Having come to spend a few days house hunting, the rest of the time was now a bit of an anti-climax.
Come to think of it that also describes the next three months!
We had some paper work to complete. Went and found Bunnings and had a browse. Yes, it was big and diverse enough to suit John well.
The new house had a lovely large, roofed outdoor living area. We would need to buy a BBQ after the move, so had a look at the ones on offer there. John was interested in looking at the range of portable pizza ovens, rather than build another like he had at the old home.
What will we be able to do with this?
Caught up with the family, briefly, after school and work hours. Daughter was, of course, so excited that we had found a house and confessed later to doing some drives past to peer at it, being frustrated that she could not see much from the street.
A lovely part of staying at the Marong park was the sound from frogs in the adjacent paddock, where there was a dam and swampy area. It was a loud amphibian chorus for much of our time there.
Our first house inspection was scheduled for 10am, so we needed to get going at an earlier than usual hour. This meant we were up at 8am, and encountered a first for us. In all our years of camping, caravanning and Coastering, had never before had our hose from the water tap freeze solid! A drip from the attachment at the tap end had frozen into a long, solid icicle. We were lucky that the hose itself had not split.
John phoned the agent for the house we had primarily come to see, to find out what new time had been arranged for our inspection. It seemed the message John had left for him had not been passed on, and the sellers had, over the weekend, accepted an offer. That was possibly a pity for us, and definitely for them, because two potential buyers might well have pushed up the price they got. I was disappointed because the place had certainly seemed interesting.
That left us with two arranged inspections, plus an address of another place found online that John wanted to drive past and look at; this one was being sold by the owner – no agent. All three were properties John had found online – even though they did not match the parameters he had earlier given me for such searching.
The first home – at 10am – was in the Maiden Gully area we both liked. The agent was the same man who had conducted the Open For Inspection we’d attended, earlier in the year – that had shown us what an owner should not do at such events. In this case, the owners were departing as we arrived, so we could look around in the agent’s presence, without them watching us.
I loved the place. The house ticked most of my boxes: modern, light, spacious, the right number of rooms. I’d have preferred wood floors instead of the tiles, but John tended to prefer tiles. It was on a fairly standard block in what had obviously been a housing estate some years before. All the houses along the street looked to be a similar age. This meant that the neighbours on each side were actually closer than those we had at Mt Evelyn – supposedly a real no-no for John. But he really liked it too, perhaps especially because he had found it online, rather than me. Of course, it had a large shed – imperative for him.
We left the agent and went driving to the fringes of Maiden Gully, where John wanted to drive past a place that was on a larger block, with a couple of large sheds and garage detached from the main house. The sheds were the attraction for him. It was more rural here, than suburban, with undeveloped land around and bush nearby. The fencing around the block was only a couple of strands of wire – not great to contain a dog. Fortunately, from my point of view, as soon as we drove past John decided it was not what he had in mind.
Our second agent led inspection was in the northern suburb of White Hills. Again, John had been attracted by the large block – room to build a large shed to supplement smaller ones already in place. Initially, he was quite tempted by this place. There was a large, older house at the front of the large block and he saw the potential to live in this whilst sub-dividing the block and building a new, better house on the back half – which had been part of the ad that caught his eye originally.
The house was quite strange. An original garage had been turned into the main living room, still complete with bare cement floor. The original passage to the bedrooms had been sealed off – why was unclear – so one had to walk through the kitchen and laundry to reach these. The laundry also contained the kitchen’s pantry. It was all a bit ramshackle.
Fortunately, John decided sub-dividing and building would all be too much hassle. I was so grateful that he’d dismissed the possibility, because the house was decidedly unattractive.
After a very quick discussion, we parked at the Bendigo Botanic Gardens in White Hills, phoned the first agent and put in an offer on the Maiden Gully house. It was not much lower than the asking price, because we had really loved the place, but was more the token initial offer one makes, expecting to then haggle a bit.
In our favour was that we would have the purchase money without needing to wait on obtaining finance. Against us was the fact that we would not be able to complete a purchase until mid October.
Took Couey and went for a walk in the very attractive Gardens. The freezing morning had turned into a beautiful sunny day, though it was not as warm as the sun suggested.
Botanic Gardens
Waiting – hoping – to hear from the agent, we couldn’t think of much else to do but to drive back to Maiden Gully, where John had noticed a bakery in the small cluster of shops there. Late lunch A pie and pasty for him, an egg and lettuce roll for me. We sat in the car, in the carpark, eating these – then the phone rang. The agent…
Our offer had been accepted. Just like that, we had a home to move into – three and a half months down the track. Apparently, the long period until settlement really pleased the sellers, who were going to build a new and smaller place, and so would have to rent a temporary home for a shorter time.
This would be ours…
It felt great to have that sorted out, and in just the area of Greater Bendigo that I really wanted to live – and at a price that would not break our budget.
We didn’t even have to go see the agent – all would be dealt with electronically.
We cruised back past “our place”, and then back to the caravan park.
It felt like we should be having some sort of celebratory festive dinner. The reality was that, after the late bakery lunch, all we wanted was a tin of soup and some biscuits and cheese.
Another freezing night was forecast. John disconnected the water hose as a precaution.
We didn’t leave home until 11.30. This unhurried departure was because the weather forecast had predicted fog, so we would give it time to burn off – in theory. In practice, the day was sunny with blue skies and just a little cloud.
As we headed up the Great Dividing Range from Yarra Glen, the driver remarked “Where’s all that fog you were talking about?” Answer – as we topped the Range – “Up ahead.”
There’s the fog…
We descended into thick mist that persisted almost all the way to Bendigo. It actually made the drive, that we had done so many times before, very pretty and different.
Took a lunch break at Yea, where John bought himself a pie and pastie. I only wanted a coffee. I walked Couey around whilst waiting for John to come back from the bakery. It was bloody cold!
Still misty beyond Seymour
Lunch over, it was back on the road for the familiar run through Seymour to Heathcote, where my coffee lunch necessitated a comfort stop.
The drive around the fringe of the Bendigo CBD was easy in the light Sunday traffic. Arrived at Marong just after 3pm.
Back into the Marong Holiday Park – our favourite. After discount, paid $34.20 a night for our powered site – the en-suites had been booked out. The very helpful man who checked us in suggested that – at this time of year – we’d be better off on one of their mulched sites, rather than grass. We took his advice. The site allocated was actually two sites, which meant that we could drive straight through onto it – and that we had plenty of room. It was in the closest row to the camp kitchen and amenities, so we could not really have asked for more.
The night was forecast to be a really cold one. I had an old sheet and mattress protector in the Terios and used those to cover the outside front and rear windows of the car. I didn’t fancy having to scrape off ice in the morning.
Inside Bus, I put up the solar screens onto the front and side front windows, for insulation. This was a fiddly job, even after I detached the GPS and tyre monitor from the front window. The camera that lived up behind the rear vision mirror made it impossible to slide the screen right up to the top there, so it tended to come unstuck again. I needed several attempts, all crouched up like a contortionist, to make it stick,
Dog was not impressed. At night, she liked to sleep curled up on the front passenger seat where she could look out the windows and “guard” Bus from the marauding rabbits. It was not so much fun when she couldn’t see out.
It was nice and warm inside Bus, with the little electric fan heater going. However, it was a shock to the system to venture outside, whenever Couey indicated a call of nature. We are going to have to get used to the colder winter nights of Central Victoria.
This Adventurous Age 