Our First Week in Hervey Bay: November 5 - 12

Thursday, November 5, 2009

We touched down on the runway at about 5:30pm tonight in Hervey Bay. We were disappointed to learn that no-one from the hostel would be able to come and pick us up (we were told that we would be picked up as we had booked for two weeks, but the young girl at reception told us that she was the only one there and couldn’t leave), so we took a shuttle to The Friendly Hostel.

We had stayed here last December when we had come here to check out if Mike could handle the heat of summer (he could) and loved this little place. The ad on the internet said if you like to party, don’t come - and it was right - everyone was so nice who stayed here last time and they were also very quiet. That’s why we decided to stay here again.

We were really pleased to be assigned the same room as last time, too. We knew that we would get a good cross breeze in this room, so we really wanted to stay in it. After dumping our suitcases and changing out of our good clothes (you have to dress up when you are flying on an employee pass on Qantas), we walked to our local small supermarket to buy something for supper. We bought meat pies (what else :-) and baked beans and passion fruit pop. It was delicious.

We spent the rest of the evening in front of the tv. We were really tired from the travelling (and having to spend three hours in the Brisbane airport in between flights) so we just wanted to veg for the evening. Our ‘apartment’ is made up of three bedrooms and they are full up. We said ‘hi’ and chatted a little with some German girls (a lot of German kids travel around Australia) and there are also a couple of guys in the same room as they are - 4 single beds to a room. The other room also has a king bed in it (two singles put together) and there is a woman in it - we don’t know if there’s anyone with her. People who stay in hostels are usually really friendly which is nice.

Friday, November 6, 2009

This morning we walked to McDonald’s - we didn’t have any food as of yet and so we thought we would go there to get some breakfast and also to check out our emails as they have free wireless internet access there. We spent a couple of hours between the two of us (but, it was mostly me :-) and it was nice to get a little bit more caught up with emails to family and friends. They are trying to get the wireless system reworking again at the hostel, but they have yet to fix it.

After eating and emailing, it was time to do some shopping. Mike wanted to get some new running shoes and I wanted to get some capris. Both of us were successful after a couple of tries. We then went to the bus stop to try and get a bus pass for the week, but the bus pass machine wasn’t working on the bus we had to take to the grocery store. The bus driver was sweet and gave us a free ride.

When we got to the mall which had the grocery store in it, we noticed that there was a Medicare centre there so we stopped there first. We wanted to find out what we had to do to get Medicare so if we got sick or had to see a doctor, we were covered. It turns out that they want to know that we have moved to Australia rather than just visiting. We need to fill out a form and then provide them with documentation to prove we have moved here, like: closing out of a bank account, selling a house back in Canada, quitting a job back in Canada, getting hired here for a job. We will get all that stuff when we get back to Canada. Right now, the woman at the centre said to keep any of our receipts if we need to see a doctor and we will be reimbursed later.

Next on the list of our very exciting day :-) was a trip to Woolworth’s which is a grocery store here. We shopped for three days as we prefer to eat proper food rather than junk food. We picked up meat pies, pasta and rice packages, spaghetti and sauce, yogurt, fruit, milk, orange juice, lunch meat, cheese, bread and condiments. We are making up a menu for three days at a time as that is as much as we can keep in the fridge here as we have to share it with the others in our ‘apartment’ at the hostel.

After we were done at the grocery store, we thought we would try and take a bus to get us back to the hostel; however, we had too much stuff and so we got a taxi. It cost us $8.00 to go 2km - expensive for sure but we had no other choice at that point. Next time we go we won’t need to get as much and so we can walk home. We got staples like condiments and OJ and margerine, etc. and we won’t have to get those again while we are here, so it should be fairly easy to bring back what we need for three days.

By the time we got back to the hostel, it was 3:30pm and way past our lunch time. We could have eaten out, but we really didn’t want to so after putting away the groceries, we made ourselves a dagwood sandwich (meat, cheese, tomatoes, cucumber, and for me, beets) - it was very tasty!

