Eventually an update :-)

Hi all,

Sorry for not updating the blog for the last few months....
Thought I'll get you up to date again regarding what we were up to.

I'll upload a few pictures from our trip to Tasmania in October 2009 and to Kangaroo Island in December 2009.
Tasmania is really a beautiful and lush green place. Bob was fishing quite a bit, we went for a hike in the Cradle Mountain National Park and just enjoyed all the little villages with good restaurants, pubs and coffee shops.
Kangaroo Island proved to have the best beaches we've seen for a long time...we went fishing on a charter, snorkeling, swimming and lazing around on the beach, sandboarding down the little Sahara Dunes and had a look at all the beautiful and very lonely beaches there.

Besides some pictures from my trip to Sydney in November to visit Sarah, a very good friend of mine, who was on a spontaneous buisness trip there. It was like being home for a weekend to have her around :-)

O.k., let's not exagerate... that's it for now :-)

Greetings from Melbourne,
Bob & Carolin

Bob hiking in Wilson's Prom

While I was having fun with Mama in Melbourne and surrounds, Bob did a 4 day hike over the Easter Weekend, mostly good weather. Wilsons' Promontory is the southern most point of Australia, is a national park and therefore untouched.
Have a look at the pics in Album "Wilsons' Prom_April 2009".

Cheers,
Carolin

Mama in Melbourne

Middle of April, my mom was here for 3,5 weeks and it was soooo lovely that I didn't want to let her go home again...
Unfortunately, I was sick for 1 week while she was here, but we still had lots of fun :-)

Have a look at the pictures, Album "Mama in Melbourne_April 2009".

Cheers,
Carolin

Holidays on Murray River

We booked for a 4 day hike at Wilson's Prom (southern most point of mainland Australia). That was cancelled because of fire. Then we booked to go to the 90 mile beach 3h East of Melbourne, that was cancelled because of very bad weather forecast.

We ended up at the Murray River (300km north of Melbourne) camping on its bank in the Barmah State Forest.


It turned out to be lots of fun: swimming in the River as a replacement of showers, renting a canoe for a day, dinner on a paddle steamer for a sunset cruise. Have a look at our pictures (Album "Murray River").

News: My (Carolin's) Mom comes to visit for 3.5 weeks next Thursday!! Can't wait!!! :-)

All the best from down under,

Bob & Carolin

Birthday down under

Thanks for all my birthday wishes :-) I got spoilt and had a great day!

On Saturday morning we were at the beach, giving a surprise party brunch to Christine & Stefan, friends of ours who got married here. The weather wasn't the best, but at least it didn't rain.

In the evening I had a birthday party in a lovely Italian Restaurant, Il Gambero, in Laygon Street, the Italian precinct of Melbourne. The best pasta ever, lovely ice cream in one of many Gelati stores and for some drinks afterwards. Makes you really feel like little Italy! I got spoilt

with presents: a voucher for a dinner in a restaurant of my choice from Bob (probably on a cruise ship on the Yarra River or a restaurant on an historic tram), a travel tripod to be fixed on bottles, german sweets, Gold Class Cinema tickets (you sit on couches, not chairs, and can get food/drinks during the movies), a super dupa travel towel as well as lovely cards. Can't complain :-)

My first birthday down under...

I uploaded some more pictures into the new album "Birthday and surprise party".

Victorian Bushfires

Hi friends,

Most of you have probably seen the news about the tragic Victorian Bushfires. We thought we should let you know that we are fine.

We do live East of Melbourne, but the fires are another 40-100 km further East. Not too far, but far enough.
It’s terrifying to see all the news on TV, to hear people at work talking about friends or family who lost houses, friends or relatives.
There are big donation campaigns going on for the victims as 25% didn't even have insurance and have absolutely nothing left, but their shirt on their backs...

Really makes you appreciate what you've got!

Love,
Bob & Carolin

Pictures from the new house

After several complaints, that our blog isn't updated with pictures of the house as yet...we eventually created a new album :-)

We are enjoying the excuse of "moving" for having a bit of chaos at home ;-) Still several boxes to unpack and 1 or 2 pieces of furniture to buy. Hopefully soon....

