Photos of our apartment

We finally have pics of the inside of our apartment, this is the view from our balcony and the inside of our kitchen (not sure what the green is all about around the stove and the wall though)...

We will probably be oiling the walls to bring out the earth textures and colour.

More pics here.

Apologies

My apologies to anyone who is signed up to this via a reader or my syndicated feed in LJ, I updated this blog to the new blogger version and it seems to have decided to re-publish ALL my past entries *sigh*

In real updates:

• We have changed our plane tickets so that we will now leave melbourne on the 26th December and out shipping container will arrive on the 28th Dec rather then the 3rd Jan, so YAY!
• Painting and oiling has been happening in our apartment (actually the oiling is now finished), the lights and tiles (I think) have now been installed so everything seems to be going really well and all on schedule.
  

tickets are booked!

tickets are booked, tickets are booked, lalelade tickets are booked!
I have just booked and paid for our tickets to New Zealand, it is official we are flying out on a one-way ticket.

Date: 29 Dec 2006
Flight Number: QF0025
Deaprt: Melbourne @ 12.45pm
Terminal 2
Arrive: Auckland @ 6pm
Terminal I

Latest News

I have just learnt some new things about the construction of building I (the building our apartment is in), lofts are finished, end bedrooms are framed and weatherboards going on and south bedrooms are being framed.

Craig and I are planning to fly out around the 29th December, I still need to nuckle him down on the exact date and purchase the tickets. I'm still waiting to hear back from the shipping company about when the container will need to leave Oz. Idealy we would like it to arrive on the 30th December.

"A house with a roof with a roof with a roof"

We just got a pic of our apartment in Earthsong with the roof on!
Ok so our apartment is down the bottom end of the image (the roof with solar panels is a different block of units, so ours is the ones next to that)

My pics from Sherbrook Forest etc

I've started a photoblog, currently I'm posting a photo a day, this series of Sherwood Forest.

craig.jpg

craig.jpg
Originally uploaded by Tracey & Craig Ambrose.

We went to visit Sherwood Forest in the Dandenongs yesturday and I snapped this quick shot of Craig and then had a little fiddle with it in Photoshop CS (tm)

Roof!

We have just been informed that the last roof has gone up in Earthsong. This is actually the roof that covers our apartment block which means our apartment has a roof! It's very exciting for us and hopefully we will have some photos soon!

Yay, new pics!

*bubbling excitment* we finally have some wonderful new pics of the construction of our Earthsong home. Patrick climbed the talest tree he could find to snap these.






















So ours is the second floor apartment on the right











These are apartments 27-31 being built (ours is 28)

All done

Well, we have paid the final part of our deposit. We have heard from our brocker that we have green light on the loan approval so now all we have left to do is wait until the apartment is finished...

(have I mentioned how much I hate waiting for things?)

Settled at last!

Well its official - Craig and I are now compleatly homeless. Our house settled yesturday morning (Monday) at 11.30am, there are still nigly things to sort out monies wise.

We ended up settling the road issue with a 50/50 split, not ideal but better then what they were trying to get *grrr*

In brighter news, Lippy has some more photos for us of the construction so as soon as she is able to scan them I will upload them to the flickr site :)

So why is it things have to go sour?

Things were going so well, you will note the excitement and happyness in my last post and now the frustration and saddness!

Remember how I said "our settlement WILL got through on Friday" well it's Friday, its 30mins after settlement was due to happen and it ain't happanin, in fact the whole entire sale might go compleatly bust and its all crap! :(

Why you ask? Well the purchasers have tried to wriggle out of the deal in regards to payment of a cuncil road scheme, because it wasn't put in the contract, it was just a verbal understanding between all parties, they have been listening to a stupid lawyer wo has said something like "hay you know you don't actually have to pay this, verbal deal or not" and so they have decdided now that they are not going to honour the verbal deal and are trying to make us pay for the $10k+ and its NOT RIGHT! they agreed, we set the price on that agreement and now its going to cost us a fucking fortune because we either have to pay the money or take them to court and end up paying more! We were nice to them, we bloody well gave them the time they needed to get their finances in order, we could have sold the house a dozen times over in the last month but we believed everyone was happy and all was good, we were all dealing wit each other in a nice happy way and then sddenly they do this! Everyone is telling me it's ok, don't worry about, I'm sure things will work out just fine, see we got them to admit they are pulling a dodgy, but did anyone get it in writting again? NO and so we are screwed and maybe things will work out - fine, great, grand but what if it doesn't? I want to sell my bloody house! I don't want to go through all of this again, I want it over and done with, I want to be settled and done.

But that's not all folks - our brocker in NZ is crap and only sent us the happy page 1 of a fax from the mortgage lenders, he forgot somehow to include page 2 that listed 12 conditions that had to be met before the loan will be okayed, many of which they should have had from him already but when I contact them, I discovered they had basicaly nothing, our brocker pissed off on holidas for a week (which I discovered after ringing his mobile and being told NOT to leave a message). So I ran around collecting documents again, signing documents I had never even seen before and getting really cross with incompitant people who are supposed to be there to make my life easier! grrr (can you tell I'm not a happy girl today?)

Well I shall go before I say something I'll regret! :(

And we're off...sort of

SO! We have now signed our contract with Earthsong for our appartment, had it witnessed by a JP and first thing Monday morning it goes into an express post envelope to New Zealand. We have approval in principle for our loan, settlement for the sale of our hurstbridge house WILL be going through this Friday (19th May) and all we need to do now is get a cheque for NZ$60,000 for our deposit. Yay! things are actually really really happening. Craig will be able to give notice soon and start working for himself again (which is really really great), and within about 2 months from now we will be compleatly ready to leave at the drop of a hat (our appartment will be ready in 7 months).

Quick update

Craig and I had fun on Saturday, we went down to the park armed with red wool, a tap measure, tent pegs and house plans and created a scale version of our apartment (sorry I forgot to take the camera so no pics). It was a really fun experiement and really helped to give us a true idea of the size of our apartment which was fantastic. We now have a better idea of how much space we really have to play with, some further realisitc storage ideas and wonderful 3D visuals of how to play with the spaces - so again our excitment is mounting and Decemeber seems a lifetime away (but it's May now so I can start saying it's only 7 months away!)