We didn’t want to stay inside after eating so we decided to take a walk along the Esplanade (tons of shops and right across from the beach). We stopped at a few real estate places along the way to find out about houses they have for sale/rent. At one of the stops, we were given a newspaper that listed all the houses for sale in the area plus those who are having an open house tomorrow. After walking along one side of the Esplanade (the shops side), we crossed the road and walked down along the beach. It was so lovely to be walking beside the water (I am going to love this part of living in Hervey Bay! :-)

When we got home, we looked through the real estate newspaper and wrote down all the houses for sale that we want to look at and the ones we liked which have open houses tomorrow. Mike used the GPS to locate the houses on our map so that we could make a plan as to how we are going to get to each one tomorrow.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Whew! What a long day this has been. We were ready to go at 8am and collected some bikes/helmets from the fellow (Unrich) who works here - they are free for guests at the hostel, but you can only get them from 8am and have to have them back by 5:30pm as they are not equipped for night riding. We decided that since we hadn’t yet been able to rent a car that we would ride out to Eli Waters, where we were going to check out open houses and some new builders. The first hill was really hard for me and so I ended up walking up it, but I got better as the day went on. The bike was a 6 speed bike and so I was able to change gears when I needed to, to make it easier to pedal.

The first house that we were going to check out was on Bunya Ct., but as soon as I saw it and the area, I decided that I wasn’t interested in living there. It is in the older part of Eli Waters, we found out later, so we didn’t even stop for the open house. The second house was on Figbird Grove and, although it did have five bedrooms, there were issues with grout and carpeting that we wouldn’t have been interested in taking on. There was also no garage attached - it had a two car shed in the back, but that would mean we wouldn’t have been able to add another shed for Mike to work in.

The next house was on Endeavour Way and it’s a nice street with lots of lovely houses and the yards were well taken care of. The house itself was lovely, but the kitchen was way too small. I want lots of room to cook since I quite enjoy doing that - lots of cupboards and lots of counter space. One plus it did have was a lovely screened in patio which I would love to have.

The third house (on Dove Way) we looked at was really spacious - it had a lovely big living room, dining room area plus a nice kitchen and eating area. It only had three bedrooms (we are looking for four), but they were good sized rooms and we could easily put a mattress up in the dining room area if we needed to (if we had a lot of guests at once). It also had a detached garage and so there wouldn’t have been room for Mike’s shed.

We were so thirsty by this time that we stopped at a local shopping centre and went into Woolworth’s to get some water. We also decided that we should get some sunscreen since we were going to be out all day. I am really glad we did do that as we did have some sunburn on areas that we didn’t get enough sunscreen on and I would have hated to be burned like that all over.

Next, we checked out three builders. The first one was in an over 50’s gated community. The guy was a good salesman, but Mike and I both knew while he was talking that it wasn’t for us. First of all, you didn’t own the land. Second, you had to pay a weekly fee of $129 (they do things in weekly amounts here as opposed to monthly like in Canada) which goes up each year - it went up $4 per week this year. Third, the blocks of land they were built on were really small. Also, Mike would not have been able to put up a shed.

The second one (Villa World) sounded really amazing - great prices for what you got - we could have gotten a four bedroom, two bathroom, two car garage house for $300,000. Again though Mike would not have been able to erect a shed and the lot sizes were small. We don’t want a large amount of land, but we don’t want to feel like we are in our neighbours lap, either. Later on, we learned from the third builder (Coral Homes) that the Villa World homes are mostly purchased for investment purposes and then rented out by the owners. Apparently, according to this fellow, if you live in an area that is mostly inhabited by renters, you can get lots of problems.

