Home Wet Home

It has been a week since we arrived in Buderim. We’ve experienced extreme heat, extreme humidity and extreme wind and rain (AKA ex-cyclone Oswald). Having said that, we’ve been very fortunate.

We were greeted at the airport by Col’s shuttle and greeted on the lawn of our new house by Karen’s Mum and partner, Jan and Dave. Since the house had been vacant for almost a month, Jan and Dave busied themselves by removing all the creepy crawlies, dusting, opening windows, turning on fans and filling the fruit bowl full of delicious watermelon, cantaloupe, passion fruit, nectarines, avocado and a few others (we’re still not sure what they are called!) Jan and Dave have been wonderful to show us around Buderim and introduce us to some local Canadians. Karen and Gary also ensured their neighbors and friends called upon us. We’ve already made tentative plans to head to Noosa next weekend to meet one couple!

Our first weekend in Buderim was spent safe and dry indoors while ex-cyclone Oswald pounded eastern Queensland with rain, wind and more rain. We suffered a few down trees and a down fence and a lot of leaves in the backyard pool while others suffered extended power losses, the loss of their homes and all of their belongings. Some even suffered the loss of life. As Oswald moves south, New South Wales and Victoria residents are being flooded, evacuated and under water bans. Every television channel has footage of the devastation. Australia has suffered 9 natural disasters in the past 5 years at a cost of 6 billion dollars.

When the rain stopped we entertained some Aussie friends and some newly befriended Canadians with a backyard BBQ and dip in the pool. We plan on getting together with them again soon.

We’ve made several trips to various grocers, a trip to open a bank account and Fenton and Heather made a trip to the library and Good Life Community/Recreation Centre. Driving has been interesting but not too difficult. Thank goodness for google maps and directions which even tell you how many roundabouts to go through and which exit to take!

This weekend we travel to Brisbane for an exchange teacher meeting. We’re staying with some other exchangees and look forward to hearing their travels, their teaching experiences and their Canadian “accents”.

In summary, here’s a list of some good and some not so good things that happened in the first week of our new home.

The good things:

-tasty yummy tasty fruit – juicy cold watermelon, peaches, apples, passion fruit, avocado and other fruits we’ve never experienced

-tasty yummy tasty Australian wine – we’ve been buying it by the box

-tasty yummy tasty Cadbury dairymilk chocolate – we’ve also been buying in bulk!

-large warm backyard low maintenance pool with plenty of room and toys for Fenton to play with

-spacious home with plenty of room and toys for Fenton to play with 

-a backyard forest with plenty of kookaburras and cicadas chorusing throughout the night

-6 p.m. darkness – good for putting Fenton to sleep!

The not so good things:

-rain, rain and more rain and gale force winds – we had a big clean up to do once the cyclone finished dumping on us. And a big load of laundry! Nothing dries here – ever.

-Coackroaches, cockroaches and coackroaches. And ants. And spiders. And cane toads. And supersized grass hoppers. And geckos. Though I’m starting to like the geckos. Apparently they eat the mozzies.  

-Driving – can be confusing on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, with roundabouts instead of traffic lights. Expect to get lost at least once every trip, both directions. (If that’s all that happens, you’re doing well!)