There has been a short delay with true finality (not including settlement) on our Hurstbridge house, the people have had to delay things until the 5th as they haven't recieved unconditional approval for their loan yet. Which really sucks for us because if they pull out now then we get didly! *grrr*

We had our forms all ready to send off to Earthsong and then realised that they had to be witnessed by a JP - oops, we were going to do it yesturday but forgot and now Craig is in Perth for the week (stupid work) so it will have to be delayed until next week *sigh* oh well if we get delayed any further we will be able to pay the full 20% in one go (providing our house settles on the 19th May as planed).

We have all the necissary paperwork to hand over to our NZ brocker, why he couldn't give us the paperwork to fill in and arrange at the start is beyond me, would have made the entire thing go much faster but instead the banks have looked at Earthsong, while we twidled our thumbs, they like it, now the brocker sends us the paper work (not specific to one bank thier own companies standard forms for all the banks use) and so while we gather the required info the banks twidle their thumbs *sigh*

What other news??? I've taken a casual job at Pumpkin Patch, probably not the smartest thing to do as it is taxing my energy more then I thought it would but I needed something to do that was useful, and I'm enjoying it so far.

Ok this is getting far to grumpy a post for my liking - you'll have to forgive me but Craig left at 6am and it's now 7.30am and he's gone most likely for the week and I'm sad :(

Take a deep breath and relax

sooooooooooooooo, over the last couple of months we have been busily doing a great many things, experienced a huge amount of emotional rollercoastering, stressed, jumped for joy and generally been run off our feet. Now we get to relax a little, why?

1. Rowany Festival is now over!
We now have our very own "on my way to festival" story, ours involves blowing a head gasket, a dear friend driving for 5 hours just to pick us up (from Yass to Holbrook and back again). Our car is still in Holbrook and will be undergoing repairs and will stay there until my dad gets around to picking it up - I am now officially and completely over the idea of owning my own car!
But... Festival was great fun, I didn't have time to do half the things I wanted to do but that's a good thing, I slept a lot, and Craig shot people a lot, so much fun was had by all :-)
Craig received his Award of Arms (AOA) so he is now officially 'Not Lord Emlyn ap Rhyss' (very funny in-joke that I will not bother to explain). All the pics I took from the event are on my flickr site (see link into title)

2. We have sold our house!
A got a call from the realestate agent on Good Friday with confirmation of an offer, we signed all the paper work yesterday, the deposit will be paid on this coming Monday and settle on 17th May. It is contingent on a building inspection to be done today - only way it will fall through is if the house is structurally unsound or it has termites, and as far as we know non of this is the case, thus we have sold our house :-)

Now all we need is the NZ banks to move faster, approve our loan so that we can complete our transactions, Craig can start working for himself and we can sit back and relax a little.

Other very cool thing for us at the moment is that while we have been waiting for our investment money to get transferred into our account so we can pay Earthsong our deposit (honestly, in this day and age of computer transactions why does it take them weeks to transfer the money!) but I was say.... good thing is that the NZ dollar is weakening which has cut another $10k off our mortgage - not good for New Zealand but good for us right now, keep dropping you'll recover later :-)

So for the most part things are really moving at the moment. I have my usual stress attacks - like will I have enough space in my new kitchen, are we going to have enough space in general, how am I going to deal with the total lack of space I have here with my inlaws (who are amazing and wonderful people and I only get stressed and upset when I'm grumpy with Craig and the world and want to be on my own but can't because we only have 1 room).

Our original plan was to live here for only about 3 or 4 (at the most) months while we finalised bank loan stuff and Craig got set up, then we were going to fly off into the sunset and set up a temporary home in an Earthsong rental, but now, we are set to be here until our apartment is completed in December. Reasoning being that Carol and Ian are going for a holiday to the Greek Isles in September and thus we are looking after their house and Craig's brother and so there is no point in moving into a rental (that may or may not be available then) for only 3 months *sigh, stress, cry, moan, grumble, stress some more, cry some more, sigh again and try to deal*

And that is about all I have for you all right now

Please Sign

A friend Roie pointed me at this please read and sign the petition

17-year old Nazanin killed a man, one of three who was trying to rape her and her neice. Apparently, Iran has signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in which it agreed not to execute anyone under the age of 18 (I haven't checked this) but that didn't stop her being sentenced to death by hanging for defending herself - Nazanin was 18 by the time she reached the trial.

Ohh so exciting

Not only is it official that our house is on the market, but we already have some very keen buyers interested. Unfortuatly I wasn't quite quick enough and hadn't arranged the section 32 just yet so there will now be a short delay.

I really hadn't expected things to be happening so fast - we spoke with the agent on Saturday, it went onto the websites on Monday and the paper yesturday (Wednesday), we had only just popped over late last night to do some final cleaning and put some things that we had just dumped in the lounge away, the wardrobe door had only be reinstalled yesturday - and I simply had not realised anyone would have been through the yet!

I don't think anyone has actually put in an offer, the are waiting to see the section 32 first, but if there are interested buyers then that's really good news for us (bidding war anyone??).

I'd like to not have to think about any of this realy until after Easter, but it would be a great buzz non-the-less if we could go away for Easter knowing that we had a buyer :-)

The funds from our investment have transferred out and we are just waiting for them to clear in our access account, then we can arrange the initial deposit to Earthsong and send back all the forms to fully and compleatly secure our new home.

We have had some positive mumblings from our new brocker so here's hopeing we have more success with the banks then we did with Prometheus - oh and apparently the NZ$ has fallen again making the AU$ stronger which is great news for us right now.

It's Official

Our house is now officially on sale:
Domain
Realestate.com

Phone call

I just got off the phone to Lippy in Earthsong and now I'm a little sad. Talking to her and hearing all about some of the wonderful community things that are happening in Earthsong, hearing about what happens in meetings (the little details that don't make it into the minutes), coupled with my own daydreams just makes me want to be there all the more. There are all these things happening without me, decisions are being made, fun is being had and friendships being made that I have to wait for an unspecified amount of time to be a part of *sigh* I know I know, good things come to those who wait, patience is a virtue, focus on the good things you have right now, blady baldy blah blah *grin*

Ok focus on the good things - focus on my pottery classes! 1 class down and I'm hooked. If I actually create anything interesting I'll take a pic otherwise I'll just hide them in a box in a dark place :-)

Loan application dramas

Unfortunatly Prometheus, the ethical investment company recomended to us, have declined our application, simply because they have had an influx of applications from Earthsong purchasers and believe that they are over comitting themselves to the project especially since the interests rates in NZ are set to come down - which is great for us.

