Moving House, again

Life certainly does have a strange way of happening at times. I seem to recall that after moving into our current home I said "never again".

In early October 2020 my wife and I visited the new home display village just up the road from us and from that point on we started talking about either building a new home or putting an extension on our existing home. We like the location of our current home and the view from the roof of the house is pretty good, so we thought that putting a new master bedroom suite upstairs could be the way to go.

We drew up some basic plans and my wife reached out to some builders. We found it pretty hard to find a builder that was interested in putting an upstairs extension on our house, most of the ones that did reply said that we were wasting our time and that we should just build a new home that suited what we wanted.

The more my wife and I talked about it, the more we started to agree that building a completely new home was probably the way to go.

The first step was to find a block of land to build on. We started looking at the blocks that were currently available and none of them seemed right for us. We tried to talk ourselves into a couple of them and my wife was really keen to get things moving, but I wasn't going to compromise on the block, it needed to be right for what we wanted to build and the blocks that were for sale at the start of our search were the blocks that no one else wanted.

The developers that were releasing the blocks usually used a ballot system so we signed up our interest and waited for the next release of land. The way the ballot system works is that they release details of the blocks and you have about week to register your interest. They then draw names out of a hat to determine the order in which people will select their blocks. When your name is drawn out, you select your preferred block and pay a deposit then and there. You need to have a few blocks in mind as depending on when your name is drawn out, the block or blocks that you were interested may no longer be available.

I was pretty convinced that it would take a long time before our name was drawn out early enough in a ballot for us to be able to select a block that suited us.

One morning in January 2021, we received an email from the sales office advising that they were doing a small release of land on a first come first served basis. My wife and I jumped into gear and started looking at the 20 or so blocks that had been released and immediately short listed four or five of the blocks. We contacted the sales office and requested further information on the blocks we were interested in. There were some blocks in the release that didn't appear to be available so we asked what the go was with them too.

We received further information on the blocks we liked and basically ended up with two blocks that could be suitable, but we really liked one block in particular that didn't appear to be available. It turns out that their was a "Builders Ballot" that was conducted prior to the blocks becoming available to the public so we asked the sales office if they could tell us the name of the builder who had the block. Whilst we waited to hear back, we heard that one of the other blocks that we liked had now been sold so we were down to one potential.

The sales office supplied us with the name of the builder and we did us much research as we could on the builder and we couldn't find any negative reviews and then reached out to them. We contacted the builder and arranged to meet with them at the display village on the weekend.

The meeting went really well and we decided the following day that we wanted to go ahead so we paid them an initial non-refundable deposit of $1500. 

So we now had the block we wanted, we just had to choose a design that we liked so we could get plans drawn up. It all happened much faster than I expected and we hadn't even talked to a broker to know if it was even going to be possible to do what we had planned. I didn't mind too much as it was only $1,500 that we were risking at this stage and the block was exactly what we wanted. There is a small local park directly across the road which has four existing large gum trees on it and everything slopes away from the block so we should get a nice 180° view of the surrounding ranges from the rooms at the front of the house.

Next week I'll let you know how we went about choosing the design for the new home and the ups and downs along the way.

Bomber
Never say never, I guess.

Loosing Weight, or at least Trying to.

I'm trying things a little differently this time. I still believe that the only way to loose weight is by eating less and making sure that what I am eating isn't too unhealthy.

What I've decided to try this time is to replace my breakfast with a
protein shake, try to eat a healthy lunch and then make sure that dinner isn't too unhealthy but still something that the whole family will eat. The protein shake is something that my wife purchased a while back but didn't like the taste of so she stopped making them. I've found that mixing the protein shake with a spoonful of orange Metamucil makes quite a nice Jaffa flavour, so I have that with a multivitamin each morning. I feel like a bit of warlock in the morning mixing up my concoction of powders and pills.

For lunch I try and have a sandwich or two and a piece of fruit if I'm still hungry.

I made a New Year's Resolution that this year I would try to do "Meat Free Mondays" for dinner. This was partly to do with eating healthier and partly to do with the fact that I think we need to eat less meat in general to be kinder to the environment.

I've made a few different meat free meals, some have been a success and others not so much. We now basically alternate between the three meals that my wife and kids eat without complaining, which are Cauliflower Alfredo, Tofu Stir-fry and Vege Burgers.

For dinner the rest of the week, I try and make sure that they aren't too processed. I've been working from home a lot so I've had a bit more time to prepare and cook. My wife used to do most of the weekly grocery shopping and I'd do a big shop at Costco every few months, but recently I've started doing the weekly shopping so I've been able to plan out the weeks dinners more easily.

