Nothing too interesting

Mar 22 – 31

We've done lots more job hunting and actually had a meeting with two agencies and had a job interview. Beau and I both got jobs at an inbound customer service call center for 5 weeks starting on April 18^th. The pay is pretty good and hopefully we'll get lots of hours.

Beau had been very diligent about engine hunting too. Turns out the engine in Dotti was only used in the Urvan for about 2-3 years so it's been difficult to find one from an auto-wrecker, aside from the fact that it was also 30 years ago.  However it was used in a lot of forklifts and we were able to find a forklift engine that will work in our van. After talking with the engine guy and our mechanic it will be about $3000 for the engine replacement. It's a lot of money but it's back to the idea if we don't do this we are still in need of a vehicle. Anyways it seems things might be looking up. We have work and will get our van back.

We've been helping Monique and Ingo out with fixing their deck. Part of the railing needed to be replaced and everything need a new coat of paint. Beau's been doing the fixing and I've been doing a bunch of painting.  I'll post some pictures when it's done

We did go to The Hunger Games and I loved it. I thought they did a pretty good job of translating the book into a movie although they did miss out a few pieces of information.

Melbourne to Albury and Back

Mar 16 – 19

It's been hard to write about things that we ourselves don't want to dwell on too much. We've been feeling a little sorry for ourselves and kind of home sick with the way things have been working out. Or rather how they haven't been working out. We've been applying to jobs and trying to get in touch with some agencies. We did go into to town on Sunday the 18^th, it's a much cheaper fare. We checked out the Queen Victoria Market. It reminded us of the markets in Asia although a lot more expensive and a lot cleaner. If needed we'll come back here to pick up some warming clothing. You can buy a hoody for $10-20. But honestly we've been pretty boring. We have been walking the dogs though and in one park there are kangaroos. I got some pictures of them on one of our visits.

Mar 20 – To Albury

Today we are driving to Albury, New South Wales with Monique so we can put the van in our name. Monique is going there for a conference so fortunately we have a ride. During the day though we got a very unfortunate phone call from the mechanic. Turns out that one of valve sleeves had fallen into the engine and had been rattling around (at least that's my understanding of what happened). The engine needs to be replaced or reconditioned....shit. The mechanic said he was pursuing all the contacts he had to see if he could find an engine. This put a huge damper on our day. We were traveling to another state to change over a van into our name and it may never run again but it needs to be done. We picked Monique up after work and started the three hour drive to Albury. Along the way we called some places to stay, we hadn't pre-booked, and of course the place we had been looking at was full. We contacted a hostel and they wanted $35/person for a 4 bed dorm! We figured we'd find something once in town or worse case scenario go stay at the hostel. On the way into Albury we saw a sign for a motel room for $70/night and it included breakfast. We dropped Monique off at her hotel and then checked into the motel. We walked down the main street from the motel and got some stirfry noodles for dinner. We were feeling pretty down about everything so to cheer us up we decided to go see a movie. “21 Jump Street” was playing at the theatre across from the restaurant so we decided to go to that. It was also cheap night Tuesday which was a plus. The movie was pretty funny and our night ended on a laughing note.

Mar 21 – Back to Diamond Creek

After our included breakfast, toast and cereal, we walked down to the vehicle registration offices and got Dotti put in our name. We headed back to the car and ran some errands in town. Then we headed back to the main strip and walked around the down town a bit. I was able to find a kangaroo charm for my charm bracelet. We met up with Monique around 5pm when her conference had ended and then headed back to Diamond Creek. We were glad to have our little trip over and done with.