We have made contact with a brocker in Auckland who seems very keen and believes he will have no problem getting us the funding we would like. We contacted him on Friday afternoon, emailed him some further info and he will be getting back to us either today or Monday to let us know what he had found out and so forth. I have confidence in this guy and believe that we will actually get a better deal and a better interest rate doing things through the banks rather then using Prometheus.

Earthsong have sent us our legal/financial contract type stuff, it will hopefully arrive in the next few days so things have really heated up here. A property has become available for rent but unfortunatly it is much too soon for us to take advantage of at the moment, a pity but ahh well these things happen. There may also be a short delay in the completion of our appartment, my parents have now built three houses and none of them ran right to schedule so I had been expecting some delays - isn't life much more pleasent when you expect these things :-)

House For Sale

We have met with the Real Estate agent in Hurstbridge and our house will be listed for sale this week.

The decision has been made not to paint or do anything to the house as the agent does not believe it will raise the properties value enough to even recoup the costs. Although I was orginally very keen on the idea of painting the place and doing some gardening there, I am now very pleased that I will not have to do anything. The house can stay just as it is and still get us the same return.

Apparently houses are selling like hotcakes in Hurstbridge at the moment and the agent believes our place will sell very quickly - I hope he's right!

Our life in a box

So our life (or at least the material possesion part of it as my Shazza keeps reminding me), so far fits into half a container and involves exactly 60 parcels and I have the photos to prove it!

Yes we have moved out of our appartment and into Craig's mums. The shipping company came on Saturday morning and collected everything that wasn't coming to Craig's mums with us. It will be stored until we have everything sorted out and a place to live in Earthsong. Wow!

My Book Collection

Here is a link to my online book catalog

A random selection also now appears down the side of this screen :-)

Bootlace

I have just recieved 2 quotes for us to ship Bootlace to New Zealand, $700 and $1225! Considering our tickets will only cost about $220 each I'm in total shock. I'm glad I don't have to go through the crap that he will have to undergo, we will be seperated for 3 days before the flight and we want even be able to see him again until we arrive in Auckland :(

Well, at least he can come :-)

There was movement in the station

So things seem to actually be happening!

Craig and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary yesterday. We had originally planned on going out to the Dandenongs to have dinner at the restaurant we had dinner on our wedding night, it all sounded very romantic, but then after a little discussion we decided that all we really wanted to do was get stuck into packing. So I cooked us a yummy redwine casserole, he gave me a bunch of roses *grin* and we had a lovely night teasing each other, sorting through our life and putting it into boxes.

So what is happening, why the packing?
The shipping company that will be sending our things to Auckland is going to store all of our stuff between now and that faithful day. They will arrive on Saturday to collect our well packed life and taking it away for up to 9 months (hopefully less then that). In the mean time we will be moving in with Craig's mum in Balwyn.

Yes, yes, we did originally say that we would move back into Hurstbridge but when you have downsized to a 2 bedroom 1 study apartment and then downsized again ready for a studio apartment in another country, you kind of end up with very little stuff, and serioulsy little when it comes to trying to furnish a 3 bedroom house. So we have decided that our life would be much easier if we stored our stuff and just took the basics that we need to Balwyn. This way our Hurstbridge house can be painted and look fresh and clean for prospective buyers.

The only problem with this plan is there is lots to do, I'm still not quite as fit and healthy as I like to pretend (and aside from finding packing to be very daunting on my own), and I simply get overwhelmed with the actual physical stuff. But on the plus side, I have organised all the power, telephone, internet, water, mail redirection etc etc etc that all needs to be done (and burned mp3's of a bunch of music, just in case the shipping container sinks), so things are getting done, you just can't see them like you can piles of boxes :-)

Zen Gardens

I have been very attracted to the idea of a Zen garden. A space to sit quietly, meditate, draw, read. A space that you know even if others enter the garden, your personal peace will not be disturbed.

I just found this article which I found interesting in its own simplicity and I decided I wanted to add it to my blog so I have a reminder of the things I would like to achieve. I'm hoping I may be able to create a zen garden in Earthsong (I have edited this a little in places - actual article can be found by clicking on the title link). One of the other features I would like to incorporate into my garden would be a space for all the elements - earth, air, fire, water and spirit.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Zen garden is the perfect spot to sit and contemplate. Originally a Japanese style of garden, it combines both natural and architectural elements.

The Zen spiritual garden was used by Japanese Buddhist monks from around the 13th century as a place to contemplate and meditate. Layered to create a three dimensional image, a Zen spiritual garden is planned with a foreground and a background leading into a perspective.

Water features

All elements have a purpose for being in the garden and water is the provider of life. It is a natural element that can be displayed as a stream, pond or water feature.

Sand can also be used to represent water, an ideal solution in dry climates, but using the real thing is ok too.

Plants

Plants bring emotion to the garden with various colours, heights and textures.

Rocks for your garden

Rocks are one of the most important elements of a Zen garden because they create dimension. They reflect the scale of time and also provide presence and energy. Select your rocks and stones and then grade them into sizes, with larger to the front and smaller in the background. Choose well worn rocks to add depth and character.

Water alternatives

A sand or pebble formation can be used as an alternative to the element of water. Swirl the sand around to create a rippling or rushing water effect and the swirls will also provide energy to the garden. The sand used in Zen gardens is not beach sand but crushed granite and comes in various shades. Use light coloured pebbles to brighten up a dark area.

Bridge your garden

A bridge is one of the architectural elements that can be used in a Zen garden. They are used to connect different areas of the garden and provide you with views of the garden otherwise unobtainable.

Decorative ornaments

Ornaments are another architectural element that add atmosphere to the garden and serve as focal points. They are ideal for helping to create a sense of distance. This stone lantern (pictured) is in keeping with the Zen feel of the garden.

