Moving Again!

We are all on the move again today. We have left Sonia & Michael's house and moved south to Jean & Geoff's to house and dog sit for them while they are all away skiing in the mountains. We managed to cram all our stuff into 2 cars, locked up Sonia's and set off. As Lynda is not too keen on crossing 4 lanes of traffic to make a right turn, we started the trip with and interesting left, right, roundabout combination before we hit the motorway. Our electronic "Toll" tag turned up yesterday (my first bit of proper post at the new house) so we fitted that to the car and it allows us to drive up and down the Eastlink without filling in a web form every time to pay the toll.

Now we can start to move stuff into the house. The gas, water and electricity should have been turned on yesterday (Thursday) and the phone, internet and satellite television should all be installed on Monday morning. We have a collection of airbeds and mattresses to use until all our stuff turns up in about a months time. The house already has a new cooker and dishwasher, and we have borrowed a fridge from Sonia (who appears to have 3). Lynda has found the Melbourne IKEA :-( so has threatened to buy lots of new stuff because; the house is too big and she cannot wait a month for all our old rubbish to turn up. I think that will be our saturday trip out.

Next thing to organise is schools for the boys because frankly Lynda and I have had enough of them and they have had enough of each other!

I have uploaded a video tour of the house to youtube. Drop me an email if you would like the link.

Car and House sorted

Today, after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing we managed to pick up our new car and agree on a rental property.

Below is the rental blurb from the agent's website:

"Perfectly positioned in one of Frankston South’s most sought after streets, with shops, parks, schools and of course the beach just moments away, this newly renovated family home is in pristine condition and offers light and bright living areas, lots of privacy and an extremely generous floor plan. Comprising: Welcoming entrance foyer, 5 bedrooms plus study (master and 1 bedroom with ensuites) brand new kitchen with meals area, 2 extra large family rooms, family laundry and bathroom, double carport, entertainment area and balcony. Features: Polished floorboards throughout, 3 gas heaters, new air conditioning and much more."

The boys especially like it because they have a room each at last and it sides onto a small park with swing and climbing frame. Lynda and I like it because the street is quite and the beach is only 2 minutes drive away.


The car is a Proton Persona, a reasonably priced, medium sized car with 3 years warranty and roadside assistance thrown in. I have not had a chance to drive it yet as Lynda insisted she drive it back from the dealers.


Tomorrow we need to visit the rental agent's office to finalise all the paperwork and sort out gas, water and electricity connections etc. then we will head back to Melbourne to let poor Alison have her car back (with about 1000 more km on the clock than we had when we started).

Update Time

Sorry for the delay in posting but we have all had a pretty hectic week as we try to kickstart our lives in Australia.

After a long flight (10 hours) from Hawaii, we touched down in a damp and cold Sydney with 1 hour 30 minutes to wait for our connecting flight to Melbourne. As Sydney was our entry port into Australia, we had to collect our luggage from the carousel and take all our stuff through passport control, customs, immigration and security before transferring to the domestic terminal, checking in all the bags again and going through more security before our final flight. All this took 1 hour 20 minutes, so we had 10 minutes to catch our breath.

In Melbourne (1 hour later) we were greeted by my Uncle Geoff at the gate, and by my uncle Michael, cousin Alison and her family at the baggage reclaim. Alison's son Simon had done us a lovely "Welcome to Australia" sign that he was proudly waving at us when we walked down the stairs.

Geoff and Michael split up passengers and luggage between their cars and ferried us all to Michael's house, where we would be staying until we could sort out a place of our own.

Lazy Days In Waikiki

Its very easy to do nothing here, and thats exactly what we have been doing. Waikiki beach is only a block away so we have mostly been flitting between that and the hotel, with stops off at many of the various restaurants between the two. We tried International House of Pancakes yesterday, Ellison and Matthew choose "Create a face" Pancakes, Lynda had the Strawberry / Banana stack with lots of squirty cream (oink), I had the German crepes with lemon (cos they are proper pancakes) and Daniel, true to form, picked the chocolate pancakes with chocolate chips and chocolate sauce. He failed to eat it though - a chocolate dish has finally beaten him.

