Saturday market day

Today was a pretty quiet day. James has a lot of uni work on at the moment and I have things due this week. But we still had time to pop over to the Davies Park West End market. Basically just down the road from us (it's quite amusing watching cars circle the block trying to find parks because it's so busy while we just toddle over!) it's so handy and nice to start a Saturday morning with. Got some fresh produce, James had a coffee and I treated myself to a fresh coconut! Delicious. 

Errands and school.

The past few days have been pretty quiet. Yesterday was filled with lots of little errands, like applying for jobs (fingers crossed I might have got my foot in the door at Lululemon!), organising banking, posting things etc. in the arvo, we rode our bikes along riverside drive & went to the State Library, which I wanted to get a membership for and scope it out for scho work. It's a really amazing building right on the river in South bank, pretty impressive. And only a 10 minute ride along the river (which is separate from the road with cars) from our place. 

Today we mostly did school work and pottered around home. 

Also, I bought some icy pole moulds and have been making lots of icypoles! I did mango and today I did mango and plum. Deeeelicious and nice and cold too :) 

Hayley & James x

Swimming & Biking

The last few days have been filled with lots of bike riding. On Saturday, we started our morning at the Davies Park West End market, grabbing as much local produce as possible (and a couple of other things at coles!). We then took a bike ride down through west end along the river, over the go between bridge and all the way to Toowong. It was REALLY hard for me as I havnt ridden a bike in a few years but I'll get used to it! 

On Sunday, we got up early (it was going to be a 35 degree day) and rode our bikes over to Paddington to Ithaca pool, which is a saltwater pool in Brisbane. We got a little lost of on way but found it eventually! The pool was great and we swam for around an hour and then rode home (without getting lost). 

Hayley & James 

And some flowers from the market - so cute!!

Bikes and coffee

Today was an exciting day - we both finally got paid and decided to finally get ourselves some bikes!! Public transport in Brisbane has been costing us a fortune,  when I spent a week in the city for school I think I spent close to $50 on my bus card, which is just crazy. James got a refurbished road bike, so it has a vintage redone frame and all new mechanics. And my bike was new and is more like a hybrid cruising bike (so no high seat or flat handlebars like a road bike).

We also had a breakfast at a really great cafe in west end called Plenty. The food was delicious & surprisingly cheap for how good it was. Plus they had a focus on organic produce and knowing where your food came from so that was also nice. I think we will be visiting there again very, very soon (it's dangerously close, only about a minute walk from our house!!) 

Goodnight, Hayley & James 

Manic monday

Today was filled with some boring tasks, like seeing the doctor and going to Centrelink (there was a massive blow up in the Centrelink as per usual). But the upside to today was the weather was a little cooler, I got to walk around some new suburbs and I got a house plant! The man at the nursery was so helpful and the prices were so good, couldn't believe I could get a large quite matured houseplant for $20. Other than that, James has been at uni and I've been doing schoolwork from home. 

Hayley & James x

 

So many books!

Hi all, 

Today we had a pretty cruisy Sunday. Had croissants and coffee/tea for breakfast and then we decided to head to the Lifeline Bookfest in south bank. They've been running it for about 10 years in Brisbane and it has raised over 15 million dollars for lifeline over that time which is pretty impressive. It was at theExhibition  centre and it was MASSIVE. A whole warehouse of $1 books and another warehouse with $2.50 books and then prices as marked. James went yesterday while I was at school and was keen to attend again! We each got a couple of books for $2.50 - it was lots of fun and just so many books - people had trolleys full of them! 

Hayley & James x

Quiet Saturday night in.

Today was the last day of my intensive week at practical legal training (6 full time days at school was exhausting!).

So tonight we had a really quiet night in at home, watched a movie, read books and magazines and look forward to not having to set our alarm clocks tomorrow. I also got some new things for the house with our myer vouchers, and this rug for the lounge room was half price & makes the room feel much more complete. 

Hayley and James x

Hot nights

Hi all! 

Apologies for the delay in posts. I've started my full time practical legal training here in Brisbane and the first week requires 6 full time days on campus at the College of Law, so I've been pretty busy all week with that. 

I had this afternoon off school which was nice. We went for a bit of lunch in West End and checked out some of the shops!  We are both dirt broke at the moment from the move but it's still fun to check out the neighbourhood. 

It's been very hot here today, about 36 and the sun blazing all day, so we decided to cool off with a drink at a cool bar on Mollison st (5 mins walk from our place) called The Burrow. 

Here are some photos from the last few days. A few are of the city where I am doing my schooling. 

Keeping cool, Hayley & James xxx

Moving day!

