A beautiful saturday night

We just came back from Maroochydore. We had an Angus Burger. Kim had the Mighty Angus and I had the Grand Angus. Some fine burgers they are ! We went to the drive-through McDonalds in Maroochydore and had our very tasty burgers sitting on the beach. The scenery around here is so perfect, it's like being in paradise itself : We are astonished every time that we remember that we actually live here and our house is just a few minutes up the hill. There's plenty of activities on the beach, Rotary clubs organizing sizzles ( BBQ's ) and people coming home from work jumping in for an evening swim. It's not the typical touristy-busy though, there's mainly locals on the beaches here. Some are fiddling with their cars on the beach parkings, some are just enjoying a sundowner on the beach, others are walking or exercising : It's a bit like Miami Vice 1980 style : Still unspoilt and "clean" somehow. Sometimes I wonder how long it will take before this is as messed up as it is in Europe, but then I quickly go back to enjoying the moment and knowing that for now at least, things are really good.

We're back online !

Well it's been a while since we posted on the blog. The main reason being that we didn't have internet in our new rental and that took a week to connect, plus we've been to Sydney for a small week. As usual we scrutinized all the internet providers and came up with the winner : Internode.com.au. Their Easy Broadband plan is not the cheapest ( although it's one of the cheaper plans available in our region ) but it's very stable and many people regard internode as the "best" ISP in Australia. So , we got 50 gigabytes for 50 bucks every month, that's reasonable I guess. We'll be putting on our downloaders a few days before the end of each month instead of "all the time" :) Never really had time to watch or listen to everything I downloaded anyway, and we wanted to get outside more anyway, which we're done so far : We go to the beach almost every day , and guess how many people ( on average ) are on the beach ? 0 ! The beaches are completely empty, it's so nice to not have to compete for your square meter of beach on a nice day, or pay 50 Euro's in parking fees for a few hours of beach, and then sit in traffic jams on the way back. So in the last 2 weeks we've left our Bed and Breakfast in Mango Hill and moved in to our new rental place in Buderim. We've also visited Kim's brother Tom and his wife Jane in Sydney while we picked up our cat and dog. It's been a very busy period and both Kim and me caught a bug on our way back from Sydney and this has confined us to bed for the last couple of days ( sleeping on the floor doesn't help ). In the last few days our bed has arrived and we got internet running, we have a fridge and washing machine + dishwasher, so we're getting used to the luxuries of western life again.

We are already confident that this was the right move for us, and Queensland ( especially the Sunshine Coast ) definitely feels right for us : We feel alive again and are very happy overall. When we drove back from Sydney to Queensland we felt like driving home, it feels like we have lived in Queensland for years already.

Furniture and BBQ day

Today we went out again for a full day of shopping. We measured up the rental place and figured out what we needed. After having bought all our white goods yesterday ( a mix of Bosch / LG and Westinghouse ) at Harvey Norman's ( for a 15% discount ) we decided today was the day to buy the furniture and BBQ. We went into the furniture shops and selected the style we wanted and asked what the whole lot would cost us, which came back at 10.000 AUD, after which we decided we'd just do it in smaller chunks. So, we decided on the absolute minimum we'd need, and got the prices too :
- 1 Queen size mattress + wooden support slats = 1500 AUD
- Bedding + Cushions = 800 AUD
- a good BBQ + utensils and gas bottle and all the accessories = 1300 AUD
- Outside table + 6 chairs ( we calculated we'd need 6 chairs maximum ) = 700 AUD

That puts us back 4300 but then we can live in the rental for quite a while without missing out on the basic needs like sleeping / cooking and sitting. We decided to not buy a TV for a while because to be honest we haven't really missed it. We might go and buy a flat-screen later but we're so busy that there's no direct need for one.

We haven't bought any of the furniture yet, we'll give them a call on Monday and order the mattress and the other stuff, but we did buy a BBQ today. It's a very nice one indeed ! It's in the back of the car at the moment and will stay there until we get the keys of the rental on Monday. This is the BBQ we got : Weber Spirit E-320. In Europe people might think that a 1300 AUD BBQ ( about 700 Euro ) is expensive but we will be cooking on it almost every day , so it needed to be a good one. The weather is so nice here that there's no need to cook a lot on the inside kitchen. Perhaps we'll use the inside kitchen in the winter, but so far we've been using the barbie every day. On the side of the barbie there is a side-burner so you can fry an egg in a pan or steam your vegetables or make a sauce there. It comes with 7 year warranty on almost anything and lifetime on most other stuff, so we're set for at least 7 years. Kim's delighted with it, we'll try it out when we come back from Sydney in a week.

We picked up our RAV4 today !

Today we picked up our RAV4 ! It drives like the Audi A3 we had before, even more stable actually, it's a real pleasure to drive. The size of the tires means that we don't feel many of the bumps in the road or the cat-eyes on the highway. We're very happy with it. We're happy we chose the paint-protection and the tinting and I'm sure we'll be happy in a few years with the electronic rust-protection and the interior protection. When you touch the car it feels like satin, apparently that's the paint protection on the car. We compared it with other cars without it and they certainly don't feel as smooth as the ones with paint protection on it. The tint is remarkably effective too , we had the car in the sun for a good 3-4 hours, normally it would be heated up like an oven, however when we sat in the car it didn't feel nearly as hot as the rental car would have been, so we're glad we chose the tinting. Also when you drive and the sun hits you from the side ( which happens quite a lot on the east coast when you drive north - south or south - north ) then the scorching sun won't feel like it's burning your skin ( it did in the rental ) , it actually doesn't even feel warm. So we're pleased we got our options fitted. The car got all the goodies we wanted and the navigation works a treat, so much better than the old Garmin we had : We use it all the time.