We took a bus to the Ala Moana Center, where the kids found yet another Apple store, but also a Lego store where they could design and build (and dad can buy!) their own mini-men.

Over the road from the center is a lovely man made lagoon area, that allowed the kids to play on another lovely sandy beach this time with no waves what so over.

Fire Alarm!

At 2:41 this morning we were all woken suddenly when the hotel fire alarm system told us to "Leave the building immediately - there is a fire in the hotel". Well a message like that really woke us up quick. We had a brief rummage around looking for some sort of clothing, then scooped up the kids and walked to the end of the corridor to the fire exit (we obviously were not fully awake as none of us thought to use the fire exit right next to our room but in the other direction). As we are only on the 3rd floor it did not take too long to reach street level and safety.

As soon as we were outside the hotel, and into a still very busy Waikiki, a harassed looking member of staff informed us it was a false alarm and we could all go back to our beds. Trouble is, it was not easy for any of us to fall back asleep with all the adrenalin still coursing through our veins.

Waikiki Beach

 

 

Not too much more to say about Waikiki Beach, the weather is lovely and hot, the water is clear and warm and everybody (including Dan!) got in the sea and swam.

We spent a good few hours there today, with the first stint in the morning, then a break for Lunch between 12 and 4, then 3 more hours as the sun set. It was great. The only downer was the "Danger Jellyfish" signs. Apparently Portuguese Man-O War and Box jellyfish are washed close to the shore 7 to 10 days after a full moon. The stings are not deadly for most people, but they will "ruin your day" as our couch driver put it yesterday. Luckily, according to this calendar the beach should be clear for the rest of our holiday. By afternoon, all the signs had been removed but Lynda did see to people being treated for stings.

Hawaii

We were up early today to catch our plane to Hawaii, which was just as well because the security queues at LAX were right round the terminal building and outside along the kerb too! Why not just make each airline responsible for its own security, and fine them $250 million if one of their flights is affected by terrorists? Airlines can choose the level of security they desire and passengers can choose the level of security they feel comfortable with.

The flight was about five hours long and thankfully everybody was on board on time so we managed to leave a few minutes early. Once again the plane did not have individual video screens, so the boys were not impressed.  The 2 movies to watch were , "Ghost Writer" - a Roman Polanski film, and he has never been suitable for children ... and "Up" - which they have seen before but Matthew watched again. They have all decided that Qantas is their favourite airline although I think the band new A380 we flew on last year may have clouded their judgement.

Touchdown was about 30 minutes early and we walked out into a sunny and hot Honolulu afternoon. Baggage was collected and loaded onto the waiting shuttle bus and we were transported to out 5th and final hotel of the holiday the "Aqua Waikiki Wave" in one of their deluxe suites which has plenty of room for all of us.

The hotel is two blocks back from Waikiki Beach and one block back from yet another set of designer shops - including another Apple store, so something for everyone then.

We rested at the hotel for a few hours before venturing out to look at Wakiki beach and to find something to eat. Suffice it to say that Ellison and Matthew both want to hit the beach first thing in the morning.

Further South

As we had an early flight, our next stop was an overnight in the Los Angeles Hilton. The drive down from Pismo Beach was a reasonably scenic affair down highway 101 (which we had walked along briefly last week in San Francisco). We stopped for lunch in Santa Barbara which looked like it deserved for than the 30 minutes we gave it.

We collapsed in the hotel pool for a couple of hours, then to bed ready for our flight to Hawaii.

Seacrest Resort Hotel - Pismo Beach

Seacrest Resort Hotel - View from balcony

Not much to write about for the last few days. Have had a few days to relax in one place flitting between the pool (60 steps away) and beach (160 steps away).

Pismo beach is a little odd, the town looks quite poor, but on the hill is some very expensive housing and there are whole strips of designer shops that Lynda has needed to poke around in.

The hotel itself is fine for our purposes. It's clean, quiet, comfortable and close to the beach so everybody is happy. Tomorrow we pack up and head to LA to fly to Hawaii on Wednesday.