Monday 24th 2024

It’s a month today since I arrived in Australia. It’s gone by so quickly! 

I would have hoped by now that my apartment sale would have moved on, but sadly not! It’s incredibly frustrating and irritating. There is very little I can do to change the situation apart from complain, which I have been doing! The buyers Solicitor moves at a snails pace and is incapable of communicating effectively or promptly. 

The upshot of the delay is that I’m stressed & anxious. 

It also impacts of my travel plans. Where I go next will, to a large extent be determined by cost factors. Until the sale goes through I don’t want to travel to the more expensive areas; The East & Gold Coast in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Japan. 

I would need to focus on cheaper areas; Malaysia, Bali, Vietnam, Cambodia, possibly Thailand again. However these in turn are dependent on weather and geography. I don’t want to be taking lots of flights, I’d like to travel overland or by ferry as much as possible and ferries don’t run all year round or out of season. It also makes sense to go to Japan from Vietnam for example. 

I could opt to stay in Bunbury for the next 2 months as my visa allows, but it’s cold and going to get colder and there is very little to do, beach bbq’s and the pool are out of the question right now! 🥶

I know, I know, it’s very 1st world problems! I understand how incredibly lucky I am to be in this position, just having a little moan, it’s my blog and I can moan if I want too! 😂

Any suggestions or ideas would be gratefully received! 👍

I’ve had fun mooching around Bunbury trying to find the best coffee shop! Some observations:

The Australian coffee game is strong! 💪 great coffee pretty much everywhere but the coffee culture is different to Newquay. 

Very few places have customer WiFi, which I find very strange. The food offerings are fairly standard; Toasted sandwiches (with lots of meat) sausage rolls, muffins, cakes. I haven’t found anywhere veggie or vegan yet. I’m sure this is very different in the cities. 

People don’t seem to ‘hangout’ in the coffee shops, it’s more grab & go. I’m looking for the Australian equivalent of Coffee on the Corner!! 😍 Somewhere to sit, chill, write my blog, read my book and possibly have a chat. 

I’m currently sitting in a place with delicious coffee and Banana Bread but no wifi and not very cosy. 

I’ve continued with my swimming, still at 10 lengths. 

I’ve been on another 10k bike ride, less hills this time! 👍😂 I went to Ocean Drive but via the circular route around the Big Swamp, it was lush and a little breezy. 

Rebecca is loving her new job, she is a customer liaison officer in the radiation department of the oncology unit at the Hospital. It seems like a much better fit for her. 

We had a pretty relaxed weekend. Rebecca & I spent Saturday doing her favourite thing. Op Shopping. This means spending a frankly torturous amount of time trawling through all of the Charity Shops in and around Bunbury!! (There are lots of them, and they are massive! 😳)

I did manage to get myself a new scarf and a jacket, in the first shop within the first 3 minutes!

To be fair to Rebecca she did limit her shopping time to be kind to me, so we were only out for 5hrs 😳🤯🥺 

As compensation we stopped at the Farmers Market on the way home for some delicious Lime Cheesecake then the drive through off licence for some well earned Rosé! Yes, they have drive through offies!! Mad. 😂👍 

On Sunday we had a nice drive down to a typical small Australian town called Bridgetown. The weather wasn’t great but we had a lovely walk by the river. Then popped into a bonkers sweet shop! 🌈🌈 Finally we visited a fab Cidery! Yum. 

Some more interesting observations about Australia:

Selling Vapes is illegal! Smoking them isn’t, but selling them is. 

They love a bit of High Vis! 

Food is really expensive.

They eat a lot of meat!! 

Books read:

Resurrection Walk by Michael Connelly. A Lincoln Lawyer book with Harry Bosh. Great, love these books. Nice easy reading. 

The Last Girl to Die by Helen Fields. OK, not great, not bad. 

That’s it for now. Keep your fingers crossed for me for some progress on the apartment sale this week!! 🤞🤞

Have a great week.

Lots of love. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️