Here's a picture of our RAV4 :



There's more than enough space in the back for our kite-surfing gear :

Furniture shopping

Today we went shopping for furniture. We didn't bring our old furniture with us because it would have been too expensive to transport over here and it wasn't that nice in the first place : It was old, second hand stuff that we still had from our student times, or gotten for free from parents and neighbors. In short, we were ready for some new furniture and would have bought new stuff anyway if we stayed longer in The Netherlands. We made a list of things that we would need the most and would only shop for those ( ye right... ) :
- Fridge and freezer, one of those big 2-door american ones
- Bed and bedding + some sidetables etc
- BBQ for cooking our meals on

That was the plan. Now if anyone comes to Brisbane / Sunshine Coast area there is only 1 place that you have to go to : Morayfield Road in Morayfield. The sheer amount of furniture shops is dazzling : They have all the different furniture shops there, all packed nicely together on 1 big industrial road called Morayfield Road. We left the Bed&Breakfast around 11:00 and it was about 20-25 minutes drive to the shopping area. There were a LOT of furniture shops and we're rather picky so we had to go into each of them just to make sure we made the right decision; we never even got to look at BBQ's or Fridges. We went in to look for beds, but then we also decided to take a look at desks which we'd need for our job ( we both work in IT ) and we also hopped by the dining space and the outdoor furniture. Eventually we just decided to refocus :

- Beds with matching sidetables and "tallboy"
- Dining table with comfy couch and tv table ( matching )
- Desk

We realized that it was possible to get all of this in the same style but we'd always dislike 1 piece and love the others, or the other way around, so eventually we decided that we'd not place the bed in the dining room anyway so that could be a different style. The desk however could possibly be put in the living room / dining room area, so we're still not sure about that.

After about 3 hours and 5 furniture shops we came to our first conclusion :
Fantastic Furniture and Aussie Life are not our cup of tea : We didn't like the presentation of the materials ( which really says a lot about the shop and the way they think about their own products ) and the prices were horrendous. Most of the designs were boring. Both Kim and me have very similar taste : We like refined materials but not too kitsch, we like rustic style but it shouldn't come with tree bark still on it if you know what I mean. And yes : We're quite picky, we take hours to decide on a pair of shoes, just imagine us buying a car or buying furniture which should last us for decades.

We decided that the two shops that we liked most were Super A-mart for a mix of good looking and reasonably priced furniture and Sleep City for well priced but decent quality beds. We must have seen at least 200 different bedroom suites : We tested the quality of the drawers first, if they didn't have rails we'd write them off right away, then , the quality of the rails was important too, some were really flimsy, some of the drawers didn't open correctly , some didn't open at all and some opened and fell out. About 90% of the bed suites can be filtered out just by testing the drawers. I'm one of those people who gets irritated by drawers that don't work correctly, so for me this was an absolute must. Then we'd look at the quality and strength of the bed ( we both hate creaking beds ), the wood quality ( hardwood / epoxy etc, and eventually the finish. By then we'd have only a few beds left and we chose the ones we liked best. We ended up with the final three. I think it was about 15:00 when we decided on which beds were in the final top three :

Sleep City : Fjord Queen Bed
Super A-Mart : Serengeti Queen Bed
Super A-Mart : Byron Style Queen Bed which I can't find on the web anywhere but which was very nice quality and looked great too

The Serengeti bed has a real "indonesian" feel to it, which we both liked. However the drawers wouldn't correctly open when trying to open standing at an angle ( usually you will open them at an angle, but these drawers will only open when you stand in front of them and pull them straight out ). So it did have the looks and feel, but not the quality we wanted. The Byron style definately had the quality, and most definately the best drawers of the whole 200 suites we saw, but the bed was not as well-built as the Fjord. The Fjord is the one that we currently deem the winner but we'll sleep on it tonight and tomorrow we'll decide.

Now , while we were looking for beds we also had a good look at all the different couches and chairs. Again, we're very picky on these. Kim's short and slender, I am taller and weigh a bit more, so finding the right couch wasn't going to be easy. We both do agree though, the absolute most comfortable chair we have ever sat in is the Super A-mart : Celebration Recliner. She's not the prettiest of chairs. In fact, even on display she looks like she's an old rug, a second hand student couch, a leftover from your grandpa's basement. But ooooh man does she sit comfortably ! You'll start yawning just looking at it after you tried it. The chair is so comfy that I think they made it this ugly on purpose, as a warning sign for any tired and unsuspecting hard worker who would never be able to get out of it again once he settles in it. It's the only chair that seconds as a one-armed bandit, the long stick on the side is meant to make getting out of it easier and yes it does help but no you don't want to get out of it. It's not the kind of chair that has the flair, the elegance, the picture-perfect looks. It's made to be comfy, at all costs. The color is terrible too : Chocolate. It just doesn't match with anything else you can get. But boy, does it sit comfortable. The couch too sits like a glove.

