chinese homework and keeping an eye on the job market. Yesterday I spent most of the day at the immigration office and FINALLY got my work permit! I am so so proud and really looking forward to getting back into a normal life. Not quite sure what I want to do workwise but I am waiting for the inspiration! Unfortunately, there are quite a few credit card bills to pay off as you can imagine!

this is what the back of the house looked like when we moved in. Very exposed indeed and unbearably hot in the day.


This week James built this lovely pergola where I can sit comfortably in the shade, listening to all the birds outside and enjoying the fresh air without worrying about getting another step closer to skin cancer. Perfect!

Fortunately it has cooled down a lot this week and we are somewhere in the mid twenties most of the day and had temperatures as low as 15C in the night!
I might get to wear all those jackets and boots I own in the end...

Before and after

the day has come for me to show off the result of all our hard work in Dobell Palace. As you can see we have managed to make quite some improvements on the house.


I absolutely LOVE the new kitchen! What an improvement from the old one, it is unbelievable! No more lime green, no more disintegrating plywood and dripping taps, everything clean and white and solid.
Thank God for Ikea! We now have plenty of storage for all our kitchen things and I really enjoy cooking in it, which makes Craig think the kitchen was a good investment after all :-)))

Here the lovely lime green old bathroom with tasteful brass and way too many flowery tiles...


and this is what it looks like now!!! Very sexy indeed if you ask me. The room feels so much bigger and brighter - Am loving it!

It is quite a sad day today as Craig had to go back to work and caught a flight down to Canberra very early this morning, not a happy bunny! He has been off work for 15 months and we do know how lucky we are to have pulled this off but it is hard to go back to the old work life. And wo weird to be apart again all week. What am I going to do with myself?!?!?! Well, I have started looking at the job market as well since I am expecting my work permit to come through in March. Wish me luck!