We are still working away on various bits of the house. Ian is still terracing the sheer drop that is our garden, while I am painting the balcony. We don't seem to have stopped since we got here and I am reminded of my Dad who, after he retired used to say he didn't know how he had ever found the time to work!
It was a gorgeous day today, 20 degrees even though we officially still have one week of winter left to go, so we decided to give ourselves a, well deserved, day off and we set off on foot to do a bit of exploring. Although we know our little town and the neighbouring ones, there are countless footpaths and trails around these parts that we have not walked along yet. We plumped for a fire trail (a man made break through bushland for controlling bush fires) and walked along to the next township, Mallabula, which is home to one of our favourite local beaches. Monty loves running around on the beaches and, whenever I have a pang of guilt about shipping him all that way in a crate, it goes away when I see him enjoying himself so much.
It was so peaceful watching people fishing off the jetty and one man standing up in his kayak fishing, when Ian and I had a kayak we had enough trouble keeping it upright when we were sitting down so we won't be trying that!
We followed the shore around and then tried another new footpath on the way back, all in all a round trip of about 15km, very pleasant indeed.
Our next project after the terracing is the solar installation. It is crazy not to have at least solar hot water in a country with so much sunlight and we have decided to go for the whole lot so have been to Stand Up For Solar meetings, pestered neighbours with solar about their experiences and had reps visiting from all the major solar companies and Ian has been carrying out the boring task of photographing the roof from all angles every hour so the panels can be positioned correctly. It is quite an exciting prospect to be able to be partially self sufficient powerwise, I feel like we should be on Grand Designs.