Camper Van Hunting

Mar 6 – Into town

This morning an Australian couple came by to show us their van, a 1981 Nissan Urvan. They were doing what backpackers do just in their own country. The van looked pretty good. It drove well and had a pretty good layout. They were traveling with their dog, Banjo, and he played with Snow and Juneau while we checked out the van. We took it for a test drive, Beau and I were quite interested in it. After they left we headed into town to check out the CBD. We went into the visitors center to get some info on where to go and what to see. Then we went back to the little Indian place for lunch. It was yummy and cheap so why mess with a good thing. After lunch we walked through the botanical gardens and over to the war memorial. This is apparently a great place to get an awesome view of the city. Unfortunately it was about 5pm and the memorial closed to visitors at that time so we couldn't go up it for the great view. We decided we'll have to come back. We had been planning on meeting another girl and her van this evening but she couldn't meet until 7pm and wasn't willing to meet us at a train stop on our line. It would have taken about 2hrs to get back to Monique and Ingo's if we met up with her so we decided against it. We really just wanted another comparison, we weren't super interested in this van. It was blue with clouds on it. We headed back and were just in time for dinner. We spent the rest of the evening with Monique and Ingo. Beau and Ingo have been having fun playing soccer on Playstation. Beau and I thought the van this morning looked best of any of the ads we had seen and the guy seemed like he had taken good care of it. We got in touch with him about taking the van to a mechanic tomorrow.

Melbourne CBD

The city and Botanical Gardens

The War Memorial

Mar 7 – Checking the van out

Beau spent some of the morning finding a mechanic in a town called Geelong. That's where the van couple is staying, they were just in Melbourne for a few days. Geelong is about an hours drive from here but it's a two hour train ride as you have to go into the city and then back out again. Beau set off on his merry way and I picked up some groceries. I had a quiet day to myself. Beau got back just in time for dinner. The mechanic thought the van was in good condition for it's age and couldn't see any problems with it. We had decided that if the van was good we'd buy it so Beau had given them a deposit. We were pretty excited about our new van.

Mar 8 – Picking up Dotti

We made arrangements with the van couple to meet part way between Melbourne and Geelong at one of the train stations. Beau couldn't have taken the van yesterday because we had to wait for today to get the cash out. We are only allowed to take out $1000 each per day with our bank cards. So I had $4000 in 50's on the train. One of those times you really hope you don't bump into the wrong people. We met up with the couple no problem. Beau and the guy talked about the van a bit then we made the money exchange. We felt pretty conspicuous counting all that money out. But it was all there and Beau and I had our “new” van to drive back to Diamond Creek. We were discussing names for the van, Urv was one option but vans tend to be girls. We settled on “Dotti” since she's technically a Datsun, what Nissan was formerly known as. Once back at the house we set about the task of cleaning out the van and figuring out what we need for it. We decided we want to make a little folding table and we discussed ways of accomplishing that. We made bean burgers for dinner and while Monique and Ingo were a little skeptical when we told them what was for dinner they really enjoyed them. I also made greek salad to go with.

 

 

Mar 9 – The Movies

Beau and I had planned on going into town today. Unfortunately right before we were going to leave we double checked our train tickets and we could find Beau's anywhere. We search high and low but to no avail. It must have fallen out of his pocket on the train. We were both pretty bummed because those tickets hadn't been cheap. Since it was already afternoon we decided we'd go into town earlier tomorrow. Instead we decided to work on some modifications to the van. We want to build a cover for a shelf area that doubles as a table. We headed to the hardware store but their main car park is underground and we weren't sure how tall the van is with the roof cage on it. She's quite long especially with the bike rack on the back and pretty tall with the roof rack. We'll have to measure the height to see where we can fit. After the hardware store we headed to the grocery store and had similar problems parking. We barely fit in a stall, the bike rack had to hang over the center median. Back at the house Beau started trying to figure out the best way for him to create his shelf/table. Monique and Ingo got home and suggested we go to a movie. Ingo had been planning on going with some guys from work but their plans fell through. We had a look at movies that were playing, Monique doesn't like violent movies, so the girls were going to go to one movie and the boys another. We had some dinner at the food court before hand. Ingo and Beau went to see an action movie called Contraband while Monique and I went to a chick flick called The Vow. It was a sweet and sad movie, think the Notebook or Timetravellers Wife (all with Rachel McAdams). After our movie Monique and I got a very decadent hot chocolate while we waited for the guys movie to finish. They really enjoyed their movie and we enjoyed ours.