Author: Chris BJ

Hervey Bay July 2024

We took a short break up to Hervey Bay to whale watch and do a bit of coastal strolling and we had absolutely perfect weather the entire time – cold, but bright and dry. The apartment we rented was less than optimal but that was the only issue. We took our new (secondhand) Hyundai Kona 2022 EV and it was a dream to drive. It helped that Hervey Bay has a terrific charging high speed station with four bays at one of its shopping centres – it’s unusual in that because Queensland is struggling to keep up with demand on charging.

Continue reading “Hervey Bay July 2024”

Adventures in cat furniture

Late last year we built a cat walk on the front of the house, and had cat doors installed for it and the catio at the other end of the house. Shula loves the catio, but the cat walk (really, just a 1.8m long, low cage in front of the window), never really interested her that much.

I saw this IKEA hack to turn a very large Kallax bookshelf into a cat tree, and thought we could try something like that. I later thought that if we put it in front of the cat door to the cat walk, it might encourage her to use it. But all I really wanted in the first instance was to give her some enrichment, and another thing to play with and look around.

I drew up a plan and Doug made it. It’s been ludicrously successful. Shula was all over it during the construction, and as soon as it was in place, was keen to explore all the possibilities. Best of all, she now goes in and out of the cat walk quite happily, whether we’re out in that room or not.

This is the plan I created:

There are multiple ways for her to get to the cat door, and there’s a shelf across the window behind the unit that lets her walk along it from the first level from either cubicle. The steps thing in front of the unit which you can see at the bottom of the photos was what Doug built for her to access the cat walk originally. She doesn’t need it, but it’s covered with mats she can use to scratch on. We put similar mats on one side of the top shelf, and a little way down the side (you can just see them in one of the photos), which she can use for scratching if she’s on the top, or on the cat tree next to this unit.

It was surprisingly easy to make with a jigsaw to make the holes – the thick top shelf is basically just melamine-covered cardboard, and Doug says he wishes it’s known that, because he would have used a Stanley/craft knife to make that one hole. (The other shelves are melamine covered chipboard, so you need a saw.)

You don’t have to have a cat door to the outside for this to be fun for your kitty.

Meet Shula (previously called Misty)

[She came with that name, by the way ETA: And we’ve changed it to Shula]

She’s a four-year-old rescue cat and has one overriding desire in life – to be the centre of all attention and love from her humans. This, of course, is just horrible for us 🙂

Doug spent 27 years telling me he didn’t want an indoor cat, didn’t want a cat who slept on our bed, didn’t want the fuss etc.

I predicted this would be the result when we got one 🙂

She 

She is beautiful, a real melanic cat with black beans and whiskers and pigmented skin. She’s also been amazingly quick to settle in – none of this “keep her in one small room until she settles in” crap for her! She used the litter tray, played with the cat tree, ate and drank normally, and slept on our bed, as if she had lived her for years instead of a handful of hours. Doug swears she must have Siamese in her. She’s not very vocal though, just has the tiniest little mew. We are keeping her in the large heated sunroom which adjoins our bedroom, so she can be shut out there when she’s being a bit in the way. Much more room than she had at the shelter!

I can’t believe she was there for 2 months. I was in love from the minute we met her, although it wasn’t until we held her, and then the other one I was having trouble choosing between, that we picked her. The other one, who was also a gorgeous, friendly black kitty, just didn’t like being held that day, so Misty won on charm.

This is the first and last cat post from me. However, I need to post the photos from our trip to New Caledonia once I don’t have new cat brain 🙂

Travelling to Tasmania via Phillip Island

As I mentioned a couple of posts back, we went to Tasmania over Xmas, staying in what turned out to be a really not very nice villa in Strahan (although the town itself is a good base for exploring, and has some rather lovely features like Hogarth Falls.)

But! We took our time driving down to Melbourne, where we stayed in Healesville for a couple of nights, then driving through the most glorious national parks and rainforests to Phillip Island, where we stayed for a few days at Cowes (and of course viewing the magical Penguin Parade), before catching the night ferry from Melbourne to Tasmania.

The trip was amazing, with stunning scenery both on the way there and in Tasmania itself. We took a cruise with Heritage World cruises at Strahan out through Macquarie Heads and up part of the gorgeous Franklin River, and travelled between Strahan and Queenstown on the West Coast Wilderness Railway.

The villa was so horrible, we left a day early and went to Stanley on the north coast. We stayed in a guesthouse so lovely we’re going back there this Xmas.

We (or rather Doug) took many many pictures, and here are some of them 🙂 Continue reading “Travelling to Tasmania via Phillip Island”

House progress

New stairs in, new front balustrade in. Lots of painting to do, new kitchen and bathroom by start of March.

Argh!

Anyway, this is a picture of the house with the front painting half complete. The sides of the house are now cream, and the balustrade will be the paler green.

And a small sample of the wildlife visible from the verandah:

Can’t wait for it to be finished!

Update on Xmas, and the house

The good news – we’re still going to Tasmania for Xmas/New Year.

The bad news – not to the nice resort we had booked, and not with the neighbours. Turns out when someone claims you are like their sister and insists we consider them our family, it means they are going to behave just like my real siblings, screw us over, treat us like dirt, and spit on everything we’ve done for them in the last three years (including spending over $20,000 on them, their kids, and their house, not to mention hundreds of hours of free babysitting, gardening and repairs). Oh, and still be happy to go to Tasmania at our cost because we had promised to pay and I didn’t want to upset the kids, while still shitting on us and our generosity. I thought I had seen it all. I wish I could say I was totally surprised. At least I don’t have to pretend any more that I don’t find him a bit creepy and that she isn’t three apples short of a picnic. A+ acting abilities though.

Yes, we’re bloody fools, in retrospect. But one never expects to be taken quite this badly by people you live next door to.

So we are going to a rather shabby little villa on the west coast, and hopefully the posher one next year. Doug has a bottle of Talisker Lagavullin for his birthday, and the holiday for his/our Xmas pressie. The whole trip will involved over 5,000 kms of driving, and we will be away almost exactly four weeks.

More good news – house purchase is going ahead and we complete on 10th January, two days after we return from Tasmania. We have already spent mega bucks on furniture, air conditioning, soft furnishings, and art, and that’s before we renovate the bathroom and kitchen, and add stairs to the back deck. Or paint the whole house 🙂 So the good news is that it will be fabulous. The bad news is that we will be exhausted and poor by the time it is 🙂 (not really poor, but definitely exhausted!)

Our sunroom is currently full almost to the ceiling of purchased stuff to go up there in the new year. Still haven’t bought the new fridge, dishwasher, cooktop, oven or television yet.

So if anyone is coming over here in the next few years, please do feel welcome to stay at our new house, in one of the most beautiful places in Australia.