Gated garden

The beauty of a Zen garden is it can be created in the smallest of spaces. The illusion of depth and space can be created through the placement of elements. Place a gate at the entrance of your garden to further enhance the illusion.

Earthsong Appartment Pics

Yay, very exciting stuff, here are some pics, taken by our wonderful Earthsong neighbour Lippy, of the last stage of Earthsong buildings.

We have decided that we would like appartment 28, an upstairs studio appartment, the walls for the top story appartments haven't been put up yet so hopefully when they do Lippy may send us some more pics.

In other news, we have decided that on Saturday (that's this Saturday the 25th of March) we will be moving all of our non essential items (tv, dvd, desks, bed, kitchenware etc etc) into storage and taking the rest with us to Craig's mum's house where we will live for the next 'x' number of months (at the longest about 9 months) - this is very exciting because it is a definate move towards Earthsong for us, a big shinning billboard saying this is it - your moving!

It's funny that the last big thing Craig and I did was take a 3 month trip up the NE coast of Australia, then come home and moved in with his parents before buying our house in Hurstbridge, now we are doing something very similar.

Not much to report

Well there isn't really that much for me to report at the moment, we are pretty much in a stand still mode waiting on others. I showed a very lovely woman (Katrina) around our house in Hurstbridge on Friday, she is very interested and has lots and lots of plans for the house, but her and her husband need to sort out financing stuff.

What they would really like to do is rent the house until September (when he becomes a really real train driver and not just a trainee) and then purchase the house. This suits us just fine, as long as we can get a deposit and a signed contract of sale from them. The hope is that we can have all of this sorted out by the end of this month - so that Craig and I don't have to move into Hurstbridge or have anything further to do with it really. So we waite for them to organise finances.

We also have to wait on Promethius to get back to us on acceptance of our loan application.

Once we have our loan approved, we know what is happening with Hurstbridge, we can then send an email to Earthsong to advise them that we would love it if they could let us know when a rental comes up and then we can move asap. AHHHHHHHHH I hate waiting!

I am still packing and sorting things, finding out about shipping (apparently we need to ensure our container is near the bottom centre of the boat because they top ones are designed to fall off the boat if need be in rough seas!) and generally keeping busy until I know more.

The link in the title today will take you to my Earthsong flikr page, at the bottom I have added some pics from the Earthsong website of the site layout and concept plan stuff.

That's all for now :-)

Bi-Auckland

I have this awful habit, if I can't find what I want, I try to make it myself, so with that and my need to be supper organised before I leave Oz, in mind, I have created Bi-Auckland a little sister to Bi-Victoria, here's hoping we can make it just as successful :-)

Things are coming together

It looks like a few things are starting to fall into place.

This morning I listed our old bookcases and some books on Freecycle and the bookcases have walked out the door already and the books will be collected on Friday morning - Yay!

Our tenant has called me today to tell me that she will be paying the next 3 weeks worth of rent upfront but will be moving out before then. She is also washing all of the walls and ceilings for me which is great.

My friend Vanessa has offered to help me paint the house, which now means we can go there before Craig and I need to move in, get the painting done and then move in all our crap - I mean beautiful belongings :-)

And... Prometheus (the loan company) has let us know that they have recieved our application and are currently reviewing it, so hopefully we will here back from them very soon.

Ahhh, I can't wait! There is so much to do before we leave, I just hope there is enough regular stuff to do to keep me occupied between now and then!

Another big decision

Craig and I have come to the decision that we will sell our Hurstbrisge house :(

What does this mean for us - in 28 days we will be moving back into our Hurstbridge house to get it ready for sale. We will then, hopefully, sell it within a month or two, have a short settlement date and move to Earthsong if a rental property is available or to Craig's mum's until we can move to Earthsong.

I would like to cut the costs of sale down as much as possible, I think it's possible to sell our house through an agent but handle the viewing etc ourselves and they just do the publicity and paperwork. I believe this costs much less then having an agent show people around. I'd prefer this anyway, having buyers come direct to me, I like private sales, more personal.

Things to do to sell:

• Scream, run around madly for a while, then calm down and get to work
• Find out all costs in selling the property and what we need to sell it for to meet ALL those costs (stamp duty, taxes, agent fees, mortgage payout, beautification costs others I don't know about yet)
• Tidy the gardens
• Paint the interior
• Paint the outside windows

I hate making decisions on a Saturday because then I have to think and stress about them all day Sunday because I can't start implimenting them until Monday! *sigh*

Ahh well, at least I'll have something to do for the next few days - like repaking the boxes I just unpacked :-}

Yet another step towards moving

Along with loosing excess kitchen items, furniture and books, Craig and I have also decided to sell our car. I have listed it for sale on ebay today.

So - anyone one to buy a car?? :-)
eBay.au: Ford Falcon GLI Sedan 1995 Metalic Silver/Blue (item 4618469417 end time 13-Mar-06 17:43:22 AEDST)

AHHH STRESS!

I just had a call from our tenant saying that she has found a house in Panton Hill (which are few and far between apparently) and she would like to move out. So.... now we have to find a new tenant to take over the lease, doable, just unexpected. At christmas she agreed to stay for another 12 months, unfortunatly we didn't take the rental agreement for her to sign with us and I only posted it this week, it would have arrived in todays mail for her to sign, she was only offered the house yesturday - I didn't even know she wanted to move back there :-(

Why is it that just when you think everything is going to come together something really crap happens to scare the hell out of you *sigh*

Here are some pics of Hurstbridge: the one with the path shows you the back of our house, the next one is a blury view of part of the main shops and the last one is a view up from the trainstation.

Mock-ups of appartment

These pics are a 3D mock-up I did of our appartment in Earthsong. They are ruff guess and not 100% accurate, but you get the general idea.
The first is of the bedroom loft on it's own, the second is the main living space and the last one is the loft + living space. I have also included a copy of the floor plan.

While I wait

While I wait for the days to pass before I can leave for Earthsong, I have decided that I really need to get focused on gardening again. When I sorted through my book collections the other day I piled up all my books on Permaculture & Organic Gardening, so it was to this pile I turned.

