Today is an exciting day. We may hear that the sale of the land is unconditional, we are viewing the house we hope to buy and all being well signing a new contract for sale.
We met the agents at the new house at 10:00. The house is as good as we thought it would be. The views are much the same as our original block and the house is actually quite similar to what we were planning on building.
The agents were more than happy to allow us to spend as much time as we wanted. I took lots of photos, measured rooms and marked features on the floor plan. We have already had a building inspection done and were told of a couple of very minor problems that we looked at and are satisfied that they are indeed…minor.
We still had not heard whether or not the land has gone unconditional, so we cannot update the purchase contract quite yet.
We returned to the hotel and made some lunch. Just after lunch we got the frustrating news that the buyer needs a 7 day extension for their bank to complete approval 🙁
… and so we wait …
The rest of the afternoon we spent looking around at some other properties I had seen online, but none come up nearly as perfect as the one we have decided on.
We left the hotel early to put the car into the secure parking at the airport. From there it is a short bus trip to the terminal.
We checked our suitcases in and headed for the Virgin Lounge for breakfast. Our flight left slightly late at 9:50 and arrived in Hobart at 1:05. We landed to a drizzly day but not overly cold. We collected out hire car and headed to the Shoreline hotel which will be our home for the next 4 days.
We rang the real estate agent to arrange a viewing of the house for 10:00 tomorrow.
A quick shop at Woolworths and we were happy for a quiet evening watching TV.
We are heading to a motel near the airport in readiness for our flight to Hobart tomorrow.
The Glen Innes motel has an included breakfast from 7:00am. We had showers and went to the breakfast room. The breakfast included, a choice of cereals, toast, fruit and yoghurt.
After breakfast, we packed the car and were on the road just after 8:00.
First stop was Tenterfield at a rest stop we have been to a couple times before.
Next stop was Warwick where I needed to do a bit of computer work. I decided the bast place to do this would be the library. I asked the librarian where I could set up and she showed me to a quiet corner with a next and powerpoint for my laptop.
Work completed, we found the picnic ground in Queens Park. We made our sandwiches and I looked at the plaques and very large statue that celebrate Warwick’s love of all things “horse”
From Warwick it was an easy drive toward Brisbane. Traffic got very heavy as we hit Ipswich, but ran at speed all the way to Northgate.
We arrived at our accommodation and put everything from the car into the room so I could repack everything to go to Tasmania and what would be left in the car at Brisbane airport.
Dinner, a bit of TV and bed ready for an exciting time in Hobart.
Waking up this morning was a little bit sad knowing we are saying goodbye to the family. We will not see them again for a few months.
We had breakfast, finished packing, checked we had everything before checking out and going to the family to have a hot shower and then on to Glen Innes.
We last travelled the New England Hwy from the Hunter Valley through to Qld on our roadtrip in Dec 2019.
This trip was much more relaxed with no major bush fires to contend with. Our first stop was. little town called Aberdeen. We found the rest stop and had a cup of tea and I had a read of the plaques that explained some of the town’s history. As you can imagine, from the name “Aberdeen” the town was settled by Scottish immigrants who came looking for their fortunes. (read more here)
Back on the road and our next stop was Tamworth for lunch. We found Woolworths, bought some bread and ham and looked on the map for a park. There was a huge park on the side of the river. It was another big council playground/park similar to the one we had been at with the boys a couple of days ago..
Next stop was Armidale for a cuppa and a stretch of the legs. We found the information centre and it had a large park beside it.
Final stop was our accommodation for the night. The Glen Innes motel is clean and comfortable and perfectly suitable for a night before we continue on to Brisbane tomorrow.
As we had no hot water in the unit, M had a cold shower and I had a warm “bird bath”. We had our breakfast and set off to have a look at a motel we had seen online that is much closer to the family’s house.
We found the motel and saw that the cleaners were busy cleaning, so we asked if we could have a quick look at some rooms. They were happy to oblige and we were more than happy with the rooms. The motel looks like it has not long ago had a refurbishment and the rooms are bright, clean and spacious. We will certainly be booking in here the next time we are down.
After the motel viewing we went around to the family to see what the plan was for the day. It was decided that we would take the boys to a skate park they had not been to and then go to the Swansea RSL for lunch.
The boys had lots of fun at the skate park on their scooters and bikes, and it was lovely sitting in the sun chatting. After the boys had burnt off some energy, we drove a short way to the RSL.
The club itself was the usual type of club with a delicious menu. What set it apart was the lovely views over the lake.
We all had nice lunches and then decided to go for a drive around the beaches through Newcastle itself and then home.
We arranged to meet up again in the morning so we could have hot showers before we headed north to Glen Innes.
After such a big lunch, we did not need dinner. We repacked our bags with what we needed for the next couple of days, watched some TV and went to bed.
The family arrived at our apartment around 5:00pm. As we expected the boys are growing so fast. We had a lovely time at “Nana’s New Holiday House”
The boys were very surprised that the Easter Bunny had been early and left some presents here. The decision was made that he had dropped them off here early because they were not chocolate eggs, and he would have been too busy and not had room in his basket on Saturday. 😀😀
After dinner we chatted for a while until the kids got tired and it was time to take them home.
We had a comfortable nights sleep, and after breakfast we headed over to the family’s new home here in Newcastle. They have been in their new house for a couple of months now and have settled in well. The house is set on a hillside and is gorgeous, with lovely views over a green leafy suburb. They have natural bushland behind them which adds to the charm.
The boys were so excited to show us their rooms and the pool.
For lunch we headed to a lovely big local park for fish and chips, a kick of the footy and playing on the equipment. The council have done a great job with this park.
After lunch it was time to go to BMX. It has been a long time since I have been to BMX. Not since their dad was not too much older than T.
T made sure we knew exactly which outfit he was wearing so we would know which rider was him. I told him all we had to do was look at the front rider. 😀😀. He replied with “Not always”. but it mostly was, with T winning 3 out of 4 of his races, only narrowly coming second to another rider..
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Leading the pack right to the finish.
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Little H does so well. He is only 3 and cannot make it all the way around the track yet, and Dad has to run around after him to give him a bit of a push over some of the hills, but he loves it so much and comes back off the track with a HUGE grin on his face
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🙂 Poor Dad has just as much exercise as Little H
Little H nearly “did a Bradbury” when some of the others had a crash.
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While we were at BMX, I got a text message from the hotel saying that they had bad news. The hot water system for the resort had broken down d we would no longer have hot water and it was unlikely to be fixed for the duration of our stay. We were offered the option of staying and receiving compensation or they could help find alternative accommodation. We decided that the chances of getting alternative accommodation at this late date would be pretty unlikely, so we chose to stay. We will have a “bird bath” on Sunday morning and stop off at the family for a hot shower before we hit the road on Monday.
Back at home after a big day in the sun, we had dinner and were in bed fairly early looking forward to another day of fun tomorrow.