I'd never forgive myself to buy such uglyness though, I mean, if they made it creamy color, or "latte" as they call it now... Ah who knows, perhaps I'll just buy one anyway and hide it in the garage when visitors come around.

So , no Celebration then, but we saw a few very nice different diners. What amazes me is that Australian stuff isn't actually bad quality. We thought that most of the stuff would be held together by pieces of string and sticky tape but most of this stuff is imported stuff, it's actually a lot better quality than Ikea stuff which most Europeans buy nowadays. We decided not to go and have a look at Ikea because we already know what Ikea makes : Cheap stuff that lasts 2 years. We wanted something that would last us a little longer, and also wanted something decent quality. We figured that spending a little more would pay off in the long run, and we'd also support the local economy a little bit. We're not quite sure if we want a light diner yet, or a darker one. The light ( silverpine ) is very nice, but requires light chairs also. Silverpine doesn't match chocolate colors ( see where I'm going ? ).

We didn't bother looking at the fridge yet since we want to have a second look at the kitchen in the rental before we do. Our next big challenge will be to find a BBQ. We found a nice shop in Maroochydore that specializes in BBQ's, so I'm sure we'll find what we want over there.

We got ourselves a rental for a year !

Before we found a nice rental we went all over the Sunshine Coast, we have seen about 10-20 rentals and man... do you get some rundown places around here! The absolute worst place we saw was actually in one of the nicest settings : On the beachfront. The house was absolutely disgusting, the previous tenants or owners must have been pigs ( literally ). If the dead bird in front of the entrance wasn't enough warning, the 100's of dead cockroaches ( 4-5 cm big ) certainly were. The property manager even had the audacity to ask us how we liked the place, to which I was all too happy to respond : "I think it's a dump. This place should be bulldozered". The place was up for rent for 480 per week, imagine that ! The paint was ugly, the wallpaper was falling off, even the ceiling-ventilators were rusty and broken, I won't even tell you about the kitchen and the toilet. The place was dark too, there were only 2-3 windows. If Hannibal Lecter ever visited Australia I knew where he stayed : On Ocean Drive in Warana.

However, we managed to find a really nice place and we signed the lease yesterday. In Europe it would be called a rental agreement but here's it's called a lease. We signed up for a 12 month lease for a few good reasons. First of all, there aren't that many renters looking for houses around at the moment, but signs are strong that within a few months that will change : After all the Sunshine Coast attracts a lot of people during summer : The Australian rental markets are usually very overcrowded, so we decided we wanted to be sure of at least one year of housing, after which we will probably build anyway. Usually you will meet about 12-15 people per rental house viewing. Houses for rent at 350 or less per week will, even during these times, attract dozens of couples per viewing, and you'll have to compete with them and of course everyone has better references than we do, since we're migrants and have no references. Some couples will go to great lengths to "secure themselves" a rental place : They will offer anywhere from 20 to 50 dollars per month extra on top of the asking price just to be considered. The phrase "secure yourself" is used a lot when trying to rush the sheeple into buying something : "secure yourself a future now, buy this house now prices are still low" etc, while prices are just about to collapse.

So , in our infinite wisdom, we thought we'd do the opposite : We'd go and have a look at houses above the usual price bracket that most people would look at on the internet and offer LESS than the asking price : How's that for a genius plan. Anyway, we went to see this house which was up for 380 per week, it's a real nice house in the middle of a rain forest clearing, lots of palm trees all around and well maintained houses, something that is not an obvious thing here in Australia. We offered 350 per week for it and eventually settled on 365, which we eagerly accepted. For 365 per week we got a clean , well maintained property in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the Sunshine Coast : Buderim. Buderim is a hilly place with some nice pockets of rain forest and doesn't have the busy feel that most of the newer estates like Mango Hill have. The houses still have plenty of privacy and room around them instead of being packet 50cm from each other. The house doesn't have air conditioning but it has a forest right at the back of the garden ( which no doubt is home to some scary native spiders ! ) which provides shade over the house almost the whole day, while the garden gets sun all day. Perfect for sitting outside in the sun when you want to , yet cool enough to be able to sleep at night. We'll be sure to post some pictures when the lease goes in, which is next week Monday.

Quicksilver and ripcurls

Last week we went to a surfing shop. They sell surfer outfits which enable you to blend in with the Australians. We felt it was time we stopped looking like tourists and buy something trendy instead. If I had known in 1980 that I would be living in Australia when I grew up, I would definitely have kept my clothes back then. Stepping through the surf shop's door felt like being warped back in time. The baseball caps, the clothes, everything could have come straight out of the "Back to the future" trilogy, which by the way was a great movie ( at the time ).