So, it was a bit of a disappointing house hunting day overall, but at least we did learn some things. That’s the great thing about being able to be here - we can check out various things before we do any buying. Actually, after today’s venture, we are more likely going to rent for a bit - mostly cuz the Australian dollar is just too high right now, so we wouldn’t gain as much from our money as if we left it in the bank. Also, there is just nothing out there that we are interested in. I know that we will know the right house to buy when we see it and nothing has caught our eye just yet.

We were so sore from riding our bikes - bum, knees, legs - that we decided to head on home. It was a 5km trek back home and I made it all but the last half a kilometre. I just couldn’t pedal one more time. That wasn’t too bad, though, since by this time we had been out about 8 hours. What was cool was that it didn’t seem weird to be riding on the left hand side of the road - I was a bit worried about that and now I feel comfortable in doing so. The only hitch to today’s bike riding was that I failed in my first round-about. I thought that Mike was going to enter the round-about, but he stopped and I couldn’t stop in time so the front tire of my bike scraped his leg. I did, however, do really well in the other round-abouts we had to negotiate.

We decided to just relax for the rest of the evening. We did call Rob and Rosalea Woodcott, people from church, to set up a time for them to come and get us to take us to church tomorrow. They also invited us to dinner at the same time, so we will have a lovely home cooked meal tomorrow night. They were the couple who invited us to dinner last time we were here and they made us a full Christmas dinner.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Rob and Rosalea picked us up this morning at 8:20am and took us to church. As soon as we got there, people came up to us to greet us. The people in this ward are so friendly. Our meetings were great - just like everywhere else you go in the church. Rosalea taught the Sunday School lesson today on doing your genealogy and temple work. She started off the lesson with a little skit about an ancestor wanting her to do the temple work for them. It brought the message to life and that is what people will remember, I think. Relief Society was taught by the R.S. president and it was about how we can all make a difference in others’ lives - sometimes it only takes 5 minutes to make that difference.

We also got another invitation to dinner from another member in the ward which will likely happen next week. All three times we have attended this ward we have come away with dinner invitations. I miss Orangeville ward, but I think that Hervey Bay is going to help me with that. Another lady came up to me and said that she was so happy to have us here - she said that she remembered me saying two years ago that we were going to come and she was so happy to see that we had kept our word. She said that she likes it when people do that as she is so disappointed when people say they will do something and they don’t follow through. Other people in the ward came up during our time there and talked with us and are very happy that we are going to move into the ward. One lady even said that they needed more younger people in the ward - it was nice to be considered as young. :-)

After church, Rob had business to take care of and Rosalea had choir practice, so they arranged for another member, Julianne, to drive us home. That actually worked out well as they (Rob and Rosalea) had invited Julianne to dinner along with us and this way Julianne would know where to pick us up when it was that time. When we got home from church, we just hung out at the hostel looking at the real estate newspaper and doing menus and shopping lists for tomorrow.

Julianne picked us up right on time and took us out to Rob and Rosalea’s. They live out of town about 15 minutes from us on a large piece of land in a place called Booral. We would like to live out there, but because the land sizes are so large, they’re quite expensive to buy. Rob and Rosalea got an amazing price on their house because the house was in a state of disrepair. Rob is able to not to have to work and so he spends all his working hours fixing up the house. It’s a lovely large house and Rob has done quite a bit of work on it and it’s looking really nice. The two of them love to work outside as well and they have done a great job planting trees and gardens on the property. There’s been a big change since we were last here in December.

We were just about to sit down for dinner when they got a phone call and it was a young couple, Chris and Chris, who hadn’t been in the ward long and they were a bit lonely so Rosalea asked them to come to dinner as well. It was really nice meeting so many new people and being able to be in a more intimate setting than church so we really had a good time to get to know them over dinner (lasagna, salad, bread rolls and mud cake for dessert) and after dinner. We spent a good deal of time picking their brains about where to live - Chris (male) works for the local council and they have been working on a plan as to which of the areas would be affected by flooding and so he advised us not to buy in those areas. One of the worst to be hit would be Eli Waters which is where we have been looking, so we know that that area is now out.

