let's talk about driving

Australians, as they are about a lot of things, are very casual about driving. Here is the road that leads down to our house (Orpen). Notice that there are no lines down the middle or the side. Almost all the roads around here are like that with the exception of a few main roads.

I think that the idea is that you can drive wherever you want until another car meets up with you and tnen you just move to your left.


In Dalby, there are 5 stoplights (3 on the main highway, 2 on the road that parallels the main highway) and there are no stop signs. Instead, all over the place are 'Give Way' signs which means 'Yield' in American.


So you come to a road crossing and if you have the 'Give Way' sign, then you just have to slow down, look to your right first (always to the right first) and left and then go. If nothing's coming, then you don't even have to stop. It's so much more efficient. But knowing how traffic works in Atlanta, these signs would be terrible.

If there is a road crossing where one road is perhaps not bigger than another road and they don't want to handle traffic with 'Give Way' signs, then they stick a roundabout in the middle of the road. Here's the sign warning you that you have a roundabout coming up.


And here's the roundabout.


This is the one in our neighborhood - only one lane. Remember on some of the ones from our trip last weekend, there were 3 lanes! The general rule is that you yield to your right. So you approach that dotted line and slow down. If nothing is coming from the right, then you keep going. It's scary when you are the car with the right away and something pulls up from your left and you aren't really sure if they're going to stop or not.

Also, Josh constantly trys to claim that I don't look to my right on this roundabout. But I do. Every time. Also, he says that I get really close to the outside curb when going around. And well, okay - that statement might be true.

And don't forget - we're learning all of this with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car.

There are a few things that we've had to get use to -
1. not hugging the left side of the road and scaring the passenger,
2. not turning on the windshield wipers when we really want a turn signal (signals on the right)
3. not going to the other side of the car to get in when you're driving (I've done it 3 times in the past 5 days - it's embarrassing)

Just as a note, I'm the driver in the family over here, but these pictures were taken one our trip to Toowoomba a few weeks ago. Josh drove so that he could get some experience behind the wheel, but I think that he can count on one hand the number of times that he's driven over here.
I was a happy passenger though.

Drive To/From Toowoomba

As mentioned before, Saturday we drove to and from Toowoomba to get away from the small town living for a few hours (Toowoomba's population is about 100,000). Toowoomba is almost an hour's drive southeast of Dalby. I didn't take any pictures while in the city because (a) we were in a mall which was pretty close to what we have in the states (well, without any stores with names that I know - i.e. Gap, BR, J. Crew - and the fact that there is a grocery store as an anchor for the "mall") AND (b) I didn't want the punk/eurochick Aussie teenagers to think that I was a total square for taking pictures.

But I was able to take some while we were driving there and back (Josh drove this trip since he hadn't driven in 2 weeks and figured that he might need some practice).

Here's the view:

It's pretty exciting, yeah?

Sporadically there are windmills in the fields and there are naturally houses along the way and I think that we even pass through 2 smaller-than-Dalby "towns" on the trip. But mainly, it's just grass and clouds and blue skies. Perfect reading and napping weather.

Anything to take my mind off of this -

Through Dalby the Warrego "highway" is 4 lanes (for the short 8 blocks), but once you get out of the town limits, it narrows down to 2 lanes. And it basically stays that way all the way into Toowoomba. Normally when Josh drives, I'm asking him politely if he would mind moving the car over just a bit to the right since it very clearly appears to me that we are driving in the dirt (I think that it's just the way that it feels). But when trucks approach, I just keep my fingers crossed that we are far enough to the left and that our side mirror doesn't get nicked and spin us around.

Once you start getting close to Toowoomba, you start entering the hills and mountains. The picture below was probably taken about 13 miles out from Toowoomba. Toowoomba sits right on the crest of the Great Dividing Range and so we go from plainslands to mountains in under an hour. These mountains are kind of like the Appalachians of Australia in the fact that they are more weathered and rolling than you would get with the Rockies. The whole area kind of reminds me of Chattanooga.

Anyway, we made it to Toowoomba safely, ate lunch, saw our movie and walked around the mall a bit (I bought books - I'm going through them like they are out of style), we left and Josh forget to look right first when turning out of the mall exit. He caught it in time, but it was a bit terrifying (it's on repeat in my head when I approach a turn - 'Look Right, look right, look right....).

On the way back to Dalby, we drove almost directly into the sun. I had my sunglasses so you know 'whatevs', but Josh kept having to adjust the visor so that he could see to drive (and avoid the oncoming trucks).

They do know how to put on a good sunset out here.

And then 10 minutes after that, the sun touched the horizon and everything was green and pink and purple.

Kangaroo Sighting

This afternoon/early evening, I made Josh drive out with me to Lake Broadwater. It's a conservation park about 30km (20ish minutes) southwest of Dalby. It marked a couple of firsts. It was the first time that I drove 110 km/hour on an Australian "highway" and it marked the first time that I saw a LIVE kangaroo out in it's natural habitat.

Here's Lake Broadwater:

According to the Dalby information website, when the lake is full it covers 350ha and you can ski on it. From what we saw, there is no way that anyone has waterskied for many years.

Can you see the white beady eyes in the dark picture above?