Saturday was moving day! We started our day early around 7am, packed up our gear at our temporary Airbnb home & hit the hilly streets of Indooroopilly (my manual hill starts have been put to the test!!) towards West End. We picked up our keys from the real estate, came to the house & unloaded our car. Our new place is surprisingly bigger than our last rental and so there is lots of space! We organised a couch off gumtree ($50+$10 delivery!!) and also got a fridge off gumtree too. Most of our day was filled with Ikea flat pack assembling.... I can't deal with the sight of another alen key! We managed to venture out during the middle of the day and enjoy the Davies Park West End markets - they happen every Saturday from 6am-2pm and they were really cool! Plenty of cheap, local produce, soaps, flowers, candles, gifts and trinkets and lots of nice food stalls! I think we will be stocking up on fruit & veg  every weekend there I imagine. And I think the best part is that it's only a 1 minute walk from our house. Here are some photos of our house and our day in general. 

Love Hayley & James 

 

Friday fun-day

So this post is a little late (meant to post yesterday but was way too tired). Friday was a good day for us. However, we started our morning with a very long commute on public transport out to Ikea. After spending almost 2 hours getting there, we got a call from the transport company to say that our car had arrived, hooray! But this meant leaving ikea before we had even started! So we made the backwards trip, collected the car and then drove back to ikea (see excited photo of myself after conquering Brisbane freeways). Ikea went fairly well, we kitted out the home & got a bed + frame and organised next day delivery. Although we are both not crash hot on the idea if Ikea, under our current financial circumstances it will have to do. I am looking forward to adding my own style, when I get a chance to opshop/garage sale etc.

Enjoy some photos! Hayley & James xxx

A place to call home...

Hello all,
Today we had a really good start to our morning. Alongside some amazing peaches for breakfast (Qld has great stonefruit), we got ACCEPTED for a rental! Yahoooo!
We are both super excited and also relieved to have found a place so soon, especially when its the second house we viewed and only on our first day of viewing properties. We are excited!!!!
It's in West End on Scott Street, so its really close to the 'town centre' of West End in Boundary St, lots of cool cafes, little independent stores and fruit markets - we both really like it!
We get the keys on Saturday and still have to organise a bed/fridge but that will have to wait until we move in before we can do that. I will post some pictures up once we are well & settled.
Love Hayley and James

We're not in Kansas anymore...

Hello all! James and Hayley have finally arrived in Brisbane! It's been a muggy past few days filled with lots of tasks. Our flight arrived in at about 5.30pm Brisbane time & James' cousin, Shane, kindly picked us up at the airport and dropped us at our Airbnb temporary accommodation (which we have for 5 nights). We both rose early this morning, around 6am. James went to meet his phd supervisor at the University of Queensland campus & I began the ring around for rentals! I headed to Indooroopilly shopping centre (5 mins walk from where we are staying) and then met James at St Lucia, where the uni is. We caught our first Brisbane ferry cat over to West End, where we are house hunting. The first property was a dud but the second place was great, it's 2/7 Scott street West End and it's still on real estate.com if anyone wants to see it. We've completed the application for it & taking it in first thing in the morning - fingers crossed!!! 

Highlights of the day : visiting the UQ campus - it's very pristine and beautiful! And hopefully finding our house in West End, it's a really hip suburb with lots of little indepdent stores and grocers & just had a good vibe 

Lows of the day: it was awfully muggy and hot and we did a tonne of walking, now we are both almost snoring at 9.30pm. 

Love Hayley & James 

P.s enjoy the picture of the little magpie we made friends with! 

Melbourne!

We made it into Melbourne and off the boat at around 7pm. I was very nervous about driving the manual through the city but lucky it was a Sunday evening, which meant the traffic wasn't too bad. We are staying the night at James' old place in Brunswick, where our friend Andy now lives in James old room. It's so nice to be back in Melbourne even for a short while and nice to sleep in the spare room for the night. Tomorrow we drop the car at the depot, kill some time during the middle of the day and then catch our flight to Brisbane at 4pm!!!! Love Hayley and James 

Devonport

So yesterday (Saturday) we made the drive from cygnet to devonport. It took us about 5 hours as we left from cygnet and stopped a few times on the way. It was extremely hot for Tassie, around 37 degrees through the midlands which made for an interesting drive with no proper air conditioning! Anyhow, we made it to abel Tasman campsite which was really nice, even had common cooking areas and semi proper bathrooms. Stayed in our tent overnight and then got up very early (I was awak at around 5am) to catch the Spirit of Tasmania over to Melbourne. The Spirit took a looooong time. I wasn't too sea sick but I made sure I took enough sea sickness tablets to keep it under wraps and kept my eyes on the horizon at most times. The boat was calmer than I had anticipated, it was just a very long day. 

Tassie, we will miss you!