When we arrived at Napier airport, after the events of our last week in New Zealand we were both surprised and delighted to see our flight to Australia was on schedule.
We flew with Air New Zealand. Napier – Auckland. / Auckland – Melbourne.
Including a three-hour wait at Auckland. Within six and a half hours of leaving Napier, we were standing on terra firma in Melbourne, Australia!
Before I go any further, I have a confession to make. This month’s update may make it look as if we have been busier than we actually have. This is because this month’s update is actually covering a six-week period.
I cut the February update short to coincide with us leaving New Zealand. The Australian leg of our adventure actually started on the 16th of February.
Having said that, it was still a busy period for us. In six weeks we managed one short stay in a hotel, plus four more house sits. We cared for one bird, two dogs, three cats, and twenty sheep – Phew!
So far, we have had a great six weeks in Australia and this is how it all panned out –
16th-18th of February 2023
A short hotel stay
We landed bang on schedule at Melbourne airport at 5.55 pm on the 16th of February.
Before our first Australian house sit started, we decided to book a couple of days in a hotel.
To keep our costs down, we do try to keep our hotel stays to a minimum. Often we prefer an Airbnb as they tend to be less expensive and the kitchen that usually comes with an Airbnb means that we don’t have to use restaurants for breakfast, dinner and tea.
However, throughout our travels, we are learning that Airbnb accommodation is not always necessarily the best value. This proved to be true on this occasion.
When I was searching, all available Airbnb accommodation in Melbourne was really expensive so I took a look at hotel availability as an alternative and came across The Brady Apartment Hotel.
This apart-hotel is in a great location, right in the heart of Melbourne city centre. It had two bedrooms, a balcony, a kitchen, 24-hour reception plus the added bonus of an on-site gym for the grand total of just £105 a night – a bargain!
This really was a great find and provided us with a couple of nights of very comfortable rest. Plus, the location was so central that it was really convenient for us to get our first walk into Melbourne city centre before heading to our first house sit in the suburbs.
18th-25th of February 2023
Our first house sit in Melbourne was in Fitzroy. This is a very central suburb. Literally within walking distance from the hotel we had been staying in.
When we were planning our trip I had made it known on a few Melbourne Facebook groups that we would be in the area. From this, we were contacted by a couple asking if we would be interested to look after their home and Dill, their pet lovebird whilst they were away.
We did not know it at the time but this was to be the best introduction to Melbourne that we could have possibly hoped for.
Their apartment was built in an old converted chocolate factory. It was really lovely. Set over two floors with high ceilings
Dill the Lovebird
Dill was a first for us as we have never looked after a bird before. She was quite easy to care for. All she needed was fresh food and water daily plus a one-hour fly out of her cage each day.
Dill was ‘sort of’ friendly, She would quite happily sit on our head, shoulder or on the edge of our laptop chirping away merrily.
Unfortunately, though, we soon found out that she was using her cuteness to lull us into a false sense of security. In reality, she had a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde character.
As well as chirping merrily, she could, and did bite – and her bite really piggin’ hurt!
The good news was that we did not have to catch her to put her back inside her cage. We just had to tap on the side of any cardboard box and she flew immediately inside the box herself. Then, we just had to take the box to the cage door and she would immediately jump inside.
This little trick was both amusing and amazing to see. More importantly though, it meant that us actually having to handle her was kept to a bare minimum. This, we were very pleased about!
Fitzroy
We loved Fitzroy! It is one of those areas where years ago you probably would not have dared to walk the streets after dark.
Fast forward to now and it has recently been voted by Time magazine as the coolest neighbourhood in Australia. It is the address everyone wants to have! Very hipster cool. Lots of small independent shops. Live music in the streets at the weekend. Coffee shops and cafes galore and all within very easy walking distance of the city centre.
Most cities have an area like this. Years ago run down and dangerous. Occupied mainly by students, drug dealers, squatters and arty farty types.
Then property developers spot the potential of the area and build a couple of ‘high spec’ apartments. Wealthier people start to move in and before you know it the area has been gentrified to an inch of its life.
London has a myriad of such areas – Soho, Shoreditch, Notting Hill, Hackney etc. Manchester has the Northern corner and Melbourne has Fitzroy.
We loved wandering the streets of Fitzroy. Enjoying the abundance of vegan/vegetarian eateries, drinking the imported craft beers (a tenner a pint!), queueing for what seemed like an eternity for a sourdough sandwich and shopping in plastic-free shops selling only organically grown and responsibly sourced produce.
Don’t judge us! – By day three, we had sniffed out the local Aldi and normal service was resumed.
Having said that, If we were ever to move to Melbourne, Fitzroy would be high on our preferred locations to lay our hats. We’d probably be renting though as you’d be lucky to pick up the smallest property available in Fitzroy nowadays for less than a million dollars!
24th-27th of February 2023
After Fitzroy, we had a two-night gap before our next sit was due to start.
