The Final Adventure
By grandpa_lash
@grandpa_lash (5225)
Australia
October 19, 2012 7:20pm CST
About 8 months ago we put our house on the market, and in that time we have had all of 3 inspections, none of which showed any interest whatsoever. We were beginning to think we'd be stuck here forever, in a state now ruled by a political party somewhere to the far right of Maggie Thatcher (and incidentally putting in place draconic "austerity" and small government measures which the IMF and most major economists have, in the past month or so, condemned as being the worst possible approach in the current economic climate. They now admit that they got it all horribly wrong, and fear they may have created a highly toxic economic climate which may continue to have toxic effects for a generation in countries like Greece and Spain, and probably the state of Queensland here in sunny Australia).
Anyway, back to the subject. In the past two days we have had two inspections. Curiously it was two differemt women inspecting on behalf of their families, a clear indication that their male partners are busy dealing with all the major issues, like life, the Universe, and everything while the women look after the small things like where they live. Both are coming back with their partners and kids (we assume), so from thinking we might have to drop our asking price we may now be faced with an active auction. Yippee!
The odd thing is that after spending a fair bit on getting the gardens into great shape, the climate (dry and with the worst frosts for five years) has left it looking very ordinary, dry and with frost damaged flora. Thank the Gods for the brilliant set of pics our agent took back when it was looking really good.
By the middle of the week, hopefully, we will be celebrating a sale contract, and planning our last great adventure, a move to the other end of the country where both the countryside and the politics are predominantly Green. I say last adventure because my health means I am on borrowed time, and the interest is beginning to build up, so Tasmania will most likely be my resting place.
We'll keep you posted.
Lash
3 people like this
8 responses
@RawBill1 (8531)
• Gold Coast, Australia
21 Oct 12
I am sorry that your health is declining Lash. 
I am also sorry to have to admit that I have never been to Tassie although it is high on my bucket list. My parents were over there a few weeks ago and I have a friend going there in a couple of weeks too. I know I would love it there, with the amazing scenery and great European history. I read a biography of Bill Mollison the "father of permaculture" not long ago and much of that was based in Tassie so I am even more keen to check it out now.
I just wish I had gone to visit when I lived in Victoria as it is obviously a lot easier to get there from Vic than QLD. I hope that your house does sell quickly for you. We had our house on the market for over six months early last year, so I know the feeling well of trying to keep everything maintained nicely. But at least we had lots of rain back then to keep everything green. Even if the constant mowing WAS a pain!
I am also sorry to have to admit that I have never been to Tassie although it is high on my bucket list. My parents were over there a few weeks ago and I have a friend going there in a couple of weeks too. I know I would love it there, with the amazing scenery and great European history. I read a biography of Bill Mollison the "father of permaculture" not long ago and much of that was based in Tassie so I am even more keen to check it out now.
I just wish I had gone to visit when I lived in Victoria as it is obviously a lot easier to get there from Vic than QLD. I hope that your house does sell quickly for you. We had our house on the market for over six months early last year, so I know the feeling well of trying to keep everything maintained nicely. But at least we had lots of rain back then to keep everything green. Even if the constant mowing WAS a pain! 
@grandpa_lash (5225)
• Australia
25 Oct 12
Contract is signed and becomes final, all things being equal, in 21 days, and then we're on the go. I'm going to be very busy for the next 60 days or so, I hope I have time for MyLot.
Lash
1 person likes this
@RawBill1 (8531)
• Gold Coast, Australia
27 Oct 12
You certainly will be busy and I know the feeling. We are selling our business at the moment which has been one of the things keeping me off this site. I just do not have the time to be spending here. Hopefully it all goes well for you. It is a big job moving, but it can be exciting too. 
@RawBill1 (8531)
• Gold Coast, Australia
21 Oct 12
Awesome! That is great news, I like the "feel" of your house from the photo too, it looks very inviting.
Huonville is a place I have heard of. Perhaps I have a customer there? I send quite a few parcels to Tassie, more and more all the time. Not as much as other states, but it is improving down there. I just had a look on the map, it looks like a nice part of the world. 
Thanks fo rth einvite! Yep, vegetarian is best! 
