Introducing our New Home!

Stocking up for our first trip

After leaving Vietnam mid August and spending a few days in Kuala Lumpur, we eventually arrived back on Bali.

Our main reason for being here was to meet up with friends: We hadn’t seen Kevin and Helen since leaving Holland so were really looking forward to spending time with them and doing a lot of catching up.

The four of us spent five days eating tasty food, drinking lots of beer and cocktails, exploring Sanur and Ubud, helping Helen spend her money and generally having a wonderful time.

We even managed a bit of culture when we got caught up in a local ceremony 🙂

All good things come to an end though and too soon it was time for the Scannells to return home again.

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Though we were due to pick up our camper at the beginning of September, we made the difficult (😎) decision to postpone this and instead make use of our  30 day visa, remaining on Bali another 3 weeks.  We moved to Aleesha Villas where we’ve stayed many times before.  Since our last visit they’d built a couple of new pool villas. The one we got had its own small, but lovely private pool complete with waterfalls, jungle and even a Japanese bridge over a koi-filled pond 🙂

We also rented a small motorbike to get around on and to get us accustomed to driving on the “wrong” side of the road, in preparation  for Australia. Though hopefully driving in Australia will not be as hectic as driving in Bali – no rules apply here!

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A week before we were due to leave for Australia we applied for the visa.  As British Nationals we’re entitled to a year’s e-visitor visa (subclass 651).  Within 10 minutes of submitting the online form, we got the notification that the request had been granted!

Though the visa is valid for 1 year, we still have to leave the country every 90 days for at least 1 day – At the moment we don’t see this as a problem (lots of other places to visit).  Maybe in the future we’ll go for a visa that allows us to stay for an uninterrupted year, though this requires a lot more paperwork – We’ll see.

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On 19th September we flew to Darwin and 2 days later on to Brisbane to take possession of our new home!

We were so excited as we drove down to see him for the first time and weren’t disappointed! Arriving at the Explorer Motorhomes workshop, there he stood waiting for us in the sunshine. Even better than we remembered:

In all his glory

David, one of the owners of the company spent a good 4 hours going over everything with us – it was a major case of  information overload.  What with solar cells, multiple batteries, boilers, heaters, airco, UHF radio, wifi router, generator and a hundred other things, this is going to be quite a learning curve 😀.

Welcoming bottle of champagne

The proud owners

Before we could set off on our first adventure though, we had to kit out the camper. The shopping list was scarily extensive and involved everything from bedding, crockery, tool kits, tables and chairs to clothes (we’re likely to need more than flipflops (thongs😀) and summer clothes in Australia.

David allowed us to keep the camper parked on the workshop grounds for the next 8 days and we moved into an apartment (Oaks Mon Komo). A lovely place but most importantly it had a washing machine and dryer for all those sheets, towels, etc. about to be bought.

The area of Brisbane where we’re staying is called Redcliffe.  A lovely place and our apartment is right on the sea.  The weather is wonderful (25-30℃) and for the first time in over a year the temperature is cool enough for us go for runs outside rather than on a treadmill in an air-conditioned gym – Absolutely marvellous!

The start of our daily running route

Days later and we’re just about done.  So glad that the shopping and washing and packing is nearly over.  We’ve pretty much got everything sorted but will no doubt be moving and repacking  things once we take up residence and get underway – can’t wait for that to happen!

Beds are made

Condiments are in place

Cupboards are filling

And at last the big day has arrived – Tomorrow we’ll finally be getting into our camper (who from this point on will be known as Broomy-2  😀), driving out the workshop gates and setting off on our next adventure into the big Unknown!

!Australia here we come!

note the logo!