And We're off AGAIN!!!!!

...but this is the very last one!

We decided that maybe Melbourne was a bit too racy for what we are looking for. Please don't get us wrong, its a fantastic place to live and it has so much going on but we feel that its just not what we're looking for.

So we've decided to upsticks again and move to Queensland - the Sunshine State!!

The lease on our apartment expires in early January and Neil's job has not quite panned out as we thought it would and so we decided to move north - but this one is the very last move!!!

We are moving to Brisbane in early December and we are both able to get transfers with our current employers. Neil is going to become the Head of Operations for Queensland with his current company and Ray is going to get a transfer but will probably re establish his business in a few months.

Our container is still in Auckland and we're getting this sent to Brisbane now so it should be there when we arrive - we so can't wait to have all our nick nack noos around us again!!

Brisbane is a lot more laid back as a city and a lot smaller. What's more - it gets 300 days of sunshine a year which puts it as the sunniest city in the world! It will be a lot hotter than Melly and we hope we will be able to cope with the heat - but as a must we're getting a place with aircon!!!

We actually know some people already as Neil's ex boss lives there (he's from Coventry) and we know a guy from Auckland that moved there earlier this year, so hopefully we'll have some mates waiting for us when we get there.

The great thing about Brizzy is that it is 1 hour south of the Sunshine Coast and an hour north of The Gold Coast (the playground of ther ozzies) so we can certianly see us spending lots of time on either coast (we're working on the washboard stomachs currently but with little success!!). The Great Barrier Reef is not too far away either.

Hopefully we will see some of you this side of the world in 2008.

Neil & Ray

PHILLIP ISLAND

We decided to head off to Phillip Island as it was a bank holiday 2 weeks ago and we rented a cottage in the main town called Cowes. It was great to get out of the city and the Island has so much natural beauty all around.

The weather on this weekend was not too kind but we did manage to get out and about most days.

We went walking on the headland around Woolamai Beach which was gorgeous and very similar landscape to NZ. The wind was really gusting though which made the walk even more spectacular as the waves were battering the headland below.

These guys live in the trees on the island - there is actually a sanctuary where they have put boards in stilts so you can walk amoungst the trees and see them almost at eye level! They seem so fed up and miserable!!! As it happens, they are always really spaced out because they only eat eucalyptus leaves which have a drug which makes them high all the time!!!

There are thousands of minature penguins that live on the island and every night they come out of the water and woddle up to their burrows in the sand. There are litterally thousands of them and you can go and watch them (although we didn't). They don't mind at all that hundreds of humans come out every night to see them - they just pop out of the ocean and waddle past!!