We were greeted by a tanned and cool looking surfer dude. His light curly hair trapped under a green baseball cap which seemed to be missing a propeller on top of it. He was the typical surfer : Loose sitting T-shirt, tanned and this air of carelessness about him which read "I'm cool and you're not and you know it". I must admit, he was pretty cool. He must have spotted us from a mile away by our lost looks and lured us further into the shop to make sure we wouldn't run out and buy something in another shop. "How's it goin' guys, What can I do you for ?". It was only then that I realized that the shop was only busy because of all the staff working in it, there weren't actually that many customers. After we came in though, some other people ventured in and eventually it was quite a buzz in the shop. I told him that I was looking for some nice swimming gear and that I didn't want to look like Mr Bean on the beach. I'm not a swimsuit model and I quite well know it, my body proportions aren't perfect ( and that's giving myself a compliment ) and I have pale skin which luckily after a week of recent sun is getting a bit of a tan. He smiled and said that that was a good idea, and showed me some of the latest model "baggies" ( swim gear which reaches the over the knee and sits loosely ). The choice was rather simple : If you wanted to be cool, you would have to get Ripcurl, Quicksilver or Billabong. It's allowed to mix the different brands, although people will usually buy something that their favorite surfer is wearing. I learned that Kelly "Quicksilver" Slater had been 9 year surfer champion so you couldn't really go wrong with some Quicksilvers. He was quick to add a reassuring "But don't worry, the other brands are just as good". He advised "The thing to avoid buying are the external elastic bands, only Mr Bean wears those, so make sure your pants have straight edges". I tried on a few pants that didn't seem to fit me but then spotted a very nice Black / Grey / White Ripcurl that was made for me. Tried it on, fitted like a glove : This would be the one. We thanked the cool guy and proceeded to the counter, when I remembered that I still needed some head wear for the sun. I always fancied a Crocodile Dundee hat, one of those leathery cowboy hats, so I tried some of them on. Cool guy quickly intervened, almost running to my rescue "Nooo, no. You don't wanna do that, mate" and quickly put the hat back, as if it was cursed. "Only grandpa wears a hat like that". His advice was to buy a baseball cap like he was wearing, they're the thing at the moment. I realized that this was not a sales pitch but he was honestly trying to help me when I noticed the prices of the caps were a lot lower than the Crocodile Dundee hat. I tried on 10 different hats and eventually bought myself a blue Quicksilver cap. I was now cool again and ready for the beach.

Kim&Lex 2 - Arachnids 0

Arachnophobia is a movie about scary spiders. We, however, have seen 0 spiders. If they are around then they're not in Mango Hill. I've looked everywhere, I saw an uninhabited spiderweb under a bench but that's it. Dale told me that the rain "draws them out" , it almost sounded as if they were the Vietcong army, sitting silently in their underground tunnels and preparing their ambush; at first signs of rain they would massively crawl out of the bush and start scaring us : Most probably using the cover of darkness. All that I know so far is that Australia's scariest predator is commonly found strolling the coastline, wears a bikini, has gray hair and doesn't shave.

Sunday

It's 08:20 now on our second Sunday here in Queensland and once again the skies are a perfect blue, a cooling breeze keeps temperatures very comfortable and we cannot keep from smiling when we look outside. The sound of the birds over here is something that we enjoy every day. Harley Davidson motorbikes that have been eagerly awaiting the weekend are riding out their LUGs ( Lock-up Garages ), most certainly heading for some coastal road around here.
Today we are going to the Coolum Beach Kite Festival, which is a two day event where kites of all sorts and shapes are being showed around. We don't really know what to expect from it so we're going open-minded. We saw a few more rental places on the internet which we'd like to drive past to see if we like the neighborhood they are in. We have applied for a rental in the Sunshine Coast and we expect to know more about it upcoming Monday or Tuesday, in the meantime we'll keep looking for other rental places until we sign a lease contract ( rental agreement ).
We are just about to have some brekkie now ( breakfast ) and then we're heading off to the Sunshine Coast. ( for the people who missed where we settled , we're currently in a Bed&Breakfast in Mango Hill which is located between north Brisbane and Redcliffe ). We have seen "Big Kart Track" on one of Bruce Highway's exits, so we might just take a peek around there to see how big this kart track really is.

Arvo :
It's almost 15:00 here and we've just come back from the Sunshine Coast. We grow more and more attached to the Sunshine Coast and we feel we've been here all our lives. Everything just makes sense now, we aren't stressed anymore, the people around the Sunshine Coast area are very relaxed and friendly and never in a hurry. We haven't seen Brisbane yet, something that is still on the agenda but we're not in a hurry to go there, we know that the Sunshine Coast offers us anything we came to Australia for. The wages in Brisbane are a lot higher than the ones on the sunshine coast, but the cost of living in Brisbane is much higher. So whether we get a job in Sunshine Coast or Brisbane won't matter since the commute times will be offset by higher earnings. That said, there are job in Maroochydore and they fit with our ambitions and lifestyle ( remember, this is major recession times ) so when the economy picks up in a while, we'll get jobs in Sunshine Coast. We have decided we initially want to settle in the Sunshine Coast because much work is offered by word of mouth around here, and we'd miss out on that if we lived in Brissie. Also our dog and cat would love it in the Coast, it will after all be their retirement village.

The Coolum Kite Festival was great, not too busy but busy enough for it to be interesting. A lot of kitesurfers, chinese kiters, some very strange ( or very big ) kites all around, BBQ's around the place and icecreams all over. Events like these are well patrolled, with beach patrols and police all over the place. The police seemed to enjoy themselves on the beach, as did everyone else. We didn't go for a swim because the sun was really hot and we didn't want to get sunburnt the first week, we decided to take it easy and be a bit risk-free until we have a rental and picked up the dog + cat, after which we can really start enjoying being here. I'm not sure whether we had a small depression in The Netherlands or if it was just stress but we feel so much better around here, it feels like we are finally where we were meant to be. I certainly hope the feeling will stay , but if it doesn't , well there are plenty of other places around the world we can live. One thing is very sure : We are enjoying the change of lifestyle for now. On a sunday like everyone will get their boats ( usually small fishing boats but also some speedboats ) and scramblers ( motorcross ) out of the shed and drive em around to wherever the action is. It seems we made the right choice by buying a RAV4 with towbar instead of a Corolla but only time will tell.