I pulled out all the books I had by Jackie French, devoured them in 2 days and then set to work deciding what I could do on an upstairs balcony with full sun all day (practically). Eventually (as it was pretty much my only choice really) I decided to build 2 "box gardens" and to replant my other pots. I grabed the car keys, wandered down to the green grocer and begged sweetly for 2 stirofoam boxes and a cardboard box of cabbage leaves, which he was more then happy to supply. I then drove over to CERES to get my potting mix, seawead fertiliser and of course - the plants.

After wandering around the nursery for about half an hour, I finally decided that I wanted seedlings rather then seeds. Why? because I'm hopefully not going to be here for long enough to nurture seeds into full grown, harvestable plants. So the decision was:

• Cos Lettuce
• Baby Spinach
• Flat-leaf Parsley
• Chilli plants (compleate with 1 chilli each :)
• Snow Peas (which I am growing around a wire desk organiser that I don't use)
• Basil
• Strawberries
• Rosemary
• Chives
• Coriander
• and Silverbeat (I think that's what it is, I can't recal now, oops)
  

Then came the task of actually creating the garden. Jackie recomends filling the boxes half full with something like lawn clippings or cabbage leaves (green folage type stuff) and then fill the rest with potting mix, plant densly, water everyday and fertalise with something like a liquid seaweed fertiliser.

The end result was thus:


Lets just hope they yield me a bumper crop (or better yet, we leave before they mature and I have to give them away, lol)

Some details to think about budget wise

Earthsong have left 2 upstairs studios with loft at $320,000.00 (one of these is ours), they have a north facing balcony - no garden. However, there is provision for them to have a bit of the downstairs gardens, there is a strip at least 1 meter wide around all the downstairs apartments that is Common Land, and it is usual that the upstairs folk get to use this.

I would prefer the down stairs studio appartment if we could get it, unfortunalty it is already reserved for another lucky person.

There are also two, two bedroom apartments both $476,000.00 (too expensive for us). The downstairs one has a study as well as the 2 bedrooms and a small garden in front and back. The upstairs studio is two bedrooms with a large mezzanine loft, that could possibly be converted into bedrooms, by putting in a more substantial staircase and enclosing the loft.

These apartments butt up to a large piece of Common Land on the North, so the front garden "feels" a lot bigger.

Body Corp levies =$20 a week, this covers insurance for the
building, Common House costs, and anything we chose to spend it on i.e. facilitators for community workshops, landscaping etc.

Local Council rates =$20 per week.

Ulility costs (combined) = $30-$40 per week all year round. Summer being around $20 winter maybe up to $50.

Earthsong Updates

Well I have been busy sorting out our current appartment. I thought when we moved from our 3 bedroom house in Hurstbridge, to our 2.5 bedroom appartment (and no storage space etc) in Thornbury, we had given away or thrown out everything that we didn't want or could live without, I really thought there was nothing left that I could possibly stand not having any more - this is not the case. I have so far compacted my kitchen down by a full corner cupboard, you really don't understand how much "plastic" I can accumulate for storage.

Basically I went through every single item and said to myself "Tracey, have you used this since you moved last time" and if the answer was "No" or" "Only once or twice with out much success" (or something along those lines), it got tossed, but, I had to constantly reasure myself with the "it's ok Tracey, if you discover you need one again I'm sure they sell them in New Zealand, or maybe you can borrow one from a neighbour in the most amazing community in earth" worked wonders.

My next step was to go through the books that we still had in boxes (we have lived in Thornbury for 1 year now and these had not left their original storage), I managed to find 1 teachest (technical packing box term) and one book box (technical term for a smallish box that isn't too heavy when filled with books), and I have only just started on this task, there are still 2 complete bookshelves to look through *gulp* (I don't see many actually going any where really - not my babies!)

The other thing I have culled is the video collection, I have catelogued our entire collection, noted those that will be or have been replaced with DVD's and saved the file in a secure place (if you want to get me a gift, I have a huge list *grin*). Basically it has been decided that our ENTIRE video collection is going to new homes (let me know if you want to see the list and pick out a few gems for yourself).

Yes it's true, all the videos from my Shirley Temple collection to Craig's compleate set of Babylon 5, all to be replaced at some future time with DVD's (a saw a great collection of Audrey Hepburn movies at Borders the other day *giggles*) Basically, all movies that can't be housed with friends and family will either go to the library or to the Children's hospital (or soemthing like that).

I'm really racking my brains to work out how we are going to manage moving from a 2.5br to a studio appartment!

And the end (or is it the beginning?)

We arrived in Auckland, tired, hot and preparing emotionaly to go home. I think our subconcious had said "that's it, the holiday is over I want to go home". So as you can probably guess, we were not overly impressed with our first impressions of Auckland. As far as we were concerned right then, it was just another city (it is the largest city in NZ and is kind of like a mini Sydney, compleate with harbour bridge). We spent a lot of time driving around Auckland, we visited the city a few times, visited a beach (that was really odd, it's the first time I have ever seen a beach with black rather then white sand), and finally got to spend an afternoon at Earthsong! When I said Craig and I almost decided to move to Wellington, the reason we decided not to is because we are moving to Earhtsong. We (providing the funding comes through) will be purchasing a lovely wonderful studio apartement overlooking the whole village, and we are excited and I just want it to happen now!

Our appartment is still in the construction phase and want actually be finished until Xmas, but we are hopping that a rental property will become available before then (in about 3 or so months for Craig's wishes, tomorrow for mine). It's an amazing, beautiful place that is just what we want and need. We had said to ourselves after a day in Auckland, that Earthsong would have to be pretty special for us to decide to move here, thinking that it wouldn't happen, but.... it's pretty special!

We (grudgingly) had to leave Earthsong at 5.30pm as we were due for dinner with the Baron and Baroness of the Barony of Ildhafn (our new SCA home). We were delightfully surprised to be treated to a lovely roast dinner (chook, my favorite), and (not surprisingly) lovely company.

Basically we have left NZ on a huge high. The entire experience (except the jet boat) was wonderful, the people are great, the sights stunning and Earthsong is magical, now I'm doing everything I can to fill up my days so that time shall pass quickly and we can return.