Before booking a hotel, I checked if there were any last-minute sitting opportunities advertised close to where we were. Amazingly, luck was on our side. A new sit request had just been listed that looked promising and would fill the gap perfectly.
A lady was looking for sitters to care for her cat while visiting her family for a short break.
She lived in a coastal city called Frankston. This is the very last stop on the train line, on the outskirts of Melbourne. She was going away for just three days.
All exactly what we were looking for so we applied and were accepted.
Our stay in Fitzroy didn’t end until the 25th and this house sit started on the 24th so we split up for a day. Karyo took the one-hour train ride from Melbourne Central Station to Frankston alone and I joined him the following day.
The home we were looking after was a small beach house. Full of character and beach-related artefacts. As its name suggests, the house was literally a stone’s throw from the beach. So close that you could hear the waves from the bedroom – it doesn’t get much better than that!!
A surprise to us on this house sit was that for such a small coastal city it also had a really large and thriving modern shopping centre. Far too big to be able to survive only with trade from the residents of Frankston itself.
So as well as having the beach on its doorstep, Frankston is also the go-to shopping destination for many of the other towns and cities in the area. One of the joys of house-sitting is discovering areas like this. A couple of days ago we had never heard of Frankston and suddenly, here we were, on a short but really enjoyable stay.
The pet
The pet of the house was ‘Augustus’. He was a very independent cat that, to be honest, we hardly saw whilst we were there.
He was quite the hunter and looked very dapper wearing a large, brightly coloured bib. The purpose of this was to give the birds a fighting chance. The hope was that they would see him coming before he saw them.
The bib didn’t seem to bother him at all and Augustus was happy to proudly parade around the garden looking like the cat that got the cream (but, probably annoyingly for him, not the birds)
We really wished that this house sit was for a longer period of time. However, as it was only a long weekend break, in what seemed like the blink of an eye we were back on the train, waving goodbye to Frankston and heading back towards Melbourne city centre.
27th of February 2023 – 14th of March.
For our third and final house sit in Melbourne we headed to a suburb called Footscray.
We really liked Footscray. It has a really diverse community. There is certainly no shortage of restaurants here. On the high street, there was a huge choice of cuisine including Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, Indonesian, Indian, African, Italian, French, Egyptian, and Ethiopian – to name just a few!
There is also a busy daily market catering to the needs of just about every nationality you can think of.
Footscray is not as gentrified as Fitzroy and does look a bit run down in places. However, there is also a decent choice of trendy independent shops and bars scattered around to tempt you to part with your hard-earned dollars.
There are definite signs that the seeds of gentrification have just been sown here. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, in a few years time, Footscray is the new Fitzroy – the new area that everyone wants to live in.
The house that we stayed in was built in the Federation style. This style of house is very common in Australia and can be identified by having a verandah at the front edged by fancy decorative metal or woodwork lattice.
A negative aspect of the house was that every window seemed to have either a tree outside or a fixed, wooden canopy. We presumed that this was intentional for providing much-needed shade during the hot summer months. Unfortunately, during the rest of the year, including the time of our stay, it only succeeded in making the house really dark inside. I don’t think there was ever a time that we were home and didn’t have to have the lights switched on!
With a bit of research and a lot of luck, we had again chosen well for location. The train station was just a ten-minute walk from the house, and from here, Melbourne city centre was very easy to get to in less than fifteen minutes.
A five-minute walk from the house is Footscray Park and running parallel to the park flows the Maribyrnong River. Paths around the river provided great, safe, walking opportunities for Fern – that is, of course, if you ignore the ‘beware of the snakes’ signs!
During our stay here, we had three pets to look after. Two cats and one dog.
The cats, Rizzo and Biscuits were no trouble at all. They had a cat flap to come and go as they wished. As with most inside/outside cats, they tended to spend all day outside. Only gracing us with their presence when they wanted food or sleep.
The dog, Fern, was an absolute joy to care for, instantly shooting to the top of our ever-changing top three list!
She was super friendly, really obedient and great on walks. She walked with us off-leash from day one, never going far from our sides. One call of her name, if we thought she was getting too far away, would get her bounding back to us instantly making walks a really enjoyable experience for us and her also!
Melbourne
Altogether, we spent a month in Melbourne, we loved every minute of it and could easily have stayed for longer.
The weather here was ‘interesting’.
In Melbourne it changes quickly – and often. As a perfect example of this, The day we arrived was a 39-degree heatwave. The following day was a decidedly chilly 23 degrees!
This unpredictable, ‘all the seasons in a day’ weather Melbourne has is because of its unique location. Wedged between cold Antarctica to the south and the hot Australian deserts to the north. The result of this is that the temperature can change dramatically depending literally on the direction of the wind.
During all three house sits we completed in Melbourne, we were never more than a few train stops away from the city centre so had plenty of opportunities to do some sightseeing and also to drink far too much of the excellent coffee that Melbourne is famed for. We have only been here for six weeks and have now changed from tea aficionados into coffee addicts!