Chris and Chris have a little granny flat and have said we can rent that out if we would like (even for just a couple of weeks right now and possibly after we come back in February). Julianne also offered the use of her car while she is at work every day. She would pick us up at the hostel, drive to her work, then we could have the car as long as we came back to pick her up at the end of her work day, and then she would drive us back to the hostel. We feel so blessed right now - things are really coming together for us. :-) We are going to see if Chris and Chris can rent their place out to us sooner and if we can get our money back for next week from the hostel (which we paid when we got here). If that works out we could save money and be in our own place. We do like the hostel, but it would be nice to be able to have a place by ourselves.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Caleb is two today, but because we are half way around the world, he actually doesn’t turn two until tomorrow here as we are 15 hours ahead of Toronto time. So we will call Caleb in our tomorrow morning to wish him a Happy Birthday. It’s hard to believe how fast the time has gone!

Today was a busy day and a lazy day if that’s possible. We started out the day deciding to go ahead and rent the granny flat from Chris and Chris, so we called them and asked them if we could move in on Thursday as that is when our week is up with the hostel. They said that should be fine and so we asked Anrich at the hostel if we could get a refund for one week and he said it should be no problem since we gave them more than 24 hours notice. We were so pleased about that since it will only cost $165 a week to stay at the granny flat compared to $300 a week to stay at the hostel.

Next on the list was a visit to a house that we really liked in the real estate newspaper - the real estate agent picked us up at the hostel to take us to see it. On the way, she found out we were from Canada and she commented to me that she wondered if that was why we looked so much younger than we actually were. She said my skin was not sun touched like many in Australia - she said exposure to the sun makes you look older. She asked me how old I was and said that I looked like I was 40. You should have seen the smile on my face. :-) The house is in Craignish which is out in the country and about 20 minutes from Hervey Bay. The houses out there are most often way out of our price range, but this one was just slightly above what we want to pay. I had a strong feeling that we should go and look at it and I can see why now that we have seen it. It’s on a block of land that is half an acre with four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a double car garage - and it has enough land to put on a 2 car colour bond shed for Mike. It’s only 3 years old (the house) and it’s really a nice lay out. There is carpet in the bedrooms, but the rest of the house has tile for flooring which I love. The tiles are an orange/rust colour which doesn’t show the dirt (which I also love). The kitchen cupboards are a brown colour (that I don’t love), but there are tons of them. There is also lots of counter space to prepare food on and a HUGE pantry. There is no separate lounge room which we would like, but the family room area is quite big. The only thing is that the price is higher than we wanted to pay ($369,000). But, the guy has had it on the market for 8 months and so he might be willing to go lower in price. Then again, he started at $389,000, then lowered it to $374,000 and then again this week to $369,000, so he might not be willing to go down to $350,000. Time will tell, I guess.

The next stop was to talk with someone about a mortgage and the real estate agent drove us to a bank so that we could do that. We gave the woman our information and she put it all through to the head office. She told us, though, that she can’t see any reason why it won’t be approved as it’s not a large mortgage and Mike is getting enough of a pension to cover the cost. Now we just have to decide if we are really going to put an offer in on the house in Craignish.

We spent some time walking along the Esplanade and went into a couple of real estate companies. We touched bases with a woman who we had talked with a couple of years ago and set up a couple of appointment for tomorrow to see houses that she has listed that fit our criteria. We also spoke with a couple of other agents at other companies, but nothing really popped up. It’s strange how there were tons of houses for sale here before we sold our house in Canada and now there are so few. Anyway, I have faith that we will find the house we are supposed to buy and things will go smoothly once that happens. Sometimes, though, it is hard to wait until that time.