I've stopped eating snacks and chocolate and have stopped drinking beer entirely. I kind of said to myself that I'd give up on beer until the new house is built, that was to give an end date to my sobriety and also so that I was making an effort to save a little extra money as we're probably going to need it, but that's a whole blog own it's own!

I haven't been doing much dedicated exercise but I do need to do more. I did end up buying some weights and last year I had a little routine that I did for a few months but then my son had footy training twice a week that I had to take him to and I kind of lost my rhythm as footy training was straight after school and we didn't get home until dinner time.

So far the vertigo hasn't returned so it will be interesting to see if it comes back again when I start losing more weight. So far I've lost a couple of kilos, but that's what happened last time, I lost a couple of kilos really easy at the start and then seemed to plateau out.

Bomber

112Kg

What Happened to My YouTube Dreams

In a nutshell, life happened and the camera sucked.

I couldn't really find the time to go motocamping as often as I would have liked and the one time I did and took the camera with me, it wasn't really the experience I thought it was going to be. The other thing that put me off was the quality of the footage from the Insta360 camera, it just didn't look nice. I'd read a few reviews that said it was great for use on social media, but what that really meant was that it was great for the odd photo or short video that you'd upload to Instagram or Facebook. The video quality just wasn't there for quality YouTube videos. I wouldn't have subscribed to someone uploading videos of that quality so I was kidding myself to think that it would be successful.

I've seen a few YouTube channels that use a 360° camera for some shots, but if you look at their kit, they are using the newer Insta360 One X or the One X2. The newer cameras are so much better than the original Insta360 that I have. At the time I bought my camera it was the only one available in the Insta360 range and the other 360° cameras available on the market were a lot more expensive and there really wasn't a lot of choice.

I haven't even played with my camera in a long time as like I said, I was never really happy with the image quality. Maybe I wasn't using it correctly or maybe those that were using it for photos were manipulating the photos to correct the imperfections that were all over mine, I don't know.

I do think that you could start a new YouTube channel today and be successful and make an income from it but it just wasn't my gig. Maybe I'll try again at a later date, but right now I don't really have any ideas for a new channel and I don't see the point in being just another imitator.

Recently I've really been enjoying YouTube channels about sailing and luxury yachts. One day I'd love to own a catamaran and go sailing around the Whitsunday Islands and even further out into the South Pacific and right around Australia. If you've read any of my previous posts you'll know that I loved the cruise that we went on so I figure that being on my own boat on my own schedule could be pretty awesome.

 

Bomber.
Still dreaming big.

Staying at Taronga Zoo Wildlife Retreat, Sydney

Back at Easter this year, we decided to go on a family holiday to Taronga Zoo. Due to the COVID-19 lock-downs in NSW we weren't sure if it would actually be possible or not as we'd already had another holiday cancelled earlier in the year. We weren't sure if we were being smart or not taking the kids away from our regional town and holidaying in Sydney but we figured that by staying at the Zoo itself and following some simple precautions that we should be fine.

We drove the four hours up to Sydney and managed to find our way to the Zoo. My wife had her Apple Car Play hooked up and I was driving, it was quite the adventure as Apple Maps decided to take us through the suburbs as we approached the zoo. We saw some very fancy and no doubt expensive houses along the way and it was nice to be off the main roads which are usually very busy.

Arriving at the Hotel at the Zoo, which is called a Wildlife Retreat, I dropped the wife, kids and luggage off at the front gate and then went to park the car. Included in our stay at the Hotel was free parking in the Zoo's multi-storey car-park. Being Easter and School Holidays, the Zoo was packed and I was lucky to find a park. I think that I may have gotten lucky and taken the last spot available at the time, we did arrive around 2pm from memory so there were no doubt people already starting to leave the zoo.

After checking in, we headed to our room to relax for a couple of hours. We could have gone into the Zoo if we'd wanted to, but we had already decided that we'd make a full day of it the following day. We got adjoining rooms so the kids could be in one and my wife and I could be in the other room. The rooms were fantastic. They had large sliding windows that opened up to form a kind of balcony. Our rooms overlooked one of the kangaroo enclosures and we could also see the giraffes off to one side.

Around 4pm we were given a tour of the native animal enclosure within the hotel grounds itself. We saw koalas and brush turkeys and some little wallabies and echidna.

At 5pm we headed up to the restaurant for an early dinner.
The food was amazing and view was even better. Looking across Sydney Harbour at the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge as the sun was setting, it was just magical and something that I won't forget.