All the best and miss you guys,
Bob & Carolin

We moved in!!!

We eventually moved into our rental place in Ringwood East, an Eastern Suburb of Melbourne (ca. 30 km to the city). I can't tell you how good it fells to be in a house and not in a 20 qm appartment anymore. I only have 8 minutes to work, 10 in bad traffic ;-) It takes Bob around 8 minutes to get to the freeway. 10 min walking distance to the next train station, bakery, butchery (especially important for me), post and little supermarket. And: there is a german butchery close by :-) :-) To the beach we take about 35 min. Isn't it great?

And: We received our container!!! It's is so goooooood to have our own stuff again. Will probably take ages until we upacked the last box, but at least it's here.

We'll post some pictures onto the blog soon. Hopefully at the weekend.

Love,
Bob & Carolin

Holidays on the Great Ocean Road

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a happy new year!!

We spent Christmas in Melbourne, going out for a big dinner, all dressed up, on Christmas Eve, like the Germans do ;-)
On the 25th we did a day trip to Daylesford and surrounding area, 100 km north-west of Melbourne. It's a lovely area with a lot of small little cute towns (almost like in Europe, only almost) and known for its many spas. We've also went up Mount Macedon (See pictures in album "Miscellaneous 12.2008").
The 26th, Boxing Day, we used for shopping as there are incredible sales on here. We bought a very nice wooden dining room table and chairs for our new house :-) For sure on sale...

And on the 27th, we started our big Tour along the Great Ocean Road.
(See pictures in album "Great Ocean Roadtrip")
We weren't quite aware as yet of the beautiful close surroundings of Melbourne. It only took us an hour to get to the start of the Great Ocean Road, west of Melbourne.
How beautiful. We stayed in 3 different towns along the way (Apollo Bay, Port Campbell and Port Fairy), slept in B&B's or in Bob's car and did a lot of walking through beautiful Woods (I must correct myself, they call it bush here) and even Rainforests to even more beautiful Waterfalls. The best walks were in the Otways, a National Park along the Great Ocean Road. We even did a tree top walk, the Otway Fly, walking 30m above ground between the tree tops on a metal construction (Canopy Walk). Quite scary, but impressive....
In Apollo Bay went on a Fishing Charter Trip, catching mostly Flatheads. Was quite touristy, but fun anyway, especially being out at sea, enjoying the scenery.
Most of the time it was quite fresh though, not so much summer yet at all. 5 out of 6 days we had only around 16 degrees and windy like crazy. Definately not as stable as the South African weather, that's for sure.
The biggest surprise was our New Years Eve. We decided to have New Years in the Otway National Park, the rainforests, on a small camping ground. As it turned out, we were'nt the only ones with that idea. There were 4 different groups (an Australian family, an Australian group of friends our age, an Australian/Irish couple and a chinese/whatever couple), which welcomed us warmly with a drink and some food around the campfire. To meet such great people by coincidence in the woods ... We had such a great time with them :-) :-)

Have a look at our pictures, gives you an idea of the beautiful beaches and woods.
We decided that some more weekend trips to that side of town will follow :-)

Miss you all!!!!!
Bob & Carolin

House Hunting, House Hunting, House Hunting......

Sorry for not updating the blog for so long, but there was really not too much to tell....
End of November, we started house hunting, and that's what we've done for at least 3 weeks. It was quite a process. We didn't expect it being that difficult.

For the first week, we were totally in the dark. We would go every morning into the internet onto the property pages, find what we like and phone straight away for a viewing of the property. Once viewed, we got told, the house is actually rented already. :-( Alright...

Then we found out, we had to install a property find automatic search so that we get notified immediately, once a property meeting our criteria gets on the market. We found two that we liked, viewed them (with 2-8 other couples), submitted our official application for the property (incl. several ID documents, reference contact no's and proof of current residence) and....... got rejected. We!!!! Can you imagine.
And the search started all over again......

