House and schools in preparation.
Finally another update with a new laptop since our DELL already gave up after half a year of service.
We are now living for more than two weeks in a cabin at BIG4 Brisbane Northside Caravan Village. Since we want to settle in the northern part of Brisbane, this is a good location from where were to organize everything. The living space in the cabin is limited bringing some challenges, although we are enjoying the weather and local atmosphere.
After our previous update we have done many inspections of houses, have visited several (state and private) schools and have seen some pre-schools and kindies (creches). This research was boring for the children, although this was changing after installing a car-dual-video system which nearly kept them in the car whole day long (if we would let them). We also enjoyed swimming, city walks, a wildlife park called Alma Zoo, walking in rainforest (Nicole calls it “natte vieze kledderbos”) to “Greene’s Falls” in the Brisbane Forest Park, swimming, play-ground, libraries (with entertainment and learning activities) and some shopping. You can imagine that we have been quite busy with all these things and all procedures and formalities around it, but it also brought us what we were looking for. Last week we signed the contract for a house, for Nicole we submitted an application for a Christian School called Genesis Christian College” and for Jorick we selected the pre-school “Living Faith Early Learning Centre”.
Main criteria for our house search were: a natural environment (what we enjoyed in Bosch en Duin), enough space (also for guests) and not too far from Anita’s hospital (Prince Charles Hospital) and from the Central Business District. Following this criteria we have inspected many houses. Remarkable was the way this is usually done here, especially the habit that you leave your shoes outside when you are entering a home. Finally our search led to a home in North Brisbane in the suburb Cashmere. It is located at the border of the city, against the Forest and has a garden (20.000 sqm) with mainly bush land. It is situated in a living area for wallabies, koala’s and other national species (some photos at the bottom of this page). Although still some formalities need to be done we hope to move from our cabin to this house in the 2nd week of April. After having a house-address it is easier to arrange all other things ranging from schools and creche to a driving license and insurance, subscriptions at the library, etc.
Nicole cannot wait to go to school. She wants to socialize with other children and wants to learn to speak, read and write in English. Probably she will start this week in primary school grade one. Tomorrow we will try to arrange a school uniform for her. Jorick will probably spend a few days each week at pre-school to play. He is really looking forward to it. We’ll keep you updated.
Below you’ll find some pictures of the house we hope to enter in the 2nd week of April. We love the way it is situated.
Kind regards from us all.