The rest of the evening we spent relaxing. We had a delicious dinner of spaghetti which I can never get enough of. Then we just watched tv and vegged. I know we are going to be very busy running around tomorrow, so it was nice to just do nothing tonight.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

What a busy day it was today, but it was a really good one! First off, Julianne picked us up in her car, drove us to her shop and then let us have the car for the day. It was so great to have a vehicle to drive ourselves around in - and boy did we take advantage of it. We first went to Fantastic Furntiure and I can see why they call it that. We found some fantastic deals and I think we are going to buy most of our furniture (if not all) from there. We found a three seater couch and two lazy boy recliners; a bedroom suite (queen size bed, two night tables and a dresser) and a dining room suite (table and 6 chairs. They also sell mattresses there and there is a great sale on one right now which I wish I could buy, so hopefully they will have a similar one when we are ready to get one.

Next we went to a store called Good Guys which is electronics and appliances. Again we were able to find some good deals here and they will give you an even better deal if you pay them cash. This is where we will buy our fridge, washer, dryer, tv, computer monitor and a mini stereo system. The third store we went to was Big W which is kind of like Walmart. We checked out the cost of all the stuff you have to buy for each room in the house like dishes, pots, etc. for the kitchen; towels for the bathroom; sheets, blankets for the bedroom; broom, mop for the floors, etc. It’s going to be great to be able to do one stop shopping.

We also stopped at the Department of Motor Vehicles to see about getting a driver’s license for Queensland. We have to show three forms of identification plus a statement from a landlord saying we are renting from someone plus give them $75. to get our license. There might be one blip for me, though, as they want me to show an original of my Australian citizenship paper and it’s in Sydney. I am going to take a certified copy of it even though they say that’s not good enough - you never know - I mean I can’t get an Australian passport unless I am an Australian citizen so that should count. We’ll have to wait and see on Friday when we go back there.

We saw a couple of houses with the first real estate agent that we found way back two years ago. Neither of the ones that we saw were suitable. The first one was lived in by renters and they just don’t take good enough care of a house. That’s something we are going to have to keep an eye out for in the future when we are looking for a house.

After all that running around, we went back to pick up Julianne from work and then she drove us back to the hostel. We had another night of vegging as we were both tired from our day and in fact went to bed early.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Another busy day house hunting. We went back to Harcourt’s so that Virginia Porteous, our agent at that agency, could take us to see a house in Craignish. The house was made of wood and was a Queenslander (a house raised up on blocks) so right away I knew it was not going to be for us. The views were great and the land size was great and the huge three bay shed was great. But the house was very old and would take a lot of work to keep up. She also showed us another house in Point Vernon, but I didn’t like the layout of that one. The door leading to the garage was off the lounge room and they didn’t have a family room.

Next it was down the street to Elder’s Real Estate. It’s funny how things work here - when we went to an open house last Saturday, we happened upon a house that was being shown by Tom McLeod from Elder’s. While we were there, he took our information down and called us today to see if we were thinking of putting an offer in. We told him ’no’ to that house, but said we had some more we would like to look at that were being shown by someone in his office. When we got to the office, we realized that another agent who worked there, Terese Payne, had shown us a house that she had listed. So we were in a quandary about what to do. Another real estate agent from the office saw us outside and came to talk with us to see if he could help us. We told him our situation and he said that it didn’t matter who we went with as long as his company could help us. He said he would get Tom. When we went in, I saw Terese and told her the situation just so she didn’t think that we didn’t want to work with her. I felt bad, but it’s just the way it happened.

Anyway, as it turns out, Tom is a really hard worker and managed to get us in to see three houses, all of which we liked and which suited us based on what we want in a house. The first one we saw was in a place called Dundowran which is on the edge of town. It’s a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 car garage and has a 2 bay shed as well. I loved the floor plan a lot: it had a separate lounge room, four bedrooms, an office, a kitchen, dining room and family room. The laundry room was in the garage which I thought was odd, but I could live with that since I loved the layout of the rest of the house. Mike liked it all, too, but he really liked the two bay shed that he could use for his handyman business if he decides to take that up. The other two houses (one in Kawungan and one in Point Vernon) were pretty good but didn’t measure up to the one in Dundowran. Tom dropped us off at the hostel afterwards and said he would keep in touch about how things are going with those houses, especially the one in Dundowran.