Gary Moore, Dire Straits and Monster Trucks

It's saturday today and we have decided to relax. Gary Moore blues in the background ( he just has the vibe ) mixed with some Dire Straits, we saw an add for Monster Trucks in the Sunshine Coast newspaper. It was part of our master plan to go see the some serious destruction racing when we got here. The only thing we know that comes anywhere near the Monster Madness is an event called Tractor Pulling. We share a love for big engines and power and the two things we wanted to see in Australia is the Monster Trucks and the Jetboat races. Unfortunately we don't have our camcorder yet and really want to start recording things for the home front. We found a great camera shop online which ships them free across Australia but we first will need a rental address where we can ship it to, which by the way we are in the process of organizing, but more on that when we hear the good ( or bad ) news this monday.

The day today started a bit overcast around 07:00 , but by 09:00 the sky was completely blue again, and now it's hot outside. It's ok in the shade though, so we're sitting behind our computers on the patio outside. The weather is definately not clammy or sweaty ( yet ? ) , it's really nice, it actually feels dry rather than humid but I'm sure that can't be true. We're enjoying the day with some ( believe it or not ) Erdinger Weizbier and Bifteki Burgers on the barbie.

Life doesn't get much better than this.

The order in which things are done

I thought I'd make a small post of the order in which things are done over here. With "things" I mean the paperwork required to get a rental , and bank account and a driver's license.

1) Get a rental car for 3 weeks. Without one, you're stuck
2) Get a Bed and Breakfast which allows you to use their address for paper-mail, or get a friend or family home address. Without an address, you will be stuck. PO boxes are NOT recognized and you won't get anything without an address. The address needs to obviously be in the same state as you are migrating to.
3) Get a prepaid mobile phone from Telstra. You can not get a non-prepaid one yet. This takes about 30 minutes to fill in a paper sheet with your address ( B&B / friend etc )
4) Go to Commonwealth Bank and get a Commonwealth bank account using your passport and prepaid phone number and address from your B&B / friend / family. They will ship the debit mastercard ( not a credit card, you can't get one yet ) to your address provided, this takes exactly 7 days. Make sure you get a "change of address form" WITH STAMP AND DATE AND SIGNATURE from the Commonwealth which declares that you are living at your B&B, you will need this later. They will tell you that you don't have a TFN number yet and that you will be taxed higher, tell them that's ok you will amend that later.
5) Go to Medicare and order a medicare card using your "change of address form" and prepaid and passport + visa. This will take 3-4 weeks before it arrives at the address specified
6) Go online and get a TFN number, which is a tax file number. This takes about 3-4 weeks to be posted to the address also. You can fill it in completely online, the website can be googled
7) The hardest step : Go to an RTA customer centra and get your Driver License. You will need proof of address ( Commonwealth "Change of address form" WITH STAMP and date ), passport , visa ( which should be in your passport ) , your old bank card from Europe or Credit Card WHICH MUST BE SIGNED ON THE BACK. Make sure you fill in "C+R" ( Car + Motorbike ) or "C" ( Car ) or "R" ( Motorbike ) and *NOT* "A+B" or something European, they will completely lock up and will refuse to give you your driver license. If one customer centre makes problems, then go to another one, there are plenty all over and after 2-3 centres and prepared and filled in documents, you will eventually get your driver license.
8) Use your driver license to get an 18+ card in the same RTA centre, because the 18+ card also counts as points towards authentication.

After step 8, you will have all documentation required to get anything done , like buying a car at a dealership, getting a non-prepaid mobile phone, renting a place etc. You can do all this in 1 single day and you can then focus on getting a rental place for 6 months or 12 months.

Driving on the ozzie roads.

When we arrived a week ago we had already arranged our rental car with Thrifty. We were expecting a cheap Hyundai Getz but were surprised that the smallest car that Thrifty rents out is a Ford Focus, which in Europe would be a very reasonable car to drive. The driving out of the airport was relatively easy, they made it fool-proof ( 1 lane only, no left or rights ) and plenty of signs stating "Keep Left". The roads in Queensland are undergoing major maintenance at the moment under a government initiative called "Safer Roads Sooner" which implies that their roads weren't very safe like most people have told us. We were warned of potholes the size of small moon craters, deranged wallabies ( a wallaby is like a wannabe rat ) and aggressive kangaroos blocking the road and road trains driving past at 110 kilometers an hour ( this one is actually true ! ). The potholes are a myth, there are more potholes in European roads than on the roads we have driven on so far here in Queensland. Almost every road here has been refurbished in the last few years. There are a LOT of roadworks everywhere. From small town roads to major highway works. They do work very efficiently, which made me think of the Dutch roadworks. They work mostly at night on the highways and the next day you'll just see 5 new kilometers of fresh tarmac, it's amazing how fast they work.
After driving out of the airport terrain, things get more tricky. We made sure we had a GPS ( a small Garmin Nuvi ) with us because with didn't want to have to look up things on maps, and we also had rented an automatic car, which really helped ( tip : When you rent a car in Australia, get an automatic one ). With automatic, you can focus on driving on the right side of the road... which really means left side. Right, so the left side. The inside mirror takes some getting used to since you are sitting on the right side of the car instead of the left side, which can be confusing at first. Even now, a week later we still sometimes try and get in on the passenger seat to drive. ( usually excused by a "I was just checking if the door was still hanging on the car"-kind of excuse ). So you drive out the airport and it's dark outside ( most planes land after dark in Brisbane ) and you're driving on the other side of the road after a 27 hour flight, and you're jetlagged, believe me we were happy with our automatic transmission and GPS !