However, we eventually found a very nice house in Ringwood East, 30 km East of the city centre, 10 min from my work and 10 min for Bob to get onto the closest freeway. So, it's perfect. There are even a number of shops and the station within 10 minutes walking distance :-) What more do you want?!
We'll move in on 15th of January and can't wait, the appartment with its 22qm gets smaller by the day :-)

That's Melbourne...

• "No Worries..."

• "Hey, mate..."
• Flies! Not as bad as we thought but in some areas, really bad!!!
• Summer daylight saving
• Dress Code: Short skirt and high heels
• 4.3 % unemployment rate
• Gaensebluemchen (german flower) on most of the grass fields
• Freeways instead of Highways
• Gluten-/Wheatfree food en mass
• You want exotic food from all over the world? Come to one of Melbourne's markets :-)
• Super sushi Shaun!
• What's a waitress' job? Standing behind the bar, what else? Come and fetch your stuff....
• The race that stops the nation: public holiday for the Melbourne Cup Day (very famous horse race)
• Did you know that Carolin is a South African :-) ... this accent of hers.....

Our First Days in Australia

Seeing that we've got a blog now, let's post some news, should we (Carolin) ;-)

We arrived safely in Melbourne after spending our first weekend in Adelaide, location of Bob's company's head office. We had a lot of fun with Bob's boss and colleagues, including some wine tasting in the Barossa Valley, walking along the beach at "Henley on Beach", checking out Adelaide city, playing cricket in one of Adelaide's beautiful public gardens and having lovely dinners each evening, even in a German Pub!!! Much to my delight! (see our photo album "first days in Australia")

3 weeks ago we arrived in Melbourne, our new home. Until our container arrives at the end of Dec (hopefully!!!), we stay in a residential hotel in the northern suburbs. Besides getting a little claustrophobic at times, it's really great: a new gym in the cellar, a coffee shop and two restaurants on the premises, free newspaper every morning and cleaning service once a week :-) Besides that it's close to public transport, 20 min to the city (getting used to that quickly!).

Bob started work straight away and I got to enjoy some free time! Get lazy quickly, I must say. However, I'll start work next week at Siemens Melbourne as a Business Analysist (don't know exactly what this means yet...) and I'm really looking forward to meeting new people and getting into a routine again.

We explored quite a bit of Melbourne and its surroundings on the weekends, we both agree that we can easily imagine feeling home here one day (besides the ever unreliable weather). From "Camps Bay" like Beachbars, to the Dandenong Mountains with its many little coffee shops, hiking and mountain bike trails, the Mornington Peninsula with it's military forts and nature reserve, the city centre with all the street shops (girls, you would be impressed!), the royal bontanical gardens, the exhibition center (we were at a great outdoor show there already) and the various sports stadiums, the Yarra Valley with its many many vineyards (even hosting concerts and open air cinema!!!) and the Great Ocean Road (still have to explore that), everything is on offer. Bob didn't get the chance to find out too much about the fishing opportunities here yet, but one thing is for sure: Australia's most impressive fishing spots are further norh....

We've also seen our first Australian animals in a sanctuary at the weekend. Don't you think this Kangoroo looks like a giant rat???? One thing is for sure....you can't beat South African wildlife....

Koala bears are quite cute. The most exciting thing they are up to in their lives is, we heard, is to generate their poop ;-)

And to make us really feel at home, Bob's car was broken into last night. One of the back windows was smashed while parked overnight in the underground parking of the hotel and all contents were searched, but nothing stolen. Which is not too surprising seeing as Bob left his empty laptop bag for everybody to see in his car. Lessons learned. We can see it with a lot of humor: Insurance paid without excess and everything is fixed again...

Our Fairwell Party at the Anstee's

Thanks to Ursh and Gareth and all of you we had a great fairwell party and we really, really enjoyed it a lot!

Thanks to all of those who gave a "little" present to us, really great of you! :-) Can need it for Australia.

We'll miss you a lot!

See you at the next party!!