Arrival on the island - I've been magnetised!

Hey moovers and groovers, hang on its going to be a bumpy blog (to paraphrase Bette Davis)...

Louise back here at the helm, with a NEW blog;  this one is about life on Magnetic Island,  in far north Queensland.  (please google earth Nelly Bay and see where we live now...) 

We arrived here from the end of our 9 month trip around Australia, and for those of you who have not seen the old blog on the trip the address is loma2010.blogspot.com and is worth checking out.

Well what to say about Maggie island?  We arrived on 2nd April 2011 to rain and storms, and as we have been here a while I will quickly zoom through my diary and briefly outline the story so far...

I should explain here that I have visited Maggie Is. many times over the past decade or so, and love it.  This is the first experience of my living here though.  Which is, I am finding out, a whole new ball game from being a tourist.

Some things I have noticed:

-   I realise  it is the so called winter here (i.e now) when I have to add a tiny bit of hot water to the normal "cold" shower I have... 

- Everyone knows everyone on Maggie; the population is 2,500 and is capped at 4,000 I am told.

- The local birds are bloody noisy!  Stone Curlews and kookaburras at 4am screaming, make me think I am in the middle of an old 1940s Tarzan movie -  (they all had kookaburras screams in -  odd as they are not found in Africa!).

Matt (my husband) grew up here and his folks have luckily for us, a granny flat under their house where we are staying, and are letting us stay here, bless them.

We have a cunning plan... that is to build a house on the block of land next door;  Yes, yes, I know - living next door to the in laws sounds a bad idea.  But there were 2 good reasons we decided to buy it, 

1. Tom and Petah have a swimming pool, and 

2. it was going $40k off the normal price as the owners were getting divorced!  

We already have another block of land the other side of the island in Horseshoe Bay near my sister in law Deni, but Nelly Bay is the de facto capital of the island now, with the new ferry terminal, so we have decided to build here and sell the other block to  help pay for it.  Sounds like a plan right?  And it would have worked but for the bloody Cyclone Yazi which has (we think) put real estate buyers off the island! So we have reduced the price down to $130k and if anyone reading is interested, we do give 'mates rates' if you have the dosh!  See Compass Real Estate and mention my name...

OK; let me grab the Anne Frank boredom killer and see what has been going on...

sat April 2nd 2011 - Raining  temp: 27C

We arrive in Townsville in our camper van and take it to an RV centre here, with a view to selling it; the salesman kept a poker face and said his boss would call in the week to discuss a price; not what we wanted to hear but we catch an earlier barge over to the island from Townsville and on arrival, grab a bottle of cheap champagne to celebrate the end of the trip.  Tom, Petah and Deni are frantically cleaning out the downstairs flat for our arrival.  Feel pissed so early in the day, probably the booze and lack of food?  Weird but enjoyable...  I finish the rest of the bottle over dins that night when Tom fires up the BBQ and realise why rich people love the stuff with the bubbles...And as it is Saturday I am allowed a drink!  No boozing Mon - Fri unless absolutely warranted.

Sun April 3- Raining all day - 27C 

I wake up 4.30am and have trouble (again) getting back to sleep;  a menopause thing I think?  Or just being angst having finally finished our big trip?  Who knows, do some affirmations courtesy of Louise L Hay 'you can heal your life' and fall back to sleep...

After brekky we open up the mail that has been redirected from Sydney to here;  it fills an empty fruit crate and it takes us ages to go through it all;  after this we extract all out stuff from the campervan and put it in the flat.  Matt makes an ace chicken green curry and jasmine rice;  I hit the booze again (see above) and feel better after half a glass; see why its easy to slide into drinking every night and make a mental note that its Monday tomorrow and I'm OFF the booze for 5 days...

Mon April 4 - rain again, 26C

Wake up 4am and yes - hello insomnia!  Drift off about 5am and get up 8am;  Matt and his dad decide to try and start the 2 cars we left behind on the island b4 we did our trip; my 1999 Daihatsu Charade and Matt's 2001 Mitsubishi Mirage;  the Charade needs a new battery we realise and luckily there is a car mechanic up the road.  Finish cleaning out the van;  it all  looks spiffing now; we just need a buyer.  

Tuesday April 5 - cloudy 25C no rain

Still have a bad cough I picked up in the Gold Coast ages ago,  may have to go and see the local doc if it gets worse.  Matt got up 7am and took both cars to the mechanic up the road to get them looked over so we can change the registration papers from NSW to Queensland.   Matt prints out For Sale signs for the Mitsu and we put them on the local community notice boards around the island (4 in all ) - we are told its the easy way to sell stuff; Let's hope its true...

The flat under the house, the view from the kitchen; the bedroom/bathroom is behind that white wall.  April 2011

the view the other way - April 2011

More later ;   time for me to go and do some grocery shopping ....  regards Louise