Ferry, Car, Plane, Bus, Tram, Bus, Plane, Shuttle....

Now if any of you are contemplating visiting us in Tasmania, let me assure you it does not take 2 days to get to Launceston! However for us it did.....

We needed to go via Christchurch to leave my car at my parents place (as they are looking after it for me - thanks!) so we left Wellington early Saturday (23rd) morning, on the Bluebridge ferry, along with Ollie's parents. They were coming to Picton to go sailing on Ollie & Theo's yacht for a holiday. Nice crossing on the ferry, and gave Ollie a chance to say bye to his work mates, and his ship Monte Stello.

A quick bite to eat in Picton before Ollie had a moment saying good bye to the yacht Cloudy Bay...oh and his parents :)

We then drove to Christchurch in time for dinner with my parents, a few hours sleep and then a very early start! At the airport by 0500hrs (thanks mum for dropping us off!) and on a plane outta there. We arrived in Melbourne at 0830 local time, and cleared customs/immigration easily - do they know who they let into the country? te he

We then had some time to spare, so caught a bus into the city, where we had some food (not sure what meal it counted as!) and a walk around the city. Didn't have time to go to the tennis, but did catch a Tram and visited the Queen Victoria Markets, before heading back to the airport.

A short flight this time, followed by a shuttle ride ending at the Launceston Backpackers, which is currently our home. Arrived to find lovely sunny summery weather...we'll be happy if this keeps up.

Now to start the business of house and job hunting!

The Stairs to the Attic

This is the story of our adventure to Tasmania. We're only going for 10mths which may not seem like a long time, however we decided to rent the house out while we're gone...this meant we had to put our (what seemed little before) house hold into storage...the storage being in Ollie's parents attic.

Like when you think a job is going to only take 5 mins it always takes longer...the packing and moving took a long time, 3 solid days plus all the bits before that. At the same time Ollie had the yacht out of the water doing repairs and anti-fouling it - 2 big jobs at the same time!




After endless trips between Lower Hutt and Eastbourne, all our belongings are now in the Attic, and all we have left with us is what we are taking with us (well technically...we may have to put more in the Attic if there's too much for our suitcase!). Muscles are complaining from all the trips up the stairs carrying boxes, but the house is empty and sparkling clean, and the tenants started moving in today. We hope they like our little house :)

We have a week left before we leave NZ - a chance to catch up with friends and family, update CVs and line up rental properties in Tassie for viewing.