A Friend of ours here comes from Hobart originally. She has invited us to go down and visit Tassie with her on one of her trips to see her family, but we have not been able to do it. Maybe next year we might have to!
Huonville is a place I have heard of. Perhaps I have a customer there? I send quite a few parcels to Tassie, more and more all the time. Not as much as other states, but it is improving down there. I just had a look on the map, it looks like a nice part of the world.
Thanks fo rth einvite! Yep, vegetarian is best!
A Friend of ours here comes from Hobart originally. She has invited us to go down and visit Tassie with her on one of her trips to see her family, but we have not been able to do it. Maybe next year we might have to!1 person likes this
@MsTickle (25180)
• Australia
20 Oct 12
I hope you get a sale Lash and I hope you get the price you want. The market is still pretty sh*tty all over.
I'm sorry to hear your health is not good, I guess at times we just have to be able to be philosophical about it all. It sounds like a wonderful adventure you're about to have. Tasmania is certainly on my list of places to do.
@grandpa_lash (5225)
• Australia
21 Oct 12
I expect it to be in the 5 figure bracket, hopefully not too far. It was nearly 5 figures coming up 6 years ago, and that was without the Tasman crossing involved.
Lash
1 person likes this
@grandpa_lash (5225)
• Australia
21 Oct 12
Half my health problems are entirely self-induced (I've been smoking for 56 years), and the other (spinal) has unidentifiable causes, possibly genetic, but there's no point in being anything but philosophical - short of winning a very large lottery prize and getting a lung transplant there's nothing to be done except get on with it as best I can.
We got a firm offer at 9.00 am this Sunday morning, and it is precisely what I thought we'd get once the ambit claim (lol) was worked down. By early January, all things being equal, we'll be in Tasmania.
Lash
2 people like this
@scorpiobabes (7225)
• United States
20 Oct 12
Lash,
Oh I hope you get the sale contract done! I went through a rough two years before my home sold (only in it for 3 months before I had to move) and I'd like to never go through that again! But now I'll be on the other side-I'm taking my national real estate exam in the next month and becoming a licensed real estate agent!
How different is it where you're moving to? How did you decide to move across the country? I'm not sure which coast Tasmania is off of either-guess I should brush up on my geography! But congrats and good luck!
@scorpiobabes (7225)
• United States
20 Oct 12
That's where I thought it was, but for some reason I thought you were living in the southeastern part of Austral. It sounds as its a win-win!
@grandpa_lash (5225)
• Australia
20 Oct 12
Currently we are on the Darling Downs in Queensland, about 2 hours drive from Brisbane. It gets very hot and dry here, and we lived through the last three yours of a very long drought, which may be coming back. Tasmania gets it's weather off the Antarctic and from the roaring forties, and tends not to be at all dry lol. The two places are about 1500 miles apart.
Lash
1 person likes this
@grandpa_lash (5225)
• Australia
20 Oct 12
Tasmania is off the far south-east coast, just fifty minutes by plane from Melbourne. Climate wise it is far better suited to people like us who thrive in the cold and melt in the heat, and politically much more to our way of thinking. I have lived there before, for about three years, and I loved it. It is also the cheapest housing in the country, much of it as old or older than our own 100+years old house, which is what we like. No little brick venereal box for us lol.
Lash
1 person likes this
@grandpa_lash (5225)
• Australia
22 Oct 12
One of the main things we are looking at is that it is 1500 miles closer to the Antarctic lol. I imagine that for you four straight days of 30+ degrees in mid Spring would not be noteworthy, but it is absolutely flattening me here. I can't wait - it's always possible to get warm, but getting cold is a bugger to do.
Lash
1 person likes this
@ajk111 (2495)
•
20 Oct 12
Excellent news! we have had our house on the market for nearly 5 years with next to no interest. Economic climate has hit house prices hard over here but luckily it's a good house so not overly bothered. the only reason we want to move is to get a place in the country that is neighbour free.
Hopefully you will get your wish soon and then have a fresh start. i moved about lots before i met my wife and had kids, Glasgow, Edinbourgh,Southampton,Spain, portugal and Denmark and absolutely loved meeting such diverse cultural people.
Tasmania cujours up a picture of scenic isolation but i should know better than to be led by tv and movies.
Best of luck and remember to get internet connection!