After such a busy day, we decided to just relax for the evening. We made dinner and watched a bit of tv before we came in our room. I answered my emails and Mike fiddled on his phone - putting in all the agents’ phone numbers. It’s been a very busy week - it’s hard to believe that we have been here for 7 days already. We are still loving Hervey Bay - it was a balmy 25C here again today with a lovely afternoon breeze. Mike keeps telling me he is not leaving Hervey Bay. :-)

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Today we moved out of the hostel and into our little granny flat. Our friend, Julianne, let us use her car again and so it was easy to get all of our stuff out of the hostel (and we didn’t even have to pack it perfectly :-) and into the car and over to our new little home (at the back of Christine and Chris’ house). It’s really quite cute - it has a lounge room, kitchen/dining room, bedroom and bathroom. There is only a little fridge right now as they didn’t know that we were coming, but when they found out, they offered to rent it to us even though they needed to get a few more things for it. They don’t have a stove or a microwave, but they do have a two burner cook-top, so we are going to have to do all of our cooking on that for our meals.

Christine was really kind and made sure that we had all of the things we needed in the kitchen to cook and eat with as we had nothing. She also arranged for us to have towels, and bedding and borrowed a blow-up bed from Trudy (another member of our branch here) that we can use for the three weeks that we are here. There is a desk in the lounge room for us to put our laptop on so that we can type easily on it. There is a little table with chairs in the kitchen and Christine provided us with a tablecloth to put on it. We feel very blessed to be able to have a place of our own if only for the next three weeks.

After dropping our stuff off at the granny flat, we went grocery shopping. We couldn’t buy much for the fridge as it’s too small, but we were able to get a lot of canned and bottled stuff. There are only two major supermarkets in Australia, Coles and Woolworth’s, and a lot of Aussies think that they are in cahoots with each other. Their prices have gone up over 40% in the past 9 years. There is a store here called Aldi which we went to today as they have much cheaper prices on canned and bottled goods (I couldn’t believe the cost of those kinds of food at the two grocery stores). We did go to Coles afterwards to pick up some meat, milk, fresh fruit and vegs, and eggs (I wasn’t sure about buying these things at Aldi, but Christine said that they are okay there so in the future, I will spend more money at Aldi).

After dropping off Julianne’s car back at her work (she drove us back home), we decided to walk up to the local strip mall to see what was there, what they had to sell, and what the prices were like. There is a chemist, a bottle shop (like LCBO), a convenience store (very pricey), a bakery and a butcher (Australians still love their local butcher). While we were there, we got a call from a real estate agent saying that she had a house for us to see, so she picked us up at the mall. The house was only supposed to be about three years old, but it looked much older than that. We didn’t like it at all. Our agent dropped us off at home and then we decided to take a walk the other way from the first mall and ended up at a convenience store that had much better prices and also did take-away (take-out) food. We are definitely going to check out their meat pies and sausage rolls. :-) We are getting lots of walking in since we don’t have a car very often, but it’s great cuz my capris certainly are feeling looser these days. :-)

We ended up having a late supper today - we just got to doing things (emailing, playing cards, talking with Christine and Chris) and so we didn’t eat until almost 8pm. When you are on holidays, though, you can eat whenever you want. :-) We don’t have a tv here and when we were walking today, we talked about how we were going to miss that. The funny thing is that so far we really haven’t. After eating and doing up the dishes, we played some cards (cribbage) and then while Mike went on the computer to check out the Canadian/Australian exchange rate, I read some info on Hervey Bay that Christine gave us to check out. Now, it’s 10pm and we are tired, so we are heading off to bed (and we don’t even have to dream about lovely warm weather tomorrow because it will no doubt be a beautiful warm sunny day - I don’t think they make any other kind in Hervey Bay). :-)