This Adventurous Age

Adventures travelling and working around Australia.

Monthly Archives: February 2024


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2018 Travels December 12

DECEMBER 12 2018

An unexpected bonus of the move here was the discovery of a set of friendly neighbours on one side of us. This slightly younger couple had only moved into their home a few weeks before us, so we had that in common for starters. We quickly developed the pattern of going to each others’ places once or twice a week for Happy Hour.

They were caravanners as we had been, owning a rather large and heavy offroad van that they kept at a local storage place. We talked travel and places been.

Another pattern that quickly developed was going out for meals with this couple, almost on a weekly basis. It was definitely new for John to be happy to eat out and within a month or two we’d had more such meals than we’d had in at least two decades in Melbourne!

There was no shortage of wonderful places to dine in Bendigo – and all within less than a twenty minute drive from home. So many pubs doing great counter meals…The one at Marong quickly became a favourite, as did the local Prattys Patch, housed in a wonderful old stone building dating from the gold heyday period. Daughter took us to one of her favourites, the National, on the edge of the CBD.

Historic Prattys Patch

We sampled very good Thai food at a city centre restaurant. The Malayan Orchid also in town, provided excellent meals on special occasions – and between us all, there were going to be plenty of those.

Obviously, with the strong Chinese heritage in Bendigo, dating from the gold rushes, there was no shortage of really good Chinese dining places, so we had some of those we wanted to try.

I soon had a big list of eating venues to trial. Exciting!

John found an online market place site and immediately advertised our lawnmower and whipper snipper, Rather surprisingly, these sold quickly. He was quite gleeful to see them go.

Bus came home from aunty’s place to the new house, where it was driven down the driveway beside the house and parked in front of John’s shed. Some pittosporum hedging had to be heavily trimmed first. There was not a great deal of clearance on either side, and the fact that said driveway was angled around the corner of the garage, made this exercise rather harder than it needed to be.

Had a tradesman come in and measure the area in front of the shed to have a carport extension built onto it. For the first time since we bought it in 2012, Bus would eventually be under shelter. But it would not be built until the new year. The new roof would be gabled, with a central high peak – to accommodate the height of the air-con unit that was so nearly scraped off a few weeks ago.

Only a few days after Bus had been parked in front of the shed, John realized it would have to be moved again, in order to extricate the trailer, which had been parked off to one side of it. Admirable forward planning demonstrated here! The trailer still contained several large and very heavy timber slabs that John had moved from Melbourne on it. These were destined to  make large table tops and the like and needed to be stored in the shed. We needed the trailer to collect some mulch for the garden, and take some packing remnants to the tip.

I started the process of reversing Bus back down the driveway, with John directing from outside. This method had worked when our old van had needed reversing, but we’d never quite mastered it with the Bus, as John had usually reversed it in caravan parks. I couldn’t work out which way he wanted me to turn the steering wheel and it didn’t seem he was that sure, either! I did make some progress backwards, very stop and start, but was soon ordered out and John completed the tight reversing through the side gates and around the house corner to the street.

On the cement of the drive at the front of the house, there were now some curvy rubber patterns, which demonstrated how many times Bus had been inched back and forth to get round the angle.

I suggested that we should maybe try reversing Bus back up the drive, when it was time to put it back, after the trailer was unloaded and taken out, which might make it easier to drive out next time. For some totally illogical reason, it did turn out to be easier to do, that way. Couldn’t really work out why – it didn’t change the size of the driveway!

John decided that, to make Bus entry and exit even easier, another task for the new year would be to remove the low brick fence at the front of the block, along with some garden there, and relocate the mailbox, thus creating a straight driveway.

The obstacles to a straight entry to the side driveway…


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2018 Travels November (2)

NOVEMBER     WHERE THE HELL IS 24?

Friend M was anxious to see the new home, so came to visit early in the month. I was hoping we might be able to convince her of the benefits of tree changing, and persuade her to move up here too. We had not seen much of her this year, until a few weeks before our move. After some short domestic trips, she’d gone travelling in Mongolia, China and Hong Kong with a friend, then embarked solo on a 21 day trip on the Trans Siberian Railway, from Vladivostock to Moscow. From there she travelled to Italy and eventually finished up with a cruise around the Mediterranean.  Her emails and photos had kept me engrossed through our boring winter.