I hope you liked readying this account of our holiday, and when new and exciting things take shape I shall endevours to add them to this blog.

Take care and have a lovely life.

North Island tour begins

We really spoilt ourselves for our two nights in Wellington with accommodation at the Museum Hotel. Craig and I are both huge fans of Wellington and came very close to deciding to move there. We found the best Indian resturant we have ever been too (and we have been to many). We did a little shopping and then decided that we wanted to meet some locals. We posted an email to the SCA group in Wellington and ended our stay with fish and chips and lovely company (with other enthusiastic 14th century peoples).
After leaving Wellington, we headed to Taupo, it was a lovely drive that (as always) included a dip in beautiful Lake Taupo. I was sitting by the lake watching Craig swim around when I noticed what looked like a huge rock, floating in the water, I soon discovered (from the encylopedia that is my husband) that it was pumic stone. I was facinated by the pumic stone everywhere after that, picking it up, breaking it open and throwing it into the water to watch it float, I was entertained :-)

Once we reached Taupo we found ourselves some accommodation at a lovely Tudor style hotel across from the lake, compleate with our own private plunge pool, the hot water was fed straight from the surrounding hot springs and apparently has great healing potential. That day Craig decided to try and teach me to windsurf. It was a lot of fun (I have much better balance then him and if I could just figure out the whole direction thing I'd be great at it).

Most of our North Island tour ended up being unplanned activites. We ended up visiting the falls in Taupo. Somehow Craig convinced me to get in a jet boat! ***WARNING THIS IS A VERY FAST RIDE THAT IS FOR THRILL SEAKERS! THE BOAT DOES NOT ONE BY MANY MANY MULTIPLE 360 DEGREE TURNS, SWEARVES RIGHT NEXT TO TREE TRUNKS STICKING OUT OF THE WATER AND RIGHT UP TO THE EDGE OF CLIFFS! NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED** and thus not for me! I hated every minute of it except when the boat would stop (like at the foot of the falls) and Craig had a blast.

We really began to notice how much more energy I had these days when we did a walk around "The Craters of the Moon". This was about a 45 minute walk around earth that oooozzzzzeeeeeddddd steam from everywhere. The space of land consumed by this rising heat expands every year. It was really something to see.

We left the next day and headed for Rotorua (with only one wrong turn to add another 1 hr of travel to the day *sigh*). Now Rotorua didn't sound so bad, there was some very interesting things to see and do there, but WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT THE SMELL! I spent the night with my head under the blankets because I couldn't get to sleep from the smell.

But we did have a "cultural experience", we saw bubbling mud, a geyser, a kiwi's bum, and watched a welcoming ceremony. It was all very fascinating stuff. Oh and there was a really cool little paddle pool infront of the information centre with benches to sit on where we could rest our tirede footsies after long days of shopping and sight seeing.

Finally we headed to Auckland, where we would be spending our last two nights.

Last days on the South Island

Craig and spent 3 more days on the South Island. From Christchurch we went to Kaikoura for 2 nights. Here we went Kayaking with the seals (pictures haven't been developed for this just yet as we had to purchase a waterproof disposable). This was great fun, I was really picking up health wise by this time and managed to actually help row most of the tour. We had no real plans for Kaikoura which was great as we ended up wandering around at random. We visited an artists studio, took lots of photos, having lunch by the side of the road (which just happened to be whitebaite, muscles and scalops all fresh from the sea that morning and cooked right there infront of us - magic). We also found an old (renovated) convent where we stoped for second lunch and I took wandered around the gardens taking more happy snaps. There was the cutetest little bird that really wanted it's photo taken, because as soon as I stoped, he flew of his branch, flew around me and then back to his branch until I picked my camera up again.

The next day we headed off to Picton and the boat ride across the the North Island.

On to Christchurch and Canterbury Fair

After flying ontop of the glacier we packed up and headed out of town. The intention was to find somewhere to stay in Arthurs Pass for the night and then drive the rest of the way to Christchurch. However, after getting over the 1 lane bridge that is used for both directions of traffic and the train (and today - workman), stopping a few times to admire the view (and trying to see the giant rock but ended up just seeing huge piles of them created by the former gold miners), before finally arriving in Arthurs Pass we decided it was boring, had some munchies, Craig (of course) had a swim in the freezing cold water (seriously, Bill & Kelly had their drinks in it to keep them icy cold), we finally decided to keep on going to Christchurch which we discovered was onloy another 2 hours drive away.

We arrived in Christchurch (which is a city we quite liked) and spent a long while looking for suitable accommodation. Our first stop was a backpackers set up in an old hotel, and it stank - literaly! The beds where awful, the place was dingy and I hated it, so we left. We ended up staying the night in a brand new hotel, (much better). The next day was loads of fun. We left our hotel, stowed our luggage at the airport and returned our car (all in preperation for the shuttle bus to Canterbury Fair), but before the bus arrived we had to fill several hours so we went off to explore the Antarctic, well the training centre any way. If you have several hours to pass near Christchurch airport, go and visit the Antarctic Centre, it was fun and educational (make sure you where pants!). We had a ride on the vehicles they use to move around on the antarctic, got to experience the freezing cold temperatures and harsh winds of a mild storm. Kelly and I actually waited out the storm inside an igloo but even then we got some of the wind, and of course we were sitting on ice and snow. I (stupidly) had on only a short skirt so tried very hard to pull me legs up under my wind jacket, it didn't really help. The Antarctic Centre was the kind of place you would expect to go on a school excursion, but we all really enjoyed it.

After leaving the centre we then spent a few more hours laying around the airport waiting for our ride to Canterbury Fair. Craig, of course, insisted on getting changed at the airport so he could arrive at the fair in garb. Finally we arrived at Canterbury fair where we were to stay for the next 5 days.

I spent a lot of the even sleeping, or sitting around the Mangy Mong (outdoor tavern) drinking hot chocolate, turkish coffee (thick and sweet and the first coffee I have really drunk). Craig managed to borrow a bow, Bill managed to borrow some armour and thus the boys got to fight and play to their hearts content. Their was feasting and crafts, entertainment and court. Bill managed to win and archery award and Craig managed to win the wrestling competition (my hero) (video footage to come at some point hehe). But alas, all good things must end and so the 7th of Feb arrived and we departed from the Middleages and returned once more the the 21st century and headed to Hanmar Springs for a night of luxury.