You get used to driving on the left side of the road real quick, the real caveat is that you forget it sometimes, Kim usually is very quick to point out "LEFT LEFT LEFT !!!! EEEK! " while squirming and making all kinds of hand gestures in the car when I evade a big SUV coming straight at us. It does keep you awake to have a few of those episodes. Lately we haven't had any though, only the first 2-3 days and only when I'm thinking of something else, or looking at houses or just outside at the beautiful scenery.

--To be continued, we're going to do a sundowner with Dale and Francine now--

--The next morning, with another beautiful blue sky--

Having a Sundowner means having an evening beer on the veranda outside. Dale and Francine are our hosts here at our Bed&Breakfast in Mango Hill. They're both in their 30's and moved here from the UK about 4 years ago for the same reasons as most people move here : Sunshine and lifestyle. Had a nice evening with them despite the fact that we all were very tired from work and running around everywhere. Dale brews his own beer because the beer in the shops is terribly expensive ( about 3 dollars per beer, although you can get cheaper beers but also more expensive ones for that matter ). His beers are delicious : They taste just like Corona beer ! 1 beer did it for me though, I think the alcohol % is a tad higher than the average beer.

The highways here are well organized. You get long ( I mean, LONG ) ramps as exits and entries to the highway, which means that most trucks enter the highway at 100 kilometers an hour and don't disrupt traffic. There aren't many exits or ramp ups ( usually 1 ramp every 10 kilometers. Ofcourse, you get more ramps the closer you get to the big cities, but we've mostly been driving the Bruce Highway up and down the sunshine coast. The roads at night are not lighted, but there are cat-eyes ( the little reflectors in the middle and sides of the road ) all along the roads so it's much safer driving than the dark highways in for instance Belgium, you can see where the road is heading for kilometers ahead, just using the headlights and the cat-eyes in the road. The highways are usually straight and when there's a bend it's a very soft bend, nothing like the german "U-turn"-like bends you get sometimes. The quality of the road is good : It's tarmac all the way ( unlike the concrete-slab-highways is Belgium which make terrible noise when you drive over them ). On highways you can usually drive 120 except some spots where 110 or 100 is the limit. Overall I never had the idea that we were going too slow ( like I did in the USA ). It also seems that everyone drives about the same speed. There are very few slowpokes on the road. Everyone uses their cruise control at 100 kilometers an hour and people are fine with that. The trucks are usually driving faster than the cars at 110-120 per hour, no matter how large they are. The Queenslanders are good drivers compared to Europeans : They are courteous and I haven't met a road-rager yet. In fact, I have yet to hear someone honking. People will adhere to zebra crossings for pedestrians, they will always stop for them, something that in holland is a rarity. When two roads merge, people will let you merge without you having to fight for your right. However people expect you to keep driving on your side of the road until the very last end where everyone "zips in". All in all I'm impressed by the friendliness of the Queensland driver.
Once in a while there are pieces of tires on the highways ( big pieces , usually from blown tires off heavy road trains ). They will be picked up the same day but the next day it seems another blown tire from another truck is left at a slightly different spot. There is no M.O.T. ( APK Keuring ) in Queensland which means that people will drive their tires literally till they blow up, which is reflected by the amount of tire "residue" on the highways. The roads are clean and the shoulders are nice and tidy.
Driving over the Bruce Highway reminded us of the road from Vancouver to Calgary in Canada. There are big green forests ( plantations actually ) along most of the highway, something that at first sounds very strange : A dry and water-deprived country like Australia having huge green forests. It looks a bit like Canada, but then cleaner ( Our impression of Canada is that it's a bit messy , loads of big rusty road signs everywhere spoiling the views and the pristine outlooks ). Not a lot of signs out here in Australia, but a similar scenery.

We'll try and make some short movies and add them to the blog posts so people can get an idea of what we're talking about.

Sunglasses

I'm a bit late with this topic but we were very busy the first few days and really didn't have time to update our blog. We bought new sunglasses the second day we came here, and it's worth it's own topic. Sunglasses in Queensland are a major part of your outfit, they are just as essential to your everyday life as underwear or thongs ( not the underwear but the footwear : The European word for thongs would be slippers ). It's therefor important that they fit well, look well and are comfortable. In The Netherlands when you buy sunglasses you just go to a shop, pick out a pair and walk out with em, after all you only use them once in a while. Here, you will wear your sunglasses 80% of the time during the day, so if they are scratchy or too heavy or bulky then you will start feeling them and this can be very unpleasant. So, make sure you take at least a few hours to get the right pair of sunglasses. Sunglasses in Queensland are very cheap compared to Europe, you can buy "the best" ( there are not really any "best" but there are better ones and less good ones around ) sunglasses for about 250 dollars which is about 135 euro's.

