Settling In

We've been almost a month now in our new house. The past few weeks have been devoted to setting up the house with electricity, a phone line, internet, in addition to borrowing and buying all sorts of basic household necessities. Lucky for us, most of our furniture is on loan from Steve's boss which is good for two reasons. Firstly, it costs us nothing. Secondly, we won't have to worry about selling them in a year from now. Finally, our house looks like someone lives there.

Since Christmas, we've explored more of East Gippsland. We visited the Den of Nargun, a site of Aborigine importance, swum at the Blue Pools a couple of times, and rang in the New Year at Seaspray with Steve's boss and his boss's family. We visited Raymond Island, home to a colony of 80 - 100 koalas and counted 11, including a mother and baby combo. Unfortunately, in our koala pursuits, we happened to get ourselves a little lost, thus "enjoyed" a 3 hour walk up and down random dirt roads under a very hot sun. To cool off on the really hot days (ie 38 celsius) we've been frequenting the beach at Seaspray. There is a wicked rip tide there that just carries you down the beach so that half the time is spent fighting to stay in between the surf patrol's flags. Funnily enough, when we were at Seaspray for New Years, Steve's boss actually "saved" a girl that had gotten caught in the rip and was being carried down the beach. It happened just after 6 o clock and the surf patrol were off duty and engaged in New Years festivities in the beach bar.

Steve and I both started working this week. I've found a job at a nice restaurant in town and will start working full time hours in a week from now. Everyone at the restaurant is very positive and friendly, so I'm looking forward to working with them. Yesterday, I was wheeling my (new) bike down the driveway on the way to work, when I realized it had a flat tire, a major bummer. I had to call a taxi in order to get to work on time! Steve's at work right now (on a Saturday morning!) and, though I can't really speak for him, I'm pretty sure he's happy to finally be doing what he devoted the last umpteen years of his life to achieving.