Home Sweet Home

Today we are going to our first home exchange. Yippee I am excited! I am looking forward to being in a house we can (temporarily) call our own. We can unpack and settle in a bit. Our place is in a small town called Alstonville, near Byron Bay, New South Wales. This is about 3 hours south of Brisbane and about 15 min from the beach. When we look on Google Earth it is in the Macadamian area. Are macadamia’s orchards? Or groves? Or hmmm, things to learn.  I am looking forward to getting to know the area and the towns around it. I am planning on taking a few surf lessons while we are there. That should be interesting!

They have a pool too. Nathan has surprised us the one first time we got to a pool he took my noodle and waded right in and started swimming with it. He has just taken lessons and still seemed so tentative about the water, but I guess he is ready. Hopefully the weather will warm up soon, so we can use the pool. I know I can’t complain, it is hovering around 20C and we have shorts most of the time, but it is really wet and cold for what this area usually is like at this time of the year. We only packed for hot weather. We have had rain in the forecast everyday so far, but only the last couple have actually been rain. We changed our direction to travel after we left Sydney area because of all the rains. There are a lot of areas south that have flooded in the past few weeks. The 20+ year drought is over at least for most of the area, but we are ready for some sun now!

Nathan and I got a chance for a few craft days when we did finally get rain. He was so excited to be making Christmas decorations! We made coloured chains for hanging and snowmen linked holding hands. There was lots of cutting and gluing different bits on. We got a new activity book for a preschool program that has been fun activities for him also. He needs a lot more stimulation every day. It is so fun to see all he learns so quickly. But, can I keep up?

We found some kangaroo’s in a few spots, but the golf course was the easiest to see them. Can you imagine golfing along and there goes a kangaroo? I guess it’s a little bit like deer for us. We also saw Koala’s at a koala hospital which is for rehabilitating hurt koala’s to put back in the wild. They are so cute. There was a 9 month old that was just brought out of one on one care and it was really active for the day time. Lots of pictures and video. There were lots there and we were fairly close to them, but Koala’s really just sleep in the trees all day. It was not the type of place where you can hold one, but we will go to a zoo along the way and get to do that.

I am having some computer issues, and camera downloading issues, so the facebook pictures will come in a bit.

We finally got ourselves up to speed with technology. We struggled along without a ‘mobile’ for a week or so and finally got one. We also got a wireless broadband set up instead of paying for internet everywhere we go. We are connected! 011-61(from Canada) 04 28058478 Anyone have international text. Ours is free! Free incoming calls over here too.?

I have been having a bit of trouble with the plants here. I think I expected house plants and our tender annuals, but instead I am shocked at all the temperate things they also have in their gardens. I think in Mexico there is not much for landscaping unless it grows there, but in Australia they have imported a lot of natives back and forth and we all grow whatever we can. Things like boxwood, abelia and London Plane tree seem wrong to me. Never mind the deer fern. It grows huge here. I even saw a small hedge of it, yes a sheared hedge. I didn’t say it was pretty, just a different application! I need to go to the north to get just tropical jungle I guess. I find the weeds the most interesting for things like coreopsis and bears breach growing wild. Gazania’s are a grass weed down here. Tom is making fun of me taking pictures of the weeds.

We have been seeing a lot of areas along the coast. We have been better for traveling now that we have had apartment style accommodation. A full kitchen and laundry makes it a lot easier to be on the road. We are so not in ‘on the road’ mode this year. None of us are happy with a few hours of driving in a day. We would have made it to LA at the most if we were driving to Mexico this year!

Love to all,

Lana, Tom and Nathan