There's a few things you need to know about sunglasses. First of all , you *NEED* UV protection. The good thing is that Queensland has a law that enforces all sunglasses sold in official sunglass shops ( Like for instance the popular and good shop "Sunglass Hut" ) to have a minimum of UV protection. However, it's always good to inform about the amount of UV protection on the sunglasses, the higher is obviously better and not always more expensive. The second thing that you absolutely *NEED* is polarized sunglasses. They will remove reflections from the sea and other kinds of reflective materials. Without ( I think they are called de-polarized ) polarized sunglasses you'll see glares everywhere, and you will keep squinting despite the fact that you are wearing sunglasses, and this can be very , very irritating after a few hours : You'll get headaches and feel tired, trust me : It's not worth it , get the polarized glasses. They are more expensive but more than worth the price. Another benefit of polarized glasses we only found out a bit later, at the sea. With our glasses on we could see right to the bottom of the sea ! Without them , you'll just see normal sea levels. The polarized glasses really make a world of difference, they certainly make the sea more beautiful, an unexpected but welcome surprise.

Now something that we didn't know : The shading (color) of the sunglasses is very important too. Luckily, most glasses come in all shades, so you just have to know "your shade". If you pick the wrong shade, you will start to feel nauseous over time, or "drunk" or sick. I found out that my shade is green ( I have blue eyes ) but Kim's shade is brown ( she has green eyes ). When either of us wear eachother's sunglasses, we start feeling nauseous after a while. So make sure you pick the right shade. The good thing is that most official shops like the Sunglass Hut will exchange your sunglasses for free within two weeks as long as they aren't scratched or damaged, so don't worry if you accidentally get the wrong one, just bring them back and exchange them for a different shade.

Another thing we didn't know is that the surface of sunglasses is not always perfectly "ocular". What this means is basically that when you have your sunglasses on and you look at different objects in the distance at different angles through your sunglasses, they will slightly deform because the angle at which you look through your sunglasses goes through a thicker part or a thinner part of glass. ( actually, very few sunglasses here are made of glass , it's usually polycarbonate or "plastic" ). This effect is barely noticeable at first but make sure you ask the lady where you buy the glasses to have a "test run" outside in the open air and walk around a little bit, turning your head as if you were sight-seeing. If you start to notice the deformations, or you start feeling a bit ill, then dump the glasses.
The only brand of glasses that never deform ( and they are marketing this to the fullest around here ) are the Oakley's because they are molded instead of "whatever process other glass makers use". Oakley's are very popular here and a good choice if you don't want deforms.

Lastly, the materials. You can buy either glass glasses or polycarbonate glasses. 99% of the sunglasses around here will be polycarbonate, they are lighter and cheaper than the glass ones. The only reason you'd want glass is because they scratch less easily. However it comes at a price and that is that they weigh a lot more, noticeably, and this weight will be resting on your head the whole day, so not a lot of people around here wear em. If you take good care of your glasses they won't scratch anyway, you get a nice protective container ( which you can clip on your pants ) if you buy the brand Maui Jim. The frame itself can be made of a few different materials, the most common ones being simple plastic and titanium. The titanium ones will be more expensive but they will be stonger. Weight is about the same. Most brands do offer lifetime guarantee on the plastic, so if it breaks then you can just get new ones ( obviously, read the fine-print here coz the warranty options can be quite different between brands )

I think that covers most of the sunglass stuff you need to know. So.. now you ask yourself : Which sunglasses did Kim and Lex buy ?

We bought ourselves 1 pair each of Maui Jim's type MJ-407-02 sunglasses ! Kim got the brown tint ( shade ) and I got the green tint. We paid 150 AUD dollars for each pair ( we had a 50 AUD dollar rebate on each pair , special offer ). We're very happy with our sunglasses, and this is after 7 days of wearing and tearing them. No scratches, they weigh a few grams ( literally, they are so light you don't notice you have them on ) and they don't hurt anywhere behind the ears or on top of your nose : They really are perfect ! ( you can google them up on the web ). They don't deform either, which really makes these glasses incredible value for money.

About the shops

So we've been shopping around a lot lately, from cars to wall power plug converters. So how different are the Australian shops to the Dutch shops ? Quite different indeed. For general food shopping you have a choice here of two major shops : Either Coles or Woolworths ( Woolies as they call them here ). Woolies and Coles are pretty similar in setup, choice and quality. In fact you could probably walk into a shop blindfolded and not be able to say if you were in a Coles or a Woolies if not for all the advertising they do in the shops. The shops are all air conditioned to perfection ( somehow the Australians have mastered the art of cooling and conditioning air without it being noticeable ) so you won't get either too hot or too cold in them. The shops are a good size, they all seem to have a minimum size of about 4 times the size of an average Dutch supermarket. The choice is plentiful : From Danish cheeses to German beers, they will have it all. Want some goat's milk feta cheese , no problem. Need some Veil Schnitzels, they got that too. Another thing that amazed me is that everything is fresh here. The Australians take great pride in the quality of what they sell, and they will feel personally offended and ashamed if you would ever find anything in their shops that is even close to the expiry date. Now we know for a fact that in the Dutch shops this ain't exactly the same , they try and fool you, trick you, into putting that one rotting apple or overdate bread in your trolley. If you forget just one time to check the expiry on the food in The Netherlands, then you'll probably end up buying something that is already over date and you'll have to throw it out the moment you get home and unpack the food : It's shameful.