After dinner we headed down to the bar at reception and
waited for our VIP night tour to commence. As part of the package for staying at the Wildlife Retreat you also get a tour of the zoo at night. Wandering around the zoo at night was pretty cool and it was a good way to make the kids a little tired after all the excitement of the day. We didn't actually see that much as it was really dark as only the keepers had a couple of red torches and some of the exhibits they deliberately avoid as it can upset some of the animals to have people crashing around in the dark.

The following day we had breakfast in the restaurant and I could have sat there drinking in the view all day, however the zoo was calling so we headed off. You access the zoo from within the Wildlife Retreat's compound so you don't have to line up at the main gate or show tickets, you can just come and go as you please. We decided to try and see the whole zoo in one day and what we didn't realise was that it would take nearly all day to see it all.

The kids favourite attraction was probably the meerkats, they were just having fun digging holes and basking in the sun and they didn't seem bothered by all the people walking around. 

Being school holidays, the Easter long weekend and a gap in the COVID-19 lock-downs, it was super busy at the zoo there were people everywhere. This meant that queuing for lunch at the cafe took around half an hour and then there was no where to sit. We managed to find a spot on a brick wall to sit down and eat some pretty average fish and chips, but the serves were massive so no one went hungry.

The other big queue was to catch the cable car from the bottom of the zoo back up to the top. When we reached the track to get to the cable car we didn't realise how long it would take to actually get to there. There was no sign of a line but after a few twists and turns we ended up at the back of a line that took about an hour for us to get to the front of. The weather was fantastic though and the zoo looked well maintained. A few of the exhibits were closed and a few of the animals were very hard to find but all in all we had a great time. 

We staggered back to our room at the end of a big day of walking and ordered a couple of pizzas from a local delivery restaurant. I can't remember the name of the restaurant but they were proper wood fired Italian pizzas and they were really really good.

We checked out the next morning and made the four hour drive back home easily, I did take one wrong turn but decided to stick with it as it was going to be too hard to try and turn around. The wrong turn only added five or ten minutes to the trip and it actually saved us a couple of dollars in road tolls.

 

Bomber
Funny how I can remember food really well...

 

Well Bugger Me

Well hello there.

I'd been thinking about writing another post for the last couple of weeks as it has been quite sometime. I was just sitting on the couch this afternoon, thinking about all the things that have changed since I first started writing this blog and that I was still overweight and that I had just decided to try and lose weight, again. I decided to just jump in front of the keyboard to see what might come out. Little did I know that today actually marked 12 months since my last post.

Having a quick scroll back through some of my posts I can give you a few updates on some things, like I finally got that promotion. I still haven't officially started in the new role, which is basically the same as my current role, but I have won the position and I am currently planning on staying where I am.

I haven't done any further training apart from some very halfhearted online training during the last few weeks of lock down and working from home.

I haven't purchased another motor bike yet and I'm not really sure when that may be, probably when the kids both have cars of their own which will be something like 10 years from now....

I'm not going to dwell on the last couple of years of COVID-19 as I've actually had it pretty good compared to a lot of the world and we're just coming up on having some freedom in Australia. I'm fully vaccinated and so is my wife. My son is due for his first shot later this week so things will be back to some sort of new normal soon. My daughter isn't yet eligible for the vaccine in Australia but I don't think that will hold us back any.

The view from the restaurant

We managed to get a quick break in at Easter when all the
lockdowns had eased for a couple of weeks. We ended up going to Taronga Zoo in Sydney and stayed in the hotel that is actually part of the Zoo. It was an amazing experience and one that I highly recommend. The view from the bar and the restaurant are just amazing and the rooms have a balcony that opens on to the enclosures.

It looks like we can actually start planning for Christmas, which this year is meant to be down the coast at my wife's parents place. It could be really nice to get out of town if only for a few days.

Something else that has come up this year is that we've decided that we want to move, again. I seem to remember after the last time we moved I said that I would never do it again, yet here we are.

Sometime at the end of last year my wife and I started talking about either building an extension on top of our existing home or building a completely new home nearby. Sounds familiar right? Looking back at my last post, today not only marks 12 months since my last post, but it seems that it is also 12 months since we visited the display village and started thinking about building a new home.

As I'm writing all of this down, I'm realising that I'm enjoying myself and I'm now thinking that I could maybe do a series of posts based on the last few paragraphs above, so that's what I've decided to do. I'll break each one down into a new post of it's own and release them separately, most likely one a week on Sunday afternoon or evening. Something like that.

As I mentioned above I've also decided to try and lose weight again so I'll keep track of that in the posts too, I'm not sure how long I'll keep on posting for, probably for as long as I have some thing to write about.

Take care out there,

Bomber 114kg
Doing it again, maybe.