We stayed at a really delightful B&B, lovely decour, beautiful gardens and a pleasing view, (and ducks). It was pure luxery, we spoilt ourselves compleatly for the night, topping off the B&B with a visit to the Springs (a bit smelly but still really nice - don't expect Hepburn Springs-like facilities or you will be disapointed).

After a stunning breakfast the next morning, we drove Bill & Kelly back to Christchurch and put them on a plane home to Melbourne :(

Drive to Queenstown, Puzzling World and on to Franz Joseph

We would have arrived in Queenstown much sooner if a new trend (that would continue for the entire trip) had not started.

One thing you will not about NZ is that there are some amazinly clear, fresh, cold, creeks, rivers and lakes running all over it. The only problem with this is that Craig decided that the feature of his trip to NZ was to swim in any and all of these bodies of water, no matter how cold or how much clothing he had on.

He found these wonderful bodies of water even off the main track (we stoped for a toilet brac and he wondered off into the forest and came back a little while later with his clothes in hand and him dripping wet, he had found a clear, shallow creek and decided to have a quick dip).

Ohh, did you see the pic of our amazing spaceship cloud?

Once we reached Queenstown we found some accommodation (at the "Melbourne Inn" we thought it was funny). We had a great dinner at a local pub in town, went to bed and by breakfast the following day we were in Arrowtown. I had eaten something for breakfast, but then decided I was still hungry so I went back inside and spied a yummy looking apple pie, I ordered, the lovely lass behind the counter asked if I would like a little bit of berry sauce with my pie, sounded lovely I said and a little while later she came out with the most decadent apple pie ever, and it was delicious!

We then wondered down to the Ford of Bruinen (where Frodo and Arwen cross and the Ringwraiths get clobered by a river of water horsies), Kelly got to ride her horsing along the banks (not sure if she's Frodo and Arwen or a Ringwraith).

We left Arrowtown by a very very windy, thin road that leveled out to a great viewing spot (hence the panaramic pics of the town), we continued on past the Bra fence (apparently women stop here, take off a bra and attach it to the fence, and it seems alot of women do thisk, we did not even stop I'm afraid). Next stop - Puzzling World in Wanaka.

This place is alot of fun. We explored the interier exhibits, 3D pictures, a room full of faces that follow you (creaped me out so I did a quick circut and left), these faces by the way are of some really sweet people like Mother T, Einstein, etc, but still, these giant white (hollow but look 3D) faces following me, eek! There was the tilted room that gave me serious trouble to enter, I can't explain how wiered it made me feel, look oober motion sick-vertigo combo deal. I finally discovered I could trick my brain into letting me go in as long as walked looking at my feet (just don't look up again ahhh!). Again I was out of there pretty quickly. Then Kelly and I become hobbits through stage tricks.

Before tackeling the maze we had a quick pit stop to the toilet, usually not worth mentioning, except here boys and girls had seperate entries but ended up in the same room (see pic) very odd

We wandered around the maze and located all of our coloured corners (still not as fit and healthy as I would have liked at this point in our trip - 8 month mark of my CFS), so we cheated and ducked out the emergency excit rather than continue through to find our way back out, I wasn't the only one tired after that walk.

Unfortunatly I don't have a pic of this, but we pulled in to get petrol before leaving town and while the boys arranged petrol, myself and blushing Kelly, enjoyed the view - 6 young, very hot, buff boys in absolutaly nothing but Superman undies, filling up their car with petrol and kicking around a ball, it was very entertaining ;)

After several more hours of driving (there where many many many hours of driving in this trip), we arrived and Franz Joseph. We spent a nice night in a backpackers, Craig and I taking advantage of the spa which gave us a chance to meet a few other tourists. I was very keen for this day to end, because tomorrow we would be getting into a helicopter and flying up onto the glacier (= me being very excited because of the whole snow thing again and also because I had never been in a helicopter). It was fantastic! If you haven't had a helicopter flight before then I thoroughly recomend you do, it was the best fun, amazing views that you simply can't get any other way, I loved it! Seeing the glacier was realy mind blowing when you look at this giant (see if you can spot the other helicopters in the pics, then you can get an idea of what kind of scale I'm talking about here), giant frozen river. This glacier is moving at about 1 metre per year and that's really scary if you ask me. You lool at it and think its just this huge mountain of ice, stationary, but infact it is carving its way through the landscape every day - very cool.

The last exciting thing was finding a campervan painted with the Wild Rumpus (Where the Wild Things Are), Craig and I had planned on doing that same sort of thing to our van many many years ago when we took our little 3 month trip up the east coast of Australia, but it didn't end up fitting into the budget :(

Te Anau, Glow Worms & Milford Sounds

After leaving behind Dunedin we arrived in Te Anau. This was one of those times that you randomly pic something not thinking it will have much effect on your life and then discover you have found something wonderful. This was Te Anau!

The pictures in my flickr site after the Otago Museum are of us swimming in this amazing clear, land locked, beautiful, cold lake that lies at the foot of some stunning mountains. We couldn't believe we had been so lucky as to get accommodation (so cheaply) in such an amazing location (next time we have to pic cabin 169 - it has the best view and location).

That night we went on a tour of the Glow Worm caves. It is cold, wet, and a little small (if Dr Krystal could do it, so could I!) This was a really lovely experience. I had expected the glow worms to be much much bigger, but they are the tinniest little things, the ceilings of the caves looked liked someone had just installed tiny blue LEDs at different brightnesses (the brighter the glow worm the hungrier it is). It was a very pretty and romantic trip and only a little bit scary. Now, because this is my journal thing I get to write whatever I like, so here I shall share with you one of my favorite poems:

I'd love to be a glow worm
A glow worm is never glum
It's hard to be downhearted
When the sun shines out your bum

We were not allowed to take any photos inside the glow worm caves as it disrupts things for them so I'm afraid I can't share any wonderful pics but you can visit the Real Journey's site (the people we took our tour with) and have a look there.

