Brisbane!

The flight from Perth to Brisbane took forever! It was about 4 1/2 hours long, but with the kids awake most of the time, it felt more like 2 days. When we arrived in Brisbane we were greeted by Gert, and with a lot of effort we managed to squeeze ourselves and our baggage into his Hyundai Terracan.

When we arrived at their house in Rothwell, about 30 minutes north of the CBD, Elize was there to welcome us with home made (of course) Bobotie, complete with Mrs Balls chutney! The evening Gert and Brett went out to watch a 20 0ver cricket game between SA and Aus.

The next day the hunt for a car started (Gert took the day off work to show us around) ... After driving around and looking at a lot of second hand cars, we decided on a Mitsubishi Outlander, 2007 model, with the remainder of the guarantee. It's a 4x4, but is more like a station wagon. So far we're loving it! The last thing we expected was to buy a car in Afrikaans, but that's exactly what happened! The sales guy pickup up on our accent and started chatting in Afrikaans! We paid a bit extra to get the windows tinted to keep some of the harsh Aussie sun out (it really helps a lot!)

This is our car, sexy isn't it?

Gert and Elize's house

Next thing on the list was to find a rental property. Boy, what a mission! The suburb that I researched and decided on was North lakes, with a very popular state school, nice new houses and lots of parks. Unfortunately a lot of other people also loved the suburb. After phoning a lot of agents we decided to expand the area and look at other suburbs. We saw a couple of crappy rentals, small houses, tiny properties and huge price tags! On Sunday I found 2 rentals in North Lakes with inspection times on Monday. That's basically like "show" days, except that the show is only for 15 minutes and a whole bunch of people rush through the house. It's also not a first come first serve like in SA. You must fill out an application and the the agent will approve you (it works on a 100 point system where you have to supply a couple of documents to identify yourself) I made a bunch of copies of our passports, visas, ID books, driver's licenses, tenant reference, reference from the lawyer that transferred our house in SA, letter from the bank stating our bank balance (because we didn't have jobs), car registration paper, etc. Well, on Monday we saw the 2 houses, loved them both and applied. And on Wednesday we got the good news that we were approved for one of the houses! It wasn't our first choice, but the area is stunning! Very close to a park with a gas braai overlooking a lake. There are currently tenants in, so we can only move in on 11 February.

For some reason I can't find a picture of the house, but it's really not spectacular from outside. For me the area is the best thing about the house.

Ryan hasn't been able to start creche yet, because we're waiting for a reference number from Centrelink for family assistance. Apparently they can't take him in without that. He is devastated and can't wait to start school. His creche, Sesame lane is about 1 km from our new house. They don't have space for Jessica at the moment, but she will be on a waiting list.

I will post more news soon! Thanks for reading, we miss everyone at home, but are having a great time here. Things are still hectic.

Oh, Brett and I both passed our learners driver's license today! Now we want to go for a lesson before doing the practical driving test!

Lots of love,

Linda