SNOW!! (and photos of the ute)

This post is a little late, since it is a week and a half since I got snowed on driving home (we're not talking a snowstorm or anything, just a light fall as I was coming up over the mountain).  Since then we've pretty much had snow on the surrounding mountains the whole time, but it hasn't come back down to the road I drive into Hobart.

The great thing is that Derek went up the next morning and there was snow on the land in Mountain River.  Again, not great big snow drifts or anything, only about a centimetre coverage by the time he got there in the morning (the block gets a lot of morning sun), but snow nonetheless.  Below are a few photos of the block, in its newly cleared state and with snow!

The ute and the nearly cleared block

Light snow on the land (dark lines are the piles of bracken that we have to burn)

Obligatory ute close up

However, I can categorically state that even with picturesque snow capped mountains surrounding us it is still warmer here than Canberra!!!

Our view with snow

The New Ute!

Yes it has arrived, well more precisely Derek went into Hobart yesterday and collected it.
The Mazda BT50 is pretty cool, and it is really nice to have a ute so we don't have to try to cram the brushcutter into the Peugeot anymore.  We'll get a photo of it up soon, I'll try to get Derek in his flannie and ugg boots beside it :-)

In store competitions

You know how you sometimes enter in store competitions and never win them, or know anyone who does? Well now you know someone who has.  When Derek bought my bike from Anaconda we entered into a draw to win a few hundred dollars of bike gear.  We didn't look at what the prize was because we assumed we wouldn't win, but then we got a phone call from Anaconda and yes we had won first prize!
We went down to collect the gear and it was a pretty good haul really. Clothes, bike computer, trainer and a cleaning kit.
So maybe the move has been even better than we thought :-)

It's been a busy 10 days

Since I've been so slack this will be a bit of an epic post, so I'll just get straight into it.

Matt's Exhibition

We went to Melbourne for the opening of The Fortunate Life of an Unfortunate Man in Fitzroy.  This is Matt's second big exhibition and it is really fantastic, and that's not just sisterly bias talking :-)
Derek took photos and Matt will post the exhibition up on his website in the coming weeks.  There are a few images that nearly made me cry, but overall it is a sweet and uplifting exhibition - way to go Matt.
It was also great to catch up with family down there, both Matt and Pia and also Louise, Stephen and Emma.

The Ute

We came back and decided that we really needed to sort out a ute sooner rather than later, since I was starting work on Wednesday and Derek would start losing the car, and the brushcutter doesn't fit very comfortably into the Peugeot.  We got it down to Nissan, Toyota, Mazda and Mitsubishi and headed into town to have a look at their base models.
Funnily enough three of the four dealers we went to are called DJ - so DJ Nissan, DJ Mazda etc, so it's pretty clear that there was a good chance one company was getting our business. 
After gathering all of the information Derek geeked it up with a spreadsheet to try to work out what was the best car for our needs, but it was the discussion with one of the local mechanics that sort of sealed the deal for the Mazda.
So next Friday we officially become locals when we collect our Mazda BT-50 ute, or as I will refer to it from now on 'Derek's Car', because if he thinks I'm driving that thing around he has another thing coming :-)

My New Job

As mentioned above, on Wednesday I started my new job.  Derek drove me in, as that was the day he test drove all of the utes, so at least I didn't have to deal with parking on the first day (which isn't actually bad at all since some of the people at work recommended a place).
The workplace is great, everyone is really friendly and I'm not the only new person.  Another newbie started the same day, and she's come down from the NT, so it's been a big climate change for her.  It's great having another new person to share some of the pressure with, and someone else to talk with about whether we should know things or not.
The bosses seem really nice and it is a very laid back atmosphere in the place, I can actually go to work in jeans all the time if I wish.  There are only 240 people in Housing in total, so it will be really nice being with an organisation where I can know everyone and what they all do again.
My staff all seem really nice as well, and there are only 10 of them this time, which is a bonus.  I also have an office, which is a definite bonus - open plan whilst managing people is never an easy ask.
This is not to say that my bosses, colleagues and staff in the RTA were not nice - I actually do miss a lot of you guys - I'm just saying that I think the Housing role will be a good fit.

Derek's Interview

And for all of you that were bucking for Derek to be a kept man, he has a meeting with a recruitment agency on Monday afternoon to try to get a real job - more on that as it progresses I'm sure.