A favourite trip we had was to the pretty coastal town of Williamstown. This was very easy to get to via a ferry that runs regularly along The Yarra River which flows through the centre of Melbourne.
Meeting other house sitters in March (1)
Just as we are starting to feel quite experienced at this house-sitting malarkey, along comes a couple of sitters to make us feel like real newbies again!
One day during our stay in Melbourne we were contacted by fellow house sitters Mary and Ken. They told us that they were sitting not too far from us and asked if we would like to meet up.
We agreed and arranged to meet for lunch in the coastal city of St Kilda which was a good halfway point for us both.
Mary and Ken are American but, like us, no longer have a permanent address. They constantly travel all over the world house-sitting. On the day we met, they were on their 105th house sit – that’s impressive!
What better way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon than in a beachside cafe, batting with new friends and getting to visit another really pretty Australian city that until now we had never heard of!
14th of March 2023 – 2nd of April 2023.
When we were originally researching this Australian leg of our trip we made the decision not to spread ourselves too thinly trying to squeeze in too many areas to visit.
We eventually decided that time in two big cities would be our best option. We plumped for Melbourne and Sydney.
The only downside of this was that we risked all our time being in similar, city surroundings. To avoid this happening we thought a good idea would be to mix it up a bit by also trying to find a house sit in a more rural location.
After searching for house-sitting opportunities listed, we managed to get accepted for a house sit in the city of Albury. The dates were just what we needed, it was a rural location and, from Melbourne, going to Albury was taking us in the right direction as we headed towards our next ity destination of Sydney.
The train journey to Albury from Melbourne took us around four hours and on arrival, the home host kindly picked us up from the station.
We had seen some photographs and so were expecting this to be a nice sit. It is safe to say it did not disappoint! Everything about this house sit was amazing.
The home hosts were really kind, friendly and generous. They knew that we had a four-day gap between our house sit in Footscray ending and theirs starting so insisted on us arriving early to avoid us having to book a hotel.
They have a self-contained, two-bedroom apartment attached to their main home which meant we could stay the four days and get to explore the area ourselves before officially taking on the responsibility of the house sit.
They invited us to join them for a welcome meal the night we arrived. Bread, cheese, cereal, fruit, and other food items were provided plus we were told that there was plenty of wine in the cellar if we wanted to help ourselves.
When we checked the cellar we were expecting to find a few bottles of wine but there were hundreds! As they had already left us four bottles out, we thought it best not to touch any more.
Our wine expertise is limited to the ‘less than a fiver’ range in Aldi so didn’t want to swig a vintage bottle as an accompaniment to our pizza ‘n’ chips by mistake!
A huge winding driveway led to their beautiful home that stood high on a hill overlooking the countryside. The nearest neighbour could just about be seen on the horizon meaning that the nights were silent and the only thing we could hear by day were the brightly coloured birds singing.
Ok, I admit, when I say birds singing, they were parrots and they were squawking but beautiful all the same. Each morning they would sit really close to us squawking merrily away. (Honestly, It was much nicer than I am making it sound!)
The house had a tennis court, a pool and a car for us to use during our stay. All this plus the surrounding fields were visited daily by wild kangaroos that we saw on our walks every day – The highlight of the stay!
The animals in our care in Albury were Tigga the dog and, as a first for us, twenty sheep!
The sheep were very easy to look after. Basically, we just needed to do a daily head count plus make sure that their water tub was kept full – easy peasy!
Tigga the dog was great. He is a rescue mixed breed. His former owners had taken him to the vet asking for him to be euthanised as they could no longer afford to keep him. The vet rightly refused as he was a healthy dog so he ended up in the local dog home. Luckily for him, at this time our home hosts were at the dog’s home looking for a new dog. They spotted him, fell in love, and took him home.
Who doesn’t love a happy ending? I’m sure Disney could pad Tigga’s story out and turn it into a tear-jerking, rags-to-riches blockbuster!
This really was a fabulous sit, one of those that all house sitters dream of doing at least once. Definitely, one to remember!
Meeting other house sitters in March (2)
Whilst we were staying in Albury we had the pleasure to meet another fellow sitter.
This time a very experienced Australian sitter, Margaret.
Margaret and I have chatted a few times in the past on a house sitters Facebook group so it was a real pleasure to get to meet in person at last!
Knowing where we were currently sitting, Margaret kindly made quite a big diversion to come to meet us at the home we were looking after in Albury as she was heading home herself from a house sit she had just finished. She even came bearing gifts of fresh homegrown vegetables and cake!
We always enjoy meeting other sitters on our travels. Hearing the stories of sitters that are more experienced than us fills us with enthusiasm to continue with this lifestyle for as long as we possibly can.
We thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon of laughs, gossip, coffee and cake. The perfect way to end our time here in rural Albury before heading off to our next destination.
Next Stop – back to city life, this time Sydney!
More on that next month. As always, Until then, thanks for reading –
Hugs, Colin & Karyo xx
