So I know this blog is a month late, or I should say a month since the last one was written. I should have wrote this blog at least 2 weeks ago! Bad me! But the fact is I have been quite busy as we have already arrived back in British Columbia 2 weeks ago. It has been lovely being back with my family and friends again. I really did miss a whole bunch of dear peeps to me :)
Well I will finish the sage on our last two weeks in Oz. We left Brisbane on the 21st and camped one night near Coff's Harbor. We loved the campsite, the tenting area had a wonderful view of the beach. We arrived into Sydney in the late afternoon Sunday. Our lovely and hospitable sister hosted us at her flat for 2 nights. During that time we got info about closing our bank account and an inspection on our Mandy Mazada as we were about to start putting her up for sale. The mechanic told us the shocks were quite soft (we already knew that) and the transmission was pretty dodgy in the reverse gear. We learned it was something that has actually been quite common in that car model especially once the car reaches over 200,000 kms (ours was 215,000). That was just a little worrying to hear, as we wouldn't want to lie to our potential buyer, but we also still needed someone to buy it from us.
After two days with Cessi (Andreas sister), we went to our last house sit in Oz. We were watching 3 dogs and 2 cats for a very nice woman. The dogs were a mix of terrior and something else. The cats were a beautiful short-haired grey, it was a mother and son duo. They looked almost identical and were very friendly. We were so grateful to have a place to stay for our last 12 days in Sydney.
January 26th was Australia Day, so we went downtown and saw some cool jet show with parachuters drop out then unravel the aussie flag. There was a neat antique car show that Andreas really enjoyed and we also got some little flags and aussie tattoos.
We posted ads of our car up online, we also made signs for it that we taped to the back windows. We spent 3 different days driving downtown (which took at least 45 mins) to park on a popular street, where backpackers were selling their vans. However no one really showed much interest in either our car or any of the other vans. We also parked the car at the end of the street where we were staying with a big sign on the windshield. One man showed interest but then never phoned us the next day. We also went to the Hillsongs church on Sunday (city campus). Then we went to Bronte beach with Cessi in the afternoon. At the end of the week though our car was not sold I felt sure of faith that it would be sold by the following tuesday. We had posted a listing on facebook market place and on Monday we had an interested man in the car. Andreas drove the car to Jonothan's place that afternoon and he liked it. That evening he told us he wanted to buy it. We were honest with him and did tell him all the things that did need repairing soon. We also gave him a good price for the car, it was the lowest amount we were still happy with.
We went to the beach Bundeena on Tuesday and the following the Saturday. It was the best beach we went to in the Sydney area. Wanting to work on our tans the last week :) Gina came home on the Wednesday early morning and was incredibly nice in letting us stay at her place till we left for the airport Monday morning. We got to know her abit in the next 5 days and we also had bought several books to read for our last few days in Oz. Since we didn't have the car anymore we couldn't get around to much. We did explore the suburb of Liverpoool on the 6th, which was our first year anniversary :) We went out to eat at an Indian place.
Gina was very nice in driving us to the nearby train station. We took the train to the airport. Then on our way back to Canada!
The last few weeks here in Canada we have visited with friends and family, I have done some massages and we filled out the information needed for the residency form. We also went to Vernon for our "One year" and enjoyed a day of skiing and two nights in a hotel. Married life has been marvelous!
The blog will continue when we travel to Finland beginning of next week :)