So a very busy time in the last few weeks.  For anyone paying attention, we still have not sold the Lapstone house, which is probably the only thing that continues to be a downer in this whole process.  We're really at a loss of how to sell the thing, given that there are still heaps of people going through it. I guess we couldn't have everything go our way though, because everything else seems to be going very well at this point in time.

I think I need to get back into the lounge room in front of the fire though, we've hit a cold snap and there is a lot of snow on the higher peaks, including Sleeping Beauty which there is a photo of earlier.

Bye for now, hope you are all well.

The picturesque stuff

Our block is situated on the south-eastern side of Sleeping Beauty, a very pretty mountain range which is very aptly named

This is the view of Sleeping Beauty and we drive towards our road in Mountain River.  We can also see it from our house in Huonville.
With the clearing of the land that we've been doing I took a photo today that is pretty much what the view from our lounge room will be, except it will of course be a little higher than I stand on the land (no comments thank you)

We look down into the whole Huon Valley, which I should have taken the photo of when we first got onto the land this morning as all of the fog hadn't lifted. It's really going to be hard to take waking up to that each day :-)

Clearing the Land

When we purchased the land in 2007 it had been cleared and had a sparse covering of bracken (about 10cm high at most) over the majority of it.  As we've been coming back over the last three years to sort other things out we've been confronted with the ever growing bracken, as well as the growth of tea trees that have been taking over the lower part of the block.  So now that we have finally come down and are starting to sort things out in preparation for the build we have to re-clear the land.
Now, we could have done this by hiring someone to come in, but that would have been costly and not nearly as enjoyable [insert sarcastic tone :-)].  So instead, Derek has bought another new tool (I haven't mentioned he bought a sliding compound mitre saw the other week to build a bench and some shelves for the shed), a Stihl FS90 Brushcutter.  This thing is a beast of a brushcutter, but given what we're hacking through it is certainly not overkill.
So on Sunday we took our first venture out to start preparing the land, followed up with a few more hours out there today, and below are some pictures of our efforts.

A wide view of the land before the work commenced, you can see Derek just to the right of the car

Closer view of Derek and the new power tool - the tea trees to the left are the same level, but the stuff in front is on a rise

Clearing on Day 1 - the bracken in the middle is a pile of all of the cleared material from the house block, so about 9 x 29 metres worth of work

Clearing on Day 2 - this is where Derek was standing in the photo above on Sunday, so just a bit of work done

And on the house block part we did twice as much today as we did on Sunday (sort of got the hang of it now)

We probably have another two days of work to get the area cleared that we'll be building on, then of course the fun part of waiting for it all to die off a little before burning it all off (got to love Tasmania's burning rules).
Once it is all cleared we'll be getting the surveyor to come and mark out the land again (there are still some pegs from where the previous owners had it done).  Then Nigel, our designer, will go out with us and we'll mark out the house on the block and make sure it fits properly.  From there we can get plans drawn up and submitted to council, very exciting.
And yes, it is very rewarding and a great sense of achievement to clear to block ourselves, I was only joking :-)

Birthday celebrations

Another event of some note was my birthday last Thursday.  Derek decided that it would be nice to take me away for the night, especially given all of the boxes that still litter our lives and make us feel guilty when we aren't dealing with them.
He booked a romantic night away on Bruny Island, the ferry for which is about a 40 minute drive away from us.  We had an amazing time, and will have to go back in slightly warmer temperatures to do some of the walks and one of the adventure cruises out to see the seals, but it was very relaxing just driving around, and really being very much alone.
The accommodation Derek booked was... interesting.  We stayed in Morella Island Retreats, in their cabin called the cockpit (so named as it is similar to the cockpit of a boat in design).  It is very well placed on the land and the view really has to be seen to be believed, the picture below does not give it credit.

The entire north facing side of the cabin is floor to ceiling windows, which offer this spectacular view back over Bruny Island, and is quite mesmerising to watch as night comes in and millions of stars come out.  It was a wonderful place to stay, the people who own it were very friendly and I had a brilliant birthday there. So why was it "interesting", well there were a few little things... there are two small mirrors on the ceiling above the bed which are disconcerting; and the door to the bathroom, which is beside the bedroom of course, is completely see through glass - see through directly to the toilet.  However, the most disconcerting thing is that there are five (yes FIVE) guest books, which contain some rather graphic accounts of how "romantic" people have been there!! Actually it was probably more disconcerting that Derek discovered them and briefly read through them all making comments to me about the spa, hammock etc.
But it was a wonderful birthday and I really would recommend the location to anyone, just don't read about the other people who stayed there :-)