It's a kangaroo! This is the first one that we saw. It was over on the left side of the road and when I slowed down, it hopped right in front of our car and stayed over to the right side of the car for a couple of minutes just looking at us. It was about 20 feet from the right hand side of our car. It was AWESOME!

And then we saw 4 more! Unfortunately, the picture above was the best picture that we could get. The camera was really blurry (I think from the car), the light was really bad and our zoom wasn't cooperating. But trust me, they are the cutest creatures. They don't look like giant rats at all. Apparently the ones that we saw are the smallest ones that Josh has seen. They were probably only 4 feet tall when standing on their back paws and Josh says that the ones out by work were more around 6 feet tall (the dead ones I saw looked bigger too). Maybe there's a difference in the species.

The sunset over the Downs was beautiful (as always). I'm just glad that our car didn't break down 30km from home out with the kangaroos.

And then I drove home going 110 km/hour in pitch-black darkness.

#3 Charthom Place

That's our new address for the next year - #3 Charthom Place, Dalby, QLD 4405. It's a brand-new, 4-bedroom, 2-bath house. But don't be impressed, it's not quite what you would find back in the States. Here it is:

It's yellow so Beth would like it.

I think that it kind of looks like a double-wide...thus Josh likes it.

Most of the houses around here are built on stilts because when it rains in Queensland, it pours (though the state has been in a drought for over 20 years). And when it pours, it floods. And when it floods, it moves houses on slabs around so everything gets messed up. So now, they build them on adjustable stilts so if the flood does move the house around a little bit, they can just adjust the stilt up or down. Apparently, the fact that it is built up also helps keep the vermin out (for which I am immensely grateful).

Also, that sky in the pictures above....not doctored at all. Gorgeous, right?

Here's from our front door:

Living room complete with loveseat, chair, TV and my sweet husband who feels well enough to put together the shelving system we bought for the bathroom. Also, the kitchen table in the background with all of my stuff on it. See, I actually AM working over here.

And here's the kitchen as taken from the kitchen table. Standard.

Here's the first of our air conditioners (up high). We have 2. This one is broken since the left indicator light is blinking which means that we haven't turned it on for fear of creating a fire in the house. It has been hot the past 2 days.



This is part of our backyard as taken from the french doors that you could see from the front door picture (3 up). There is a nice covered deck which is great because otherwise I don't think that we could enjoy the outdoors. Have I mentioned how hot it is?

Here's the other part of our fenced in yard. It runs along the back of our house. I think that it would be perfect for a dog!

Back inside, here is a boring picture. It's taken looking down the hallway from the kitchen/living room. See, you can just see a piece of the brown loveseat sticking out to the left. Anyway, there are 3 doors on the right (2 guest bedrooms and a bath) and 2 doors on the right (a guest bedroom and the master bedroom).


Another boring picture. This is the guest bedroom on the left. The bed is not made up because Josh wouldn't let me go in there since the room was so hot. The blinds are shut because that's the front of the house and we face west so it makes the house...hot. I'll make up the bed in the morning when the house cools down into the teens (see, I'm getting this celsius thing). Anyway, the other 2 guest bedrooms look just like this except they have no furniture in them.


This is the guest bathroom. Check out that bathtub. Nice, right? I will be testing that out sooner rather than later. There is also a sink opposite the tub. The toilet is separate. Apparently, across the way, there are 4 guys sharing the same house layout. I don't know how they are doing it.


Here's our laundry room. We have a washer and a dryer and a sink.

We however, do not have vent out on the dryer so if I run something really wet in the dryer, it turns that little bitty room into a steam room. Thus, I had to use this today -

That, my friends, is a clothesline. And apparently widely used around here (you might have noticed the one out yonder in the picture from our deck). That little spot of land gets tons of sun so my guess is that I might be going green and hanging more things out than I dry. I just don't think that I can bring myself to hang our delicates out for all the neighbors to see.

Back inside next to the laundry room (remember, the last door on the left from the kitchen) is the master bedroom. If you were confused about what bedroom is the master (well, other than the fact that it has an ensuite), you could tell from the evidence of the 2nd air conditioning unit in here

What you can't see in this picture is the pail and towel underneath the air conditioner catching the water dripping from it because you guessed it - this one is broken too. Apparently, we are not suppose to run this one either due to the indoor water dripping, but I would back on a plane to the states if we weren't running it. Someone was suppose to come out today to look at it. Hopefully they will make it tomorrow.


Here is our closet. LOVE.


There are 3 piles of dirty clothes on the floor only because there is a slight issue with the washer. I wouldn't say it's broken, but I can only wash with hot water right now. Otherwise, the laundry room floor gets flooded. Again, someone is suppose to be out today.


For the last picture from inside the house, here is our master bath. It's not spectacular, but it does have pretty awesome heating lamps. Because as much as I complain about how hot it gets, it is actually pretty chilly walking on tile at 5:30 in the morning.

Okay, last 2 pictures. Here is the garage. It's nice and wide especially since we only have 1 car. That door in the garage up to the left leads out to where the clothes line is and the door into the laundry room and back of the house.



Our car is a Holden. I have never heard of it before, but I kind of think that the emblem is cool. It drives well. As well as it can for having a steering wheel on the wrong side of the car.