Moving right along….

I haven’t updated this blog other than to wrap up our 2012 China trip a few months ago. Life’s been busy and I have to say that I haven’t felt compelled to write much during the past 2 years. I really love to read back on that fantastic trip so I’ve decided to start writing again so that Dave and I can enjoy our future adventures over and over again.

So, for a bit of background….

In mid-2013 Dave and I threw in our Brisbane CBD jobs, packed up our Ashgrove home (rented to good friends) and accepted the opportunity to join the extended family business managing a resort on the magical Noosa River. Running Las Rias resort for the past 2 years has been randomly rewarding, challenging, educational, frustrating, exhausting, fulfilling (did I mention exhausting?), wonderful.

Oh, the people we’ve met and the conversations we’ve had (and the problems we faced & resolved!) Such a diverse group I would never have met if we hadn’t had this amazing opportunity. Young families, grateful for respite in a glorious location; long-term returning retirees with a sense of ownership of their regular apartment; stressed out executives chilling with a fishing rod on the beach. So many interactions  – each one of them an enriching experience. And laugh! We heard the funniest things from the most unlikely sources. Honestly, I could write a book about it.

We lived in the most beautiful part of the world, but after 2 years of very hard work and being on call 24/7 we decided it was time to hand control of the resort back to the family and follow our true dream, and that is to retire and travel.

Again, we packed up our possessions, with everything put into storage.
We sold our car to our nephew and packed a suitcase each, with everything we think we’ll need for long-term travel. Saying goodbye to our family and friends has been difficult, but thanks to technology we’ll be able to catch up in each others’ living rooms, and maybe some of them will read this. And of course there’s Facebook and Instagram.

We plan to go slowly, that’s always been our preferred way of traveling. We’ve registered as house sitters with www.trustedhousesitters.com and www.kiwihousesitters.co.nz which we believe will provide us with interesting diversity while saving on accommodation costs. We both love spending time with and looking after animals, and being able to “live like a local’ has always appealed to us. Already we have 2 confirmed house sits in New Zealand and 1 in England!

In between house sitting we’ll stay in self-catering apartments or houses, primarily using www.airbnb.com. Staying in a home style environment generally makes for comfortable and relatively hassle free travel. We’ve used airbnb many times over recent years with great success, most recently at this lovely place in Paddington, Brisbane.

Right now we’re into our 2nd week of being “homeless” and we’re enjoying the much slower pace of having late mornings and no work commitments. We’ll be in Melbourne for a couple of weeks before heading over the ditch to New Zealand until early October when we go to London to visit #1 Son Adam and meet his lovely new fiancée, Jacque.

So now we’re off to brave the cold Melbourne afternoon and explore the local area of Northcote.

I’d love you to come along on the journey with us, and if you like you can follow the blog and get email updates. Just click the link on the right side panel.

Hope to see you again soon.