@grandpa_lash (5225)
• Australia
21 Oct 12
Actually, Tasmania is the first region to get the superfast internet connection our government has made such a big thing of. Being cynical, I wonder if that's because they think Tasmania doesn't really matter and so gets to be used as the testing laboratory. Whatever, we'll likely have much better service there than we get now.
Commiserations on your frustration; we've only been hoping for 8 months, and that's frustrating enough.
Lash
1 person likes this
@deazil (4730)
• United States
20 Oct 12
Sounds like you're headed for a great place to live! I hope you get what you want for your house. Have you chosen a place to live or do you have a place waiting for you in greener pastures? Hopefully you'll be here for a long time. I'm happy for you. Who knows? you may still have time for one or two more adventures.
I'm happy for you. Who knows? you may still have time for one or two more adventures.@grandpa_lash (5225)
• Australia
20 Oct 12
We're going to rent for at least six months while we carefully look around and find exactly what we want. We have ideas of where we might settle, but we are flexible on that. We may buy a really cheap older style cottage and fix it up before we go in.
Housing prices in Australia are I suppose much as they are everywhere. If you're not part of the establisment moneymaking machine you simply cannot afford to live in the cities, where even second rate gerry-built places are going for more than half a million, and rents are impossibly high if you can even find a place to rent. The place we have now would have cost three times as much in even the outlying suburbs of Brisbane.
Tasmania is considered to be so far out of the mainstream that the moneysharks haven't yet managed to take it out of the reach of ordinary people, so we should be able to (almost) buy two houses with what we'll get for the current one, so major renovation is a possibility. As I said, an adventure lol.
The other thing is that Tasmania is the home of the Australian Greens, one of the two strongest Green parties in the world, and a to large number of alternative lifestylers, so we will be much more at home there than in this extremely politically conservative state we are in now.
Hopefully I'll be a round a while yet. I can't die till my dog does, and he's only 9 and probably has four or five years left in him lol.
Lash
1 person likes this
@sharra1 (6340)
• Australia
8 Apr 13
Well we have been living in our new house for just over two months now and we love the place. There has been one problem with a leaking roof that we are getting fixed and we are angry that the building inspector failed to mention this problem but despite this we still love it.
We were bordering on depression in our old place and now we have a lease of life. We love the area and have even taken up archery. Such fun. The climate here is ideal for us and the dogs love the walks we have found, especially our older one who now has a great river to swim in. We will see how we manage with the cold winter here but since we prefer cold to hot I think we will cope just fine. We have coped with all the little things that just did not work out the way we thought they would but at least we are now back on line with a networked mobile device that all the experts told us could not be networked. 
I got to love that fact that I got this device networked with so little knowledge of what to do despite the advice to the contrary.
Now if we can just get our roof leak proof before the winter storms come I will be very happy. I would be even happier if I could get my archery score up to where I would like it to be but it seems that the mind and body are not cooperating in that area.
Oh well I will just have to keep practicing and trying to get my old body to learn a new skill.
I got to love that fact that I got this device networked with so little knowledge of what to do despite the advice to the contrary.
Now if we can just get our roof leak proof before the winter storms come I will be very happy. I would be even happier if I could get my archery score up to where I would like it to be but it seems that the mind and body are not cooperating in that area. Oh well I will just have to keep practicing and trying to get my old body to learn a new skill.
@Hatley (163776)
• Garden Grove, California
20 Oct 12
nk grandpa lash wow tasmania do be careful ot those visioous little Tasmanian devils I have seen pictu res of. hope your sale will be
all you want it to be and the move a lot of work and fun too as t Tasmania sounds really exciting.do take care of yourself grandpa so we can keep hearing from you.hugs from hatley
@grandpa_lash (5225)
• Australia
21 Oct 12
When we make the move, and it will be early January, we accepted a quarter million offer this afternoon (it sounds so much better put that way lol), we will be using laptop with air stick, so boring nights in caravan parks will see me, at least, MyLotting. They don't get rid of me that easily lol.
It should take 4 days max to get to Melbourne, a couple of days catching up with our relatives, all of whom live in Melbourne, then a ferry trip to Devonport and a simple drive to Hobart. Should be good lol.
Lash
1 person likes this
