Moved—at last!

On March 5th we drove to Townsville, got a bank cheque (after some drama, when the only person authorised to do it wasn't available; the other staff were heroic in finding a workaround), then handed over the cheque and got the keys to the new house. That afternoon and Friday morning we spent shopping for essentials like a bed, a refrigerator, and a washing machine, plus some other odds and ends. On Friday afternoon our purchases were delivered. Eric then casually mentioned that a large, very severe cyclone was heading down the coast from near Cairns. (See separate entry.) Packing was our major activity for the next two weeks. As soon as the cyclone was gone, we phoned a local removalist (who doesn’t advertise; he gets all his business by word of mouth, and several locals had mentioned him as the person to contact). Our possessions were picked up on the morning of 23rd March and delivered on the morning of the 24th. During the afternoon of the 23rd we drove to Townsville so we were there in time to meet the removalist when he arrived—at around 7AM as it turned out. We laughed when he (apparently quite bemused by the number of bookcases and boxes of books, the office equipment and recliner chairs, but little else) asked if we were going to buy some furniture. There’s certainly enough room for it! Since then we’ve been unpacking. But first we had to reassemble the Ikea shelves... which of course don’t quite fit in the spaces available. The open-plan kitchen/loungeroom is huge but has limited wall space once we work around the air-conditioner outlet, the windows, the doors, the kitchen bench, and the switches for lights and ceiling fans. We’ve built one ‘wall’ of shelves between the dining area and the lounge area and are contemplating what else we might do. My office is functional but, alas, there’s no internet, nor a working phone line, into the house. Eventually we’ll have internet (and other services) through the fibre-optic connection, but in the interim we need to organise a temporary solution. Shopping has also taken up a lot of time. In addi­tion to food, we needed to buy a variety of household goods to replace ones we deliberately didn't bring (or didn't have). The weather's been good, so the landscapers have been madly working around our house (and the others on our block). Mountains of topsoil are being spread; from the smell, it's fertilizer-enriched. Hope the sod and plants arrive soon.

Carlyle Gardens update

We had arranged to inspect progress on the house and pay our deposit on Tuesday. On the way into town on Monday, we stopped at our credit union (MECU) at James Cook University to pick up a cheque. MECU has recently purchased UniCredit, a smaller credit union with a branch office at JCU. We are delighted, because for 10 years our nearest branch has been in Brisbane! Not that we can't do all of our normal banking over the internet or at the post office, but for rare occasions it would be a bit more convenient to go into a branch office. But I digress... regarding the house: the brick siding and metal roof are on, the interior walls are in, the windows are all in place, and the major bits of floor tiling are done. But the bathrooms and kitchen still have to be installed, and all the plumbing and wiring connected, as well as the interior painting done. One of the salespeople said they'd be astonished if the builder managed to complete it all before 19 December, the projected completion date (and the last day before the builders leave for their 3-week end-of-year break). The project manager said he was leaning on the builder to preferentially work on the houses that have been sold, instead of doing them sequentially down the street. We told everyone that we were not in any hurry, so if it all slipped into next year, no problem... and we'd be overseas for all of February, so handover in March would be okay. We don't want to move in high summer anyway. While we were there, we met some of our future neighbours, who told us a few things. They had moved into the new section (two streets away from our place) in early September, and say they really like it, but there are some "issues" -- not with the community's management, but with other services. For example, the phone company still hasn't managed to get their landline connections working. They aren't too concerned because they have mobile phones, and they are not being charged for their non-existent landline service. They also cheerfully noted that the electricity company hasn't got their meters working yet, so although the power is on, they aren't being charged for what they're using. Here's a photo of the house as seen on Tuesday. See also this post and this photo album.

Carlyle Gardens open day

The Carlyle Gardens retirement resort in Townsville (suburb of Condon) held an open day on the weekend of the 6th and 7th of September, and we attended. What we saw, and the residents we met, confirmed our impression that this was a suitable place for us to live. Our selection criteria included:

• Located in a warm but not too humid part of the country, with a choice of suitable health care options and a convenient airport with good connections to other parts of the country.
• Good, fast internet access available.
• Easy access to recreational facilities such as a gym, pool, maybe a restaurant.
• Convenient transport options if one doesn’t have a car.
• Far enough above sea level and/or far enough from the coast to minimise the risk of flooding from storms (including cyclones), tsunami, sea levels rises, etc.
• Not in an area likely to be flooded by river runoff or flooding, eg from heavy rain associated with cyclones.
• Facilities to minimise inconvenience from power outages of up to several days (e.g., solar power sufficient to keep some things running—though not the air-conditioning). This ruled out most buildings with elevators.
• The house or apartment must have no internal or external steps.
• Must have some way to separate my space from Eric’s space, with a sound barrier between us.
• Must have two toilets, and preferably two bathrooms.
• Must have good storage space.

Our original idea was to wait a year or two or three and buy a house in a later stage of the expansion, but after studying the site plan we realised that the house that suited us best was in the section currently under construction, and it was best by a long margin. So we put down a bit of cash as an “option” (sort of a holding deposit) and came home with a thick document to read and lots of photos (album here). I just realised I’ve never lived in a new house in my adult life, and possibly only once as a child. We haven’t decided what to do with the apartment in Airlie Beach, except that we definitely plan to keep it for at least a few years, as an investment. Recently built houses. Our house, under construction. Community centre. Below: location.
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