4 December – 9 December 2013 – Melbourne and its surrounding suburbs

We awoke this morning to rain and cold weather – as expected I guess – we are in Melbourne!  We waited for the peak hour traffic time to pass and then jumped in the car for a few hours.  We started by driving about the inner city suburbs of Melbourne such as Kensington, Footscray, Port Melbourne and St Kilda to try and get an idea of what these towns were like… mostly cramped homes, no parking and old homes (probably done up on the inside).  Josh did a fantastic job of dodging all the cars and trams on the wet road but there were a couple of incidents where I simply held by breath and prayed that we come out of it ok.  We then ventured further south down towards the Mornington Peninsula and this started to look like more of our style of living.  We drove through some of the closer-to-the-city suburbs such as Bentleigh, Hampton, Beaumaris, Mentone and Mordialloc but it wasn’t until we reached Patterson Lakes that Josh was jumping out of his skin.  This was a town of canals, lots of water and lots of boats – just the way Josh liked it.  The girls and I quite liked it here too as it appeared to be more of what we were used to back in Sydney and there were families and kids everywhere.  After driving around here for a while and checking out the local shops, and after Josh had phoned his cousin Jos and wife Judy, we headed towards Surrey Hills to catch up with them both.  They live in a lovely home but are currently in the process of selling and down-sizing by moving to St Kilda for the purpose of less maintenance.  We hadn’t seen Judy since we got married, nearly 11 years ago, so it was fantastic to spend a few hours with them both.

The following day we drove around again, some suburbs the same as the previous day, and some new suburbs – but eventually we ended up back at Patterson Lakes and the surrounding suburbs.  We tested out the local café at lunch time, picked up lots of rental lists while in town, and even popped into the local school to ask some questions.  They office ladies advised us that they actually have an orientation day tomorrow so we decided to get here by 10am and join in the information session.  In the meantime, we’d learnt of a 4-bedroom house that wasn’t yet on the market but would be available for rent as of mid-January.  We asked the agent if they could organise to show us the house over the next few days, and so it was organised for Monday morning.  We continued to drive the suburbs, then arranged to meet up with a friend at his home in Beaumaris.  From the time we walked in, it was as if we’d known this family for a long time.  It is actually a friend of a friend of Josh’s and we now met his wife Natasha and children Klaudia (11) and Lachlan (7).  We ended up staying for pizzas for dinner and Josh got stuck into a few beers and rums with Tooks.  I’m not sure what time we left but thankfully it was late – as I was driving home through Melbourne.  We made it safe and sound and I actually thanked my lucky stars that I’d actually gotten to drive through the city before we planned to move here.

We had to get up and get moving fairly quickly this morning as we had to be at Patterson Lakes Primary School by 10am.  Although there was quite a bit of traffic on the roads being peak-hour, we made it from the north-west of Melbourne all the way to Patterson Lakes in around 1 hour and 10 mins; with 5 minutes to spare.  The information session started with the Principal having a talk to us and the other families, and then some year 6 children showed us around their lovely school.  We were really impressed with the indoor gymnasium, the size of the classrooms, the massive computer room (big enough for about 3 classes at once), the music room which had enough instruments for about 40 children (with a massive variety of instruments to learn), the craft room complete with kiln and most of all the friendliness of all the staff and children.  The kids were also pretty excited by what could be their new surrounds.  Once finishing the tour, we grabbed a bit more paperwork from the office and jumped back in the car to relocate the caravan, this time to Chelsea – only a short drive from Patterson Lakes in case we want to look around more.  This caravan park was much nicer.  It was only quite small and had quite a few permanents but also had a pool and small café at the rear of it.  The kids got their scooters and skate boards out and as it was nice weather we spent a bit of time racing them around the caravan park and around the nearby streets – it was fun but tiring!

Saturday rolled around and we decided that Patterson Lakes was the front runner of where we might like to live so we explored the suburb a little more again and even went back to the same little café “The Lake” for some lunch.  Sami thinks their chips are some of the best ever.  We found the local boat ramp and it is amazing.  I think I counted over 10 launching lanes and a car park the size of numerous football fields.  I wonder if it actually gets full?  From what we can gather, there are not too many boat ramps into the bay so perhaps it does?  We also went for a visit to Carrum Beach which is the local beach only a few minutes from the boat ramp.  It was fantastic as there is a Surf Life Saving Club (not that I can imagine they would get very big waves) and a cute little park/playground for the kids.  This afternoon we had been invited to Josh’s cousin’s house (Suzanne and Mark) to celebrate their little girl Ava’s birthday.  The DeBruin’s have such a big family all just lovely.  The kids had a fantastic time playing with all their second cousins and we had a good time catching up with some family that we haven’t seen in years!  We didn’t leave too late tonight as we had a big Sunday planned for tomorrow – travelling in to the big smoke on the train.