There are a series of pics we took the morning after we arrived, I'm pretty impressed with these pics (and even Craig finally decided to have a play with my camera for the first time ever so he could also capture some of this stunning morning). I had walked out of our cute triangle cabin to go down to the showers, as I reached the showers I stoped dead in my tracks, if the view of the lake the evening before was stunning, this was simply magical. I had Craig race back up to our room to get my camera and tripod and rushed down the the lake side to capture this spectacular image. I took a panaramic shot of the mountains and at some point I will connect all the pics together and print them out.

It was about this point that I also fell in love with ducks, so in the future you will see a quit a few duck pics (sorry about that but they were just too cute). Now I must also mention the last photo in Te Anau is of the Olive Grove, they serve a fantastic dinner and breakfast, very worth the visit.

After my morning photo session, we packed our bags and headed off to Milford Sounds. There is a great photo that we almost didn't get as the camera battery was basically dead and so the camera really didn't want to respond, but we did get it "great pic". For those who don't get it, there is a picture of a brown tourist sign pointing to "The Divide" and directly below that sign is a blue sign with an arrow pointing in the same direction with a picture of "woman|man" (we thought it was funny).

The passage into Milford sounds is along a windy road (where we got to see part of a car commercial being filmed by a low flying, sideways flying helicopter) and that white stuff in the pics - snow - actually snow in summer. There is a tunnel that you have to wait at to get through to the final pass into Milford and if I had have wanted to (which I did but everyone else didn't want to miss the 15min window when the lights change to let us through the pass), I could have gotten out of the car and gone on a short wonder off the road to touch and play with the snow (remember this is the middle of summer, and you have to excuse my excitment about such things as I had only touched snow once before in my life when I was about 11). Finally the lights changed and we were able to continue on to our destination.

Now, at this point my camera had no battery power (remember The Divide), so I was a little sad that I might not be able to take any photos of the Sounds, however, the nice people at the cafe allowed me to plug in my charger and we had enough to snap away happily, which is lucky for us as there are more photo's of Milford Sound then of anything else in our entire holiday I believe. This is partly because it was really amazing scenery and partly because Craig had adopted my camera and so we were both having fun taking photos for the entire trip.

Aside from giant mountains, waterfalls and seals, we also had a short stop over at the Underwater Observitory, unfortunatly the wonderful sunny weather we had been praising thus far also results in the algi blooms growing so the water was a little cloudy so we couldn't see very far out into the water, oh and the guy in the wetsuit outside - he really is the window washer!

We had a lovely, windy, lazy and wet (at least Bill who got soaked when the boat put its front end into a waterfall) splendid day. Ohh, that pump you see Craig hand pumping, he is actually, really and trully pumping petrol into our car. Only New Zealanders can get petrol in Milford Sound, the rest of us have to try our luck several ks down and off the main road and a very quant camping place compleate with H-bomb.

Our NZ holiday begins

(the above link is to my flickr site, you can follow along with the pics if you like)

We flew out of Melbourne on the 27th January. We had to be at the airport 2 hours before the flight left, I thought this was a bit excesive, check-in couldn't take that long could it? what was I going to do for the other 1.5hrs *sigh*. As it turned out, that two hours was just enought time to checkin, collect a few last minute things (like my motion sickness tablets and these really wonderful earplugs that regulate the air pressure, ahhhh wonderful things they really are), we then had a few minutes to sit down and relax, read our books and take a few pre-flight-I'm-so-excited-I'm-going-on-holidays photos.

I really was very excited, this was only my second time overseas, and even though it was just New Zealand I was still very very excited. Craig was a little more blazay about the whole thing as he'd been there before when he was little.

The flight was rather uneventful (thankfully), it was rather depressing to see just water under me window (yes I got posession of the precious window seat). But once we reached land, Craig and I really got excited about the whole affair, leaning over each other to see out the window, pointing out sites and landmarks (btb we were flying into Christchurch at this point). For someone who has never seen the coast of another country from the air (it was night when I arrived at New Caledonia in 1995), it was just amazing, I would never have believed a country so close to Australia could really look that much different, but even the layout of the farm lands was so very different, the pictures taken from out plan window don't capture the lovely colours of the patchwork ground but you can get an idea of the layout.

There where so many parts of the landscape that impressed me one of these was the river paths, I'm not sure if these rivers ever have more water then they did as we flew in, but from the air, they looked to me like veins of silver in the landscape, the photos really don't do justice to the colours unfortunatly but you can get an idea of what I saw. Another impressing sight was the connection between open sea to coast and followed by chocolate mountains, it was really really amazing to see.

This wonderful view of the South Island continued after we landed in Christchurch as we collected our baggage, checked into our domestic flight to Dunedin and continued our arial tour.

I can't say we were very impressed with Dunedin once we arrived. To us it seemed very dusty and uncaired for. Apparently most of the housing in Dunedin is rental properties to students who populate the town only during the middle part of the year and then it is abandoned for the summer. The owners of these houses don't bother to maintain them at all as the students will pay about $100pw just for a room (that's steep in my book). I found it really sad to see so many derilict looking buildings, Dunedin looked tired and depressed.

The reason we had started our trip in Dunedin was because we were meeting our frinds Bill & Kelly. Bill had been attending a Lynix conference here for the past week which was to finish up on Saturday, so until then Craig, Kelly and I amuzed ourselves.

We jumped on a double-decker buss in town and took a tour of Dunedin. We saw the world's steepest street (which Bill and Kelly had walked up the night before - they even have a certificate to prove it). We saw the historic train station (which is impressive but I think Albury's one is nicer, but I could be biased), and we learnt how Dunedin had reclaimed most of its land by cutting the tops off all the hills and tossing it into the water, and this was before tonka trucks people).

The next day we had a tour of the Otago museum, oddly though Kelly and I took lots of photos of the stunning tradional Japanes Clothing display rather then the things related to NZ (there were two photo's of the Moa bird, giant prehistoric bird, but I'm having a "I'm fat" issue at the moment and hated myself in those photos so they didn't make the cut, sorry people).

Craig and Bill left Kelly and I at the museum to collect our hier car. Poor boys thought it would be a short walk, ooops - a long time later - they returned with the car, and we really started our trip (with only 1 wrong turn and a bit of a detour in the oposite direction), tonight we would be in Te Anau.