M’s photo of the Trans-Siberian train

With her first visit here scheduled, we were expecting M to arrive in time for lunch. Phone rang, caller ID showed it was M. “Where the bloody hell is 24 xyz Road” her voice demanded. I replied “Don’t know, but we are at Number xx”! 24 was our old Melbourne street number.

A few minutes later she arrived, suitably flustered. Seemed she had been cruising around our suburb for ages, looking for 24, which we now realized, did not actually exist. Her GPS had taken her to the local school, so she was convinced we had to be near there.  The lady in the Post Office had not been able to help. Being a relatively new development, the streets in the area twist and wind about, so she’d found herself going round in circles. Due to a couple of child care centres, there are also some one way streets and No Entry zones, just to confuse matters. She’d decided to drive the less manoeuvrable Troopy up here, to give it a run, rather than her little runabout, so that had made her forays into assorted Courts, Drives and dead ends more difficult. Cup of tea definitely needed – too early for anything stronger!

Along with M came the first of what would be my new additions to the garden. Near our old home had been the brilliant Kuranga Native Nursery. I hadn’t yet been here long enough to know where to find a good assortment of native plant stock, so had sent M a wish list. Like me, she needed no urging to visit Kuranga, so the Troopy contained my order of ti-trees, correas and callistemons. Not the best time of year for plantings, but I just couldn’t wait until autumn to start the process. M had enjoyed hunting down my plants for me.

One of the plants I’d loved in my Melbourne garden was a ti-tree with bronze coloured leaves. I was determined to have at least one of those here, so M.s load included one of those.

My favourite red-leafed ti-tree

Now, attention turned to the back garden. M and I wandered about, talking about what plants would be good where, and working out exactly what we already had. There were six small callistemons scattered about. A battling little something – maybe a ti-tree? A row of somewhat scraggly wattles down a side fence. A row of yuccas across the back fence. A couple of not-too-tall eucalypt trees. And fruit trees – a peach and an apricot tree, and five of what the previous owner had said were crab apples. My immediate instinct was to remove these… I mean, why have them? Suppose the blossom could be pretty, but very short lived. John pointed out that anything providing shade was probably worth keeping, with the summer heat coming on. Temporary reprieve for the crab apples. I resolved to add to the two ti-trees that were already planted in front of them, and remove the exotics later, when better replacement plants had grown up.

There was also a lot of quite high grass – with nasty spear-like seeds on. Clearly, the prior people had thought that signing the sale contract back in July absolved them of any further need to keep the garden in order. M and I set about removing said grass – which was very easy to pull up, we discovered. This was because the scattered mulch of the back and side garden sat on top of weed mat – as did most of the roots of the existing plants. Shock. Horror. M and I conferred. The weed mat would have to go. In these parts, all moisture needed to be able to get into the soil easily. Plant roots needed to be encouraged to grow deep. Decent mulching should deter weeds, without needing plastic matting to do so.

M set to, with great determination, pulling up great sheets of the horrible plastic stuff and by the time her short visit ended, had made considerable progress.

Another benefit of M’s visit was to remove our heaps of moving cartons and bubble wrap. A friend was soon to also move house, so M took the lot for her. It was a good thing she’d brought the Troopy!


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2018 Travels November (1)

NOVEMBER     SETTLING IN

The month was quite a flurry of activity.

Had work done by an electrician recommended by family – having these local contacts really helps. John wanted some extra power points and a safety cut out in his shed. We had decided to instal some extra ceiling fans in the house; there were already fans out on the patio, and in the main bedroom. We wanted them in every room. Bought the fans online and had the recommended electrician instal them.

Arranged for another recommended local tradesman to instal blockout blinds on sun exposed windows and doors at the back and western side of the house. These would help keep the place cooler in summer and in winter reduce heat loss through the glass expanses.

Had both the air conditioning and the gas heating checked and serviced by yet another tradie, because we had no way of knowing when these were last done.

