Still Homeless..

Well.. Perhaps I shouldn't really say that.. We have a roof over our heads and are dry, safe, warm and well fed.. If but still somewhat impatient to be "at home"..

We've been making efforts to find somewhere we can feel comfortable to be settled for a longer period of time, and scouring the lengths and breadths of the tablelands in doing so.. Which has unfortunately meant burning a lot of fossil fuels in the process.. We dream on of water powered motor vehicles - especially now, here, when there is such an abundance of that kind of wet fuel (we're going through queensland rainy season at the moment.. i think 60 mms of rain yesterday!).

The tablelands are breathtakingly beautiful in places, and I'm sorry I'm not posting more pictures.. Not sure if I mentioned but the panasonic lumix camera I bought in June last year, the supposedly "tough" unbreakable one, broke on me.. the little lense cover cracked, not even sure when or how it happened.. but the knock also seems to have damaged the usb connection too, so can't even get the pictures that are on there off.. Well, I could if I make the effort, as the memory card is still fine, I'm guessing, so I do have a little card reader thing somewhere, just buried in all the stuff we haven't yet unpacked (and don't really intend to until we find our home)..

anyhow.. back to the home search thing.. We've had an offer to housecare for a guy named Peter in Ravenshoe (pronounced Raven's Hoe, not Raven Shoe!).. We went out to look at the place.. It's far from ideal, and although the owner would not be there most of the time, he would sometimes, and at times, he would require us to look after and feed his dogs too.. He has a fair bit of land surrounding the house, but so far only a few small scrawny looking trees in the ground at the moment.. He would be open for us to do what we want with the garden/land, and has even told us he'd buy whatever fruit trees we want to plant out.. There're definitely plus points about being there, but we know that they have to be weighed against other issues.. Like, the times when he will also be living there.. Much as he seems like a pretty reasonable guy, his lifestyle is pretty conventional, and I can see him just wanting to sizzle his sausages, take a beer or 2 from the fridge, and plonking himself in front of his big widescreen TV.. Which is ok, I guess, only the house rooms are not that separated that we could circumnavigate his presence..

I don't mean to give the guy a bad name.. far from it.. i liked him, friendly, welcoming, accepting and i think we'd get on ok, just kveta and i are private people and enjoy and require our own space too much.. neither of us would be happy smelling burning flesh at times either, and the dogs (he has 6 of them), would most certainly be an issue at times too.

Anyhow, we've got until one day next week sometime to get back to him and give him a yay or a neigh.. So that's been at the back of our minds.. (If we were to say yes, we would have to explain to him that the position would be fully temporary, as quite honestly we would ultimatelly still be looking for our own private secluded place.. - actually, that may possibly make him himself decide that we were not suitable..).

OK.. meanwhile though, we've had another offer of house caring.. this time in a small village and area we prefer.. a place called Malanda.. A somewhat similar deal, but in a different location, and chickens instead of dogs.. doh!

Actually, we met the owner on Friday at Rusty's market in Cairns. He's a taxi driver in Cairns, most of the time, and originally from Mount Isa, where it's likely he made his fortune in the mining industry.. (mount Isa being a desert, mining, town)

He gave us the address of his place, and on saturday, yesterday, we drove out to take a look at it..

Nice views.. nice area.. Big house, and this house looks more sort of divided than the one in ravenshoe, so the privacy thing wouldn't be the same issue at all..

there's a car port for the car, and nice swimming holes short distances away.. land surrounding the house that could easily be fruit treed. A few visible neighbours around, but in the distance..

He wasn't there to give us a tour of the inside, but the fact that he's just let us stroll around and look at the place shows that he trusts us some, and tomorrow, monday, we'll be driving out to meet him again, and take the interior tour, and hopefully get his ultimate "yay" or "neigh"..

We are actually both a little excited about the prospect of moving in there and housecaring, as we both like that area, even though we've been told that malanda isn't the most hottest of areas around this way (mornings in the winter are said to be a bit chilly, but the rest of the day is warm, and a fair amount of rainfall there too, which'd be good for the fruit trees I guess)..

OK.. what about the downsides.. well.. there's the sharing thing.. ultimately we are looking for our own space to live as we wish, for me especially, I want the privacy to practise naturism as and when the weather permits, and then there's the issue of no dam or creek on the land, something that's in both our visions of the ideal home.. Of course, the chickens thing isn't ideal either, but at least they are more independent, free ranging and don't need regularly letting out of cages and feeding (which would be the case for the 6 dogs in ravenshoe - not to mention the hosing down of their cages etc, and the stuff they'd be fed, which we'd both be very reluctant to handle!)..

The Malanda home has a great rear view of the valley, but no established fruit trees that I noticed, and it's onlooked by distant surrounding properties..

I think that it's likely, given our current situation, that if the offer is not withdrawn after our monday inspection, that we will probably move in there, and at least have somewhere we feel more sure of calling home for a while.. Maybe just relax some, finally unpack our stuff, and then use that place as a safe base while we ultimately wait for our true home and piece of paradise, which afterall, may not be with us any day soon (although, it may, too!)..

Actually, as coincidences go.. Kveta first came to Australia on the 26th of January 1986, so the 26th would indeed be a nice freaky date to be moving in to that new home.. touch wood..

I guess life is treating us well no matter how we might otherwise complain or express impatience, things are flowing, and even if we don't end up moving in there, i have no doubt that we'll make it work somehow, and that the Divine truly does provide.

peace,
mango
ps i wrote this yesterday, but am only just connecting to the internet.. meanwhile we went to see the malanda property, but it was a "no show", the owner never turned up, and after 2 hours, we turned around and came home..

Peace,
mango.