I was studying part time with Open Universities Australia doing a course on Internet studies, but due to a number of circumstances, have withdrawn from these studies and have returned to full time work with Network Couriers.

Jo and I have also moved house, AGAIN. The owners wanted to renovate and sell the house, so we had to move out; but we have moved into another place in the next suburb down, where we’ll be for the next 12 months at least.

One of the problems that I’ve always had with blogging, has been finding things to write about. I listen to allot of talk-back radio, in particular the ABC Perth, which has many interesting conversations, and obviously deals with daily news and issues; so I’m going to try and talk about such things on my blog; I hope you, the reader will join the conversations as well.

My Facebook and Twitter pages are also linked to the blog, so you can join me there if you haven’t already.

I’ll talk to you again soon.

Today marks the 12 month anniversary that Jo and myself have been back in Australia. We boarded an international flight in Christchurch at 2.15pm on the 18 August 2009 bound for Queensland.

Since that date we have lived on the Gold Coast for 8 months, and then relocated back home to Perth. It hasn’t been an easy 12 months, but at least things are more settled here.

We found a rental property a suburb north from where we are currently staying with my sister, and are getting ready to move in. Our household goods are waiting in storage, and will be delivered by the removal company tomorrow. We were supposed to have the delivery last Thursday while the kids were in daycare, but due to illness in the family, it was postponed until after the weekend.

It’s a huge house with 4 bedrooms & 2 bathrooms, huge open plan living, dining & kitchen area, double garage & ducted air con(yay).

We have a 6 month lease initially, and hopefully if the landlord likes us, we can extend for a further 6 months.

Here are a few pics.

We went & looked at a rental property yesterday which looked alright on the website it was advertised on. We looked all through the property & then had some questions for the agent who was supposed to be looking after the property.

It was like talking to a brick layer about plumbing; every question we had she said “I don’t know, ask the owner”. Is it not their job as the property manager to know about the property they are dealing with??

How are you supposed to look at a property for 5 minutes and then make a decision without getting further information. There are certain things that you cannot know just by viewing something, and if the agent doesn’t know, then who the heck does.

Anyway in the end that property wasn’t suitable for our family. So we’ll keep looking.

Have you had any bad experiences with renting through land agents? Use the comments section below to leave our thoughts.

We are staying with my sister and Brother-in-law temporarily while we look for our own place. At least this way we don’t have to pay big bucks for accommodation and be in a hurry to find a house quickly. It’s interesting because they have 3 kids, so with our 2, we have 5 kids in the house, 3 of which are under 3 years. We also have to find a car from somewhere, but my brother-in-law is good at that & is a mechanic, so he is helping us out.

I have to find work, but the job prospects here are endless compared to what is on the Gold Coast, plus I have a few leads already which makes things much easier.

So here we are, back in Perth settling in slowly, but as the post title says, it’s good to be home.

We were prepared more the packers this time. In previous moves, the boys simply turn up and start packing things up that are there; not necessarily organized into groups & rooms.

This time was different. We had partially packed stuff ourselves. Everything was in it’s appropriate room and in an organized fashion. We also still had stuff in boxes from our previous move, so that made things a bit easier also.

So our stuff is in a container ready for it’s journey. I’m told that the container is 3/4 full, and needs to be fulled with another small consignment; then it travels by road to Sydney, and then by rail, across the Nullabor to Western Australia. The whole journey should take about 10 days (once it leaves the Brisbane depot).

Our journey continues here in QLD for a couple more days. We have to clean our now empty house, tie up a few loose ends, and then drive to Brisbane on Wednesday to catch our flight.

It’s interesting that all this goes on, and the young kids don’t have a clue.

You get to the point of living out of a suitcase because you have to move again & it’s not worth unpacking. We have things in boxes still from our last move so at least this time there won’t be as much packing to do.

Having things in boxes for so long makes you realize the things you don’t use or even need when they’re out of sight. When we were packing to leave NZ, I found a box of stuff that had been there for about 10 years, when I moved out of home; I hadn’t missed any of it, so it all went to the Salvos in the end.

I suppose the good thing about having allot of things in boxes now will be that it’s less work for the movers to do, and less packing material they need to use, which at the end of the day means less money to pay out, which is always a good thing!!

It has been suggested that I start my own moving agency,as I have done it a few times now; actually I couldn’t think of a worse occupation.

We have seven and a half weeks to organize the shipping of our goods, sell the car, and organize everything else that needs doing in preparation for the move. We are getting used to this process now, so it should be easier this time round.

I will keep you updated as the journey continues.

Also I’d be interested to hear any experiences, good and bad, about moving anywhere that yo might have had. Also if yo have recommendations of companies to use etc.  You can do this in the comments section of this post.