Stuck in a conflict! BUT, the house is ours!

G’day mates!

Let’s go on with our house buying adventure!
Our housesitting in Townsville ended and we had about 4 weeks to drive slowly towards the Gold Coast, where my Aunty lives, to do the house sitting for her. She was going to The Netherlands for 10 weeks and we would look after her place. Not a punishment really!! I’ll show you, but we are not there not in this story, still get it? 🤪🤪. This is our perspective ....

Anyway on the way down I wanted to do some gold digging still as that could be one of the last times, so we went to Clermont again where we also had been with Danny on the way up. You have to pass Charters Towers to get to Clermont and in stead of going there again we had our first stop at Bivouac Holiday Camp a few k's before Charters Towers. What a great spot this is!

Great Camp Kitchen....

Cheerful amenities.... 

It was just a shame that the river was so dry....

BBQ facilities at the Camp sites

Clemont;
This time the caravan park was totally packed and we were banned to the edge of the park on a grass site, didn’t matter we had a nice view...

and “nice” visitors.....

During the day, night in Holland, I had time for prospecting and after 5 o’clock (BeerO’clock) the circus started again, emailing, printing, scanning, Skyping, What’s-apping with the real estate, the “Notaris”, our financial adviser, my sister etc etc.

Yes, we have all that stuff in our caravan!

The conflict;

Then our Dutch Notary (actually named “Notaris” and is not quite the same as a Notary here) said to us that we didn’t had to go to the Netherlands to sign the contract unless we could provide a Power of Attorney (PoA), made by a Public Notary here together with an Apostille (I’ll explain later what that is). He even send us the concept PoA in Dutch with the message “ it has to be like this but in English”.

Together with my big friend “Google” I found some Public Notaries on our way to the Gold Coast and started calling. The first three Notaries said we had to provide the a PoA in Dutch, he would witness us signing it, we then get the Apostille and send it up. I told that to the Dutch “Notaris “ and he said “no it has to be in English”. For us that sounded illogical as well as the Notary here, (the one who eventually helped us) said: “I don’t have to know what’s written in that Power of Attorney, you buy the house in the Netherlands so it is logical that it’s in Dutch and that you understand what it says, I only have to witness that you sign it! We have done these things before! And I can’t make a PoA for you in English as I don’t know the rules in your country!"

Again I told that to the “Notaris” but he kept on saying “no, in English”. To make a long story short: the Notary in Rockhampton and I agreed; I send him one in English, he checks if it looks good, we make an appointment to come and sign and so we did. I just put the Dutch PoA through, again my big friend: “ Google Translate”, emailed it to the Public Notary and made an appointment.

It was only 385 k's to Rockhampton where we stayed at a very nice caravan park at the river.

On the other side of the river we could see the building of the Notary where we had the appointment next day. We gathered important paperwork and went on our way.....

My God, it was like an old English movie, we stepped about 100 years back in time when entering that office. Stacks of files where packed in the office and the whole building and little rooms were so old fashion I really had to laugh. The only modern thing what brought us back into the present was when I had to pay, that went through eftpos 😂😂.
We were so smart to have both PoA signed, the English as well as the Dutch one so nothing could go wrong.

They even offered to arrange the Apostille for us as well but then everything had to go through the mail and we were short in time as the paperwork had to be in the Netherlands at a certain date. We rather keep control and so we had to race to Brisbane to go to the DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) at the Australian Passport Offices and get the Apostille which is the legalisation of the Notary's signature, pfff.

Of course we celebrated this first important step with a nice meal at the Criterion Hotel....

We had a stop in Maryborough as is was too far to drive in one go. Maryborough an historic city on the Mary River now noted for its connections with Mary Poppins. Its a very nice place with beautiful buildings....

Helen Lyndon Goff, the famous author of the Mary Poppins books, was born in Maryborough....

We also had a good time at the Mary river at the Wharf....

Then we had a stop at the Caboolture Showgrounds and we could go by train