We both noticed and commented to each other that the tradesmen up here were different to those we’d encountered over the years in Melbourne – much more friendly, obliging, punctual and generally helpful. It made for a really refreshing change. They seemed cheaper too.

I was itching to start work on the gardens, which had potential to be so much nicer. Started research into what native plants grew best in the conditions of Central Victoria, and which would be most bird attracting.

There was already a raised up rectangular garden bed in the yard, which we assumed had been used for vegie growing. A real estate photo I’d found, dating from 2008, showed this already in existence, but fringed with rosemary bushes which were now gone. That was only about four years after the house was built, and whilst the area was still severely drought affected. From this photo, I suspected that the central gravelled area, shown with a garden seat, had originally been meant to contain lawn, but water shortages and restrictions had changed plans.

John soon had this long bed dug over and filled with tomato seedlings.

Back garden as it was in 2008, with raised bed on right

After less than a month here, we were already feeling oriented. Had undertaken the essential task of finding a new GP doctor. Daughter had put our names down at the clinic she attended, but when John discovered that they did not bulk bill, he took himself off to find one that did. Our brilliant Melbourne dentist had given us a recommendation of a Bendigo one. Family recommendations led me to a good podiatrist. Our little village settlement had a Post Office, bakery, chemist, small supermarket and a very good fish and chip shop. John already knew where Bunnings was, from times he’d visited on our travels. A city the size of Bendigo has quite a choice of major supermarkets – no problems there. It was harder, however, to find specialist food retailers – fresh fruit and vegies, fish, in particular. The place where we bought ourselves a new gas barbeque recommended a butcher, who turned out to stock excellent meats. I eventually found a small fresh seafood shop; it opened only a few days each week, but met my needs beautifully.

We visited the central branch of the Goldfields Library – impressive – and took out memberships. I spent some time browsing their local history collection – Bendigo has a much more complex and fascinating history than I had realized.

Exploring our new home city, and starting the process of settling in, was great fun in itself. Well, mostly… by the end of November John had changed bowls clubs. Another new uniform…


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2018 Travels October 29

SUNDAY OCTOBER 29     THE FINAL UNPACKING

Last Wednesday was a day of much excitement for John – the truck bearing his wood working machinery arrived. Offloading this and putting it in the shed was so easy, with a cement drive, gravelled solid driveway up to the shed, and two large roller doors to it. Couldn’t be easier.

Arranging and re-arranging shed kept John busy – and tired – for much of the week. He decided to put some of the big machines on little platforms with wheels, so they could be moved around, depending on the latest project.

New shelving was also required and acquired. Was it actually possible that the shed contents had expanded in the move?

Some shed contents

I had somewhat naively assumed there would be a corner of the shed – a considerably larger one than we’d had in Melbourne – for my gardening implements and bit and pieces, maybe even a little potting table. Not so.

A novelty for us was having a built in garage, after only ever having carports, or open air. Not only did it securely house our vehicles, but also provided some very useful extra storage space. However, after a lifetime of not having same, I did make a very firm mental note to self – remember, you must operate the roller door before reversing car out!

A built in garage

John went to bowls practice a couple of times but did not feel at home or particularly welcomed there. I think he had assumed that he would be the “big” new bowler from the big smoke – but he had totally underestimated the quality and standard of the local bowlers. Again, he was relegated to the lowest Saturday pennant side – and again, he did not play well. He did not seem to have established rapport with any fellow bowlers at that club. I suspected he may have been telling some of them how clubs were organised in the city – trying to be helpful, but misjudgement on his part.

With order established in the house, we realized that it was actually bigger than the one we’d left. There was the same number of rooms, but they were larger. So, contrary to some people’s assumptions we hadn’t really downsized, apart from having a bit less land and no pool – and John was so happy to have left both pool and lawns behind us.

To compensate dog for the lack of backyard grass, we had already developed the habit of taking her for a daily walk in a nearby area of bushland and adjacent sporting oval. The bush was great for sniffing stimulation and the fenced oval a secure area for ball chasing games where she could really be stretched out. Who needs a lawn? But I thought I might try growing some grass in a shallow plant container, so she had some to nibble on, if the need struck.