After breakfast this morning, we walked from the caravan park to the local train station, called Bonbeach.  The station wasn’t manned and we were not too sure how this “myki” as payment worked so we just jumped on the first train that came along and decided to work it out as we went along.  We pulled into the famous Flinders Street Station and hopped off the train.  Upon explaining to the attendant’s that we were new to Melbourne they kindly let us through the exit gates and pointed us to the direction of the Information Centre.  We lined up to ask our questions and buy some myki passes to get us back home again this afternoon.  We gathered up a few maps and took to the streets.  First thing of course was to get a photo of the beautiful exterior of the old station building.  Not far from the station there was a group of horse and carriages to take you on a tour of the city (it kind of reminded me of Amsterdam as we took the horse ride back in 2010, feathers in their heads and all was very similar).  We got some photos but continued on our walk.  Upon walking up the main streets we ended up at the Burke Street mall.  There were people everywhere – you could tell Xmas wasn’t very far away, especially when you saw the line up to view the Myer windows.  It felt a little odd crossing the streets and having to keep an eye out for trams – I was very wary of being run over or even honked at by them.  There were also a lot of buskers through the mall – some were just amazing – such as the concrete looking Santa.  At least Sami is no longer scared of these “creatures”.   We wandered through many beautifully decorated arcades and at one stage stopped to watch some boiled lollies being made – what a long process that is!  We came across the State Library and decided to check it out.  It’s a funny shaped building, I think perhaps a hexagon?  It is multi-level and has like a free museum on the top levels.  The kids were not keen but we dragged them up to have a look, they did like the part of being able to see each other from one side to the other but not the fact that they couldn’t yell out to each other – after all, we were in a library.  One of the best features for us was the Ned Kelly exhibition.  Inside is Ned Kelly’s original armour encased in glass.  After visiting Glen Rowen a few years back it was great to add another piece to our knowledge.  The library was very quiet and there weren’t too many people here – maybe because most students were now on Xmas leave.  I would have loved to have grabbed a book and enjoyed the peace and quiet in one of their little cubicles.  I should have offered for Josh to simply pick me up later.  Upon leaving here though, we boarded the free tram that takes you around the city and ended up somewhere near to  Docklands and took a stroll along the Yarra River.  Further along was South Wharf DFO but we still couldn’t shop for much whilst living in a caravan.  Instead the kids had a turn on a huge climbing wall – Zoe making it to the top and Sami getting cold feet once she reached half way.  Back at the caravan park this afternoon we just hung out and raced each other on scooters again – lots of fun – but I wish the weather would damn warm up!

Monday morning with the real-estates all open again, we headed to Patterson Lakes to check out the local real estates for rental possibilities.  There wasn’t much available in four bedrooms and within a price range that we were willing to pay but we started to do the rounds and check out the few that were available.  There was one in “Harbourtown” that we checked out and seemed ok.  It was purple on the outside, 2 storey and, although small, had just enough room.  The kids didn’t seem to mind it either as the people currently living there were home and told the kids to make themselves at home whilst handing them the remote control.  We kept it in mind but would have liked something on the other side of the river being closer to the shops and school.  There was one other not yet on the market that we went to look at, a four bedroom single storey home with something that resembled a garage.  It was cold and raining and when we walked into this home the heating was on – well that worked well!  We decided that this house would suit our needs and it was available around the time that we would need to move in so we headed to the real-estate office and filled in the paperwork.  We had to haggle on allowing Sally to move in with us but all in all, the owners agreed and we now had a home as of mid-January.  Next stop was to return the enrolment paperwork to the school for the kids for 2015 – easy now that we had an address to add.  Since being here, we had been checking out the sales prices for homes in the area and it wasn’t looking cheap.  We are thinking that we will buy down here asap so we even visited the bank today to see what our borrowing capacity would be once we begin work again.  Nothing like jumping straight back into the deep end!  Tonight was pretty quiet – the kids played play-doh while we had a night to research Melbourne, gather our thoughts and assess the future.