Townsville - House Sit

We are starting our world trip with a 3-month house sit near Townsville, a city on the northeast coast of Australia. We weren’t really planning on such an extended stay, but when Beth and Ian, the homeowners, approached us based on our profile on aussiehousesitters.com.au, we decided a long break with free rent and nice weather was too good to pass up. Normally when we house sit we are primarily meant to look after the homeowner's dogs and/or cats. But in this case our only duties are to maintain the swimming pool, water the gardens, mow the lawn, and look after a couple of chickens. We even lucked out in not having to rent a car as the couple’s daughter is letting us use hers for a nominal fee. Her car is technically for sale, so if it does sell we’d have to rent from then on, but for now we have economical wheels.

Townsville is a city of 180,000 but we are in a semi-rural location about 20 km (12 miles) from the town center. Out here the lots are large and fenced in, with modest to middling houses and lots of large garages, sheds and other outbuildings. Many places have chickens, a few have horses, and nearly every yard features multiple dogs whose very important job it is to vigorously bark at us every time we walk by.

Beth and Ian’s house is fairly new and really quite nice and tidy with three bedrooms, 2 baths and multiple sitting areas, both indoors and out. Our favorite is the big veranda (I think that’s what the Australians would call it) which is next to the swimming pool. It’s still a bit cool to use the unheated pool – although Deborah did brave it once – but that may change as we progress out of winter. Right now we’ve had very pleasant days with highs in the mid to upper 20s ᵒC (mid 70s to low 80s ᵒF) and lows in the mid to upper teens ᵒC (60s ᵒF). And this morning we saw the first real rain since we arrived two and a half weeks ago. Perfect, really. That’s why we wanted to be here in this part of Australia during their winter. During the summer months (Dec-Feb) it apparently gets much hotter and wetter. We only expect to be here until mid-October but the schedule, as always, is flexible.

Our house outside of Townsville, Australia.


Living room (Australians would probably call it the lounge).


Kitchen and dining area.


Jalousie windows everywhere for maximum air flow.

Back of house.


Another sitting area.


The swimming pool (duh).


Veranda by the pool.

Our charges.


Typical neighborhood dogs - when four just isn't enough.


First big shopping day. We are going to be here awhile.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Next Stop: Everywhere

Image
It’s been nearly nine years since we started travelling for long periods – up to six months at a time – not just to escape the gloomy winters of Western Washington, but to see what it felt like to really live in, not just visit, another place. Australia was the first, then Fiji, Europe, Mexico, Japan and Hawaii. We did a lot of house sitting and work exchange to moderate the cost and expand the experience.  These trips only deepened our love of travel and whetted our appetites for experiencing new places. But the trip to Hawaii ended with us a purchasing a lot on the Big Island and then returning the following winter to build a house. Designing it ourselves, acting as our own contractor and doing much of the work ourselves, that project stretched to nearly two years. We loved our house and our small community in North Kohala, and made many good friends there. But we always knew our Hawaii stay would not be long term – partly because it is expensive, partly because of the inevita...
Read more

Caribbean Cruise

Image
Even before embarking on our Panama Canal cruise, Deborah and I looked ahead to its conclusion and expressed our reluctance to hurry back to the dreary winter weather of Olympia.  To remedy this we rather decadently booked another cruise that was to leave from Fort Lauderdale just two days after our Panama Canal cruise was to end. We spent the two days in Fort Lauderdale between cruises doing laundry, visiting friends, and catching up on computer tasks thanks to our Airbnb’s Wi-Fi.  Our second voyage was a 7 night Caribbean cruise with stops in Half Moon Cay, Bahamas; Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos; Amber Cove, Dominican Republic; and Key West, Florida; before returning to Fort Lauderdale. Both of our cruises were on Holland America Line (also same as for our Alaska cruise last year), which has a reputation for a somewhat older clientele. The Caribbean cruisers were a bit younger than the Panama Canal ones, but actually seemed in worse shape. Not sure I’ve ever seen that ma...
Read more

Thailand - Chiang Mai - Elephant Nature Park

Image
We had an incredible day at Elephant Nature Park, a sanctuary for rescued elephants near Chiang Mai. These elephants may have been injured in the logging industry, stepped on landmines, blinded by working under circus lights, or suffered some other abuse by humans, including servitude in the tourist trade. You might think that riding an elephant is no big deal, but if you add the weight of the iron chair, the mahout (handler) and a couple of tourists, you can have half a ton of weight on the animal’s back. But to even get to the point where the elephant will allow you to ride him involves “breaking its spirit,” which means taking a young elephant away from its mother (often by killing or injuring the mother) then subjecting the captive young animal to a barbaric process known as “Phajaan.” The young elephants are constrained with ropes and chains, beaten, stabbed, screamed at and starved until they finally just give up and become submissive to their human trainers. This cruel practice...
Read more