The social side of house sitting

The past weekend highlighted one of the great joys of house sitting, particularly with friendly Australians.

Our homeowners returned Friday afternoon, and that evening we sat down to a beautiful Thai green curry prepared by the homeowners.

We said goodbye to Ollie, who
has such a beautiful temperament

Why did the kangaroo cross the street?

We've been living a quiet life here in the suburbs of Canberra. We enjoy spending time at this beautiful home, as well as walks in the neighbourhood, and discovering the northerly part of Canberra.

We ventured into the city on Saturday, to enjoy a day at the 3-day annual cultural festival. We anticipated seeing colourful national costumes, international dances, traditional music and a great variety of food. Unfortunately it rained steadily the whole time, which certainly dampened the spirt of the festival. We saw about 80 countries represented with booths at the festival, but Canada wasn't one of them. We wondered why.

Although we feel like we're living much the same way we would if we were at home in Canada, each day brings us experiences we just would not get at home. That's part of what makes the house sitting so enjoyable. One of my favourite differences is the abundance of beautiful wildlife here. Note that I have not altered the colour in any of these photos; they were taken on different days at different locations.

The planned city of Canberra

We've now been in Canberra for a week, which is halfway through our sit here. Before we left Canada I had done some reading about Australia and was particularly interested in the history of the design of Canberra, the capital city of Australia. Although my primary focus in planning our sits was to stay near the coast, I was pleased to stray from that plan, to be able to see Canberra.

Greg's in the car, with our buddy Ollie in the back

Are those sheep hopping?

As you may know, I was born and raised in Wales, where sheep outnumber people by three to one. Apparently in Australia, sheep outnumber people by more than four to one. However, we've seen very few sheep since we've been here.

In the two days since we've been in Canberra, we haven't seen any live sheep. However, we did see two that made us smile.

Two days ago, I went to the store for a bottle of wine. I just couldn't resist this one.

Experiencing hot flashes

Yesterday we arrived at our current house sit, in Nicholls, Canberra. Canberra is the capital city of Australia, and yet is only its 7th largest city. There are five cities with populations in the millions (Sydney 4.6 million), but Canberra has only 367,000 residents.

Our latest housemate, Ollie-The-Dog

From coast to coast ... again!

We've now been at this house sit in Western Australia for more than three weeks. Here's our house companion, in case you've forgotten. I do have a policy of asking pet owners for permission to post photos of their pets, but I made an exception for this one. I hope I won't get into trouble :)

He didn't have a name, so Greg named him Henry

Bird-watching in Western Australia

Some people who know me are well aware that I know very little about birds and bird species. However, currently living in Western Australia, I am fascinated by the native birds here. Usually, if I'm asked about a bird I saw, I would most likely say, for example, it was a red bird, or a yellow bird - that's about it! That's not the case with these birds.

Out and about as tourists

Yesterday was another road trip for us, exploring an area highlighted in a tourist brochure.

We aimed for north east of the city of Mandurah, for what we came to learn was the shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale. In the brochure, it showed Jarrahdale as an historic town with a good place for lunch, and then we planned to move on to Serpentine Falls. Once more, we seem to visit waterfalls, even though our home is in Niagara Falls.

Thrombolites are now checked off our bucket list

Our first house sit, three years ago, was in a prestigious gated community in Arizona. Being homebodies, we were content in the beautiful home in a beautiful environment. It felt like we were staying at a 5-star resort. Our homeowners teased us that we really should venture "outside of the compound", as they called it. That saying has stuck with us. Yesterday was a day to venture outside of the compound.

Shopping for an antique

An update on yesterday's post about tea kettles and our hunt for a drip coffee maker. After visiting more stores today, we finally went back to the only store where we'd seen one.

There were only two left in boxes, so we quickly grabbed one. Phew! For those familiar with a popular Ikea ad, Greg started saying "Start the car! Start the car!"

In our discussion with workers at two of the stores today, they confirmed that no one really uses this type anymore. Hopefully our homeowners will, but if not we've kept the receipt and they can return it.

While we were at the shopping centre, I stopped to buy sausages. Faced with a wide range of choices, some of which I really wasn't familiar with, I noticed this pack.

Being Welsh, these seemed like the ideal choice ... and no lamb were sacrificed for them either. I'm grateful for that :)