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.