A visit to Jo and Ted on their bush block; 40 acres about 10 km north of Kyneton - no house, they just have a caravan on it, to which they escape from Melbourne every so often. We have checked out about a dozen properties by this stage, and our current favourite is just outside Daylesford - 5 acres of flat land, plenty of trees and with a pretty basic 3 bedroom house, power and phone connected, and water via 2 big tanks for drinking and a dam out the back for not. It has sheds! We're pretty sure we're going to make an offer on it (its listed price is $249,000 which we know has dropped from $255,000 before Christmas). Daylesford is a lovely town, so we have lunch on the lake, and decide to wait until we see the 4 properties we've got lined up for viewing next week.
We view 4 properties around the Castlemaine area, and dismiss all bar one - of course, its the one that is more expensive than we wanted to pay ($269K), but that's what contigency funds are for. Its on a 3.5 acre corner block sloping from the road down to a gully with sandstone outcrops, a much nicer house tho no sheds (yet), mains power, 2 big tanks for drinking water and two dams (pretty much empty at the moment) plus an artesian bore for non-drinking water. We put in an offer and haggle a bit the next day, finally settling on $259K. Celebrate! The property is at 97 McMillan Road, Green Gully. Google map click here - the map shown in the sales details online is wrong, 'cos it had the address misspelled as McMillans Rd instead of McMillan Road. Anyone with Google Earth, its at Latitude 37° 6'51.30"S Longtitude 144° 6'31.30"E. Note that we've also been buying more stuff - computer desks, chairs and printer, flatscreen telly. The container is due to dock on the 18th Jan, then we'll have more than 3 changes of clothes!
Jaynee does the big round trip - From Kyneton to Cape Paterson with the Toyota Land Cruiser and trailer, dropping off both, picking up the Mini and driving back up to brother Steve's car warehouse www.russell-clarke.com where he's found us a 4 litre Ford Falcon XT estate with essential mod cons like air conditioning. Drop off his mini, hop into the Ford, and back up to Kyneton. That's about 250km (155 miles) each way. So now we've got a proper normal car, and it all works like its supposed to! I really should show you where these places are...
After signing the sales contract for the property in Green Gully on Friday 18th (much better system over here - the sale will complete on the 18th April - no backing out or faffing around; you pay the deposit, sign the contact and that's it), we head back down to Cape Paterson for Jaynee's mum's birthday, and another visit to the Bass Coast Auction rooms (www.basscoastauctions.com.au) in Wonthaggi. David goes along to stop Jaynee going beserk, but we still end up with a garden swing, an extendable Queen Anne dining table, 6 dining chairs, a kitchen table with 2 chairs, a long hall table, an old pine chest, 2 rugs, 2 bedside cabinets, 2 bedside lamps, and a tin can. Hey, its an antique tin can. Jaynee is so overwhelmed with consumer satiation that she forgets to take photos. The container has docked, now we have to wait for it to clear customs. Its a bit tempting to just buy some more clothes.
Whaddya know - Kyneton has 2 auction houses, and the one we went to yesterday was a beaut (see www.martinevansauctions.com) - over 650 lots! We got there late and left early, but we've decided that we're either very good or very bad at auctions, because this time the haul consted of: a chainsaw, 4 saw horses, a 12lb sledgehammer, a Canadian wood splitter, an air-compressor-driven nail gun (lets hope that Customs let our compressor through), a mig welder, a 5" bench grinder, a little portable camping gas stove, a 6-man tent, a trailer winch, 2 x ratchet tie-downs, 2 x 15m garden hoses and a spirit level. All new goods, too.