Australian shops are nothing like that : They want to sell you good food for a fair price. For instance, they will have a well sized bread department in the Coles. There will be two sides in the bread department, one side which reads "New freshbaked today" and the other reading "one day old". You will usually pay a bit more for the freshbaked breads, like 40 cents or something ( on a 2 dollar loaf ). But they actually do give you the choice. Battlers ( families who struggle financially ) will go to the 1day old bread, and people who can afford the freshbaked will go to the freshbaked part. Then , at night, the freshbaked bread moves to the 1day old section, and the 1day old gets thrown out ( maybe fed to the sheep, who knows ). The 1day old breads are fresher than the "fresh baked" breads in The Netherlands by the way, just to give you an idea of the freshness of the bread. Usually ( depending on the heat outside and where and how you keep your bread ) the breads here will last about a week.

The choice of meat is abundant : About 50 meters of meat exposed in all it's splendor. You can get every kind of meat you can think of, and some that you never thought of. That's just the meat. The chook section ( chicken ) is about the same and has all the chickens , every part of the chicken, and every marinade you fancy. If you ask the shopkeepers which is the best meat for the barbie, they'll always answer "All of it is good, mate !" so that doesn't really help, you'll just have to find out by trial and error. ( tip : Don't buy the bitter cucumbers ( a 'special kind of cucumber', they're horrible ! However they have the normal cucumbers too which really taste good ) They got 2-3 different kinds of cucumbers here, never saw em in Europe. Then ofcourse you got a Deli section of about the same size which includes all the 'ready made' meats and foods and sauces.

In general , you'll have plenty of choice whatever you're looking for. For instance, you can buy salt, natural salt, big grain salt, small grain salt, herby salt, spicery salt, even salt mixed with pepper !

The veggies are fresh and HUGE, some are priced by the piece, some by the kilo. Plenty of choice here too and the taste is so much more "full" than the Dutch veggies : You can literally taste the healthy food , rather than the watery dull vegetables in The Netherlands. I even started eating some tomatoes, they just taste so different around here !

The prices of food are about the same as in The Netherlands. Some meat is very expensive, some is very cheap, it all depends which meat you would like. But while the price is about the same, the quality is a lot higher, it's in a different league all together. The shopping trolleys don't have the little dongles on them where you have to put 1 euro in to release them from their chained captivity, they are being picked up by shop staff in the parking lots on a very regular interval. Usually people will put them back in the trolley station, some people who are in a hurry ( not a lot of those around here ) will leave their trolleys in the parking lot but then people who arrive will take those to the shop and use them, or they will be picked up by the shop staff.

Paying is rather easy too. Obviously you can get a Woolies or a Coles membership card, they will automatically make you member of the Qantas frequent flyer group, which in theory should allow you to fly around a bit more. The paying is done in either one of two ways : You can do it yourself or you can go to one of the aisles where a lady will pack your goods in little plastic bags for you so you can easily put them in your trolley and car. The do-it-yourself automated check-out option we haven't tried yet, but it's very popular , 50% of the people use it. Especially if you have 2-3 things , it will go very fast, you just scan-and-bleep then put your bank card in the machine and walk out of the shop, literally in seconds.
We don't have our Commonwealth Bank cards yet, so we have to use the cash option and go through the lady at the checkout. There is hardly any waiting, if ever. I think the most we have waited at a checkout is about 20 seconds. Australians don't like to wait, that's for sure : When things take more than a few minutes, they will get really agitated and complain about the huge delays and queues ( which, after being in Europe for so long sounds really ridiculous but I heard that you get used to it rather fast ).

One thing that we noticed is the size of the coins here ! A 50 cent coin will weigh about 2 kilo's ( ok, not really but they're really big and thick ) so your wallet will soon be full. We empty our wallet every evening just because the coins are so big and don't fit in it. I'll try and make a picture and upload it on here if I have time. The real size of a coin is about an 4 centimeters and about 4 millimeters thick, which for one coin is certainly respectable. They are mostly going cashless here , like in most parts of the world using debit and credit cards for the most part.

The parking all around the Sunshine coast is free, we haven't seen paid parkings anywhere yet, and the parking lots are all made for big SUVs so you'll have plenty of spare room if you drive anything Europe-sized ( think of USA a bit ).

The shops are usually located in big shopping centres which have plentiful parking spaces. The centres will usually have every type of shop you need : Electronics, electrics, travel agencies, banks, centrelink / medicare etc , sport shops, clothing shops, bottlo's ( bottle shops ) etc. When you go shopping you will always go to the big shopping centres ( and some of them are REALLY big like the Sunshine Plaza in Maroochydore which is almost as big as a small village in Europe ) They are almost always covered and well shaded with trees all around and parks and plenty of food and restaurant shops. It's a real treat not having to hike around town to find a particular shop, just go to a shopping mall and you'll get everything you need.

One noticeable thing in shops : The staff is really helpful and friendly. It sounds hard to believe but when we got here we were surprised by the friendliness of the people in general, and staff too. They take their time to help you, they are courteous and open. We might just have been lucky , but what a difference to what we were used to ! Obviously here in Queensland, the customer is still king. ( in The Netherlands the king has been dethroned for quite a while now )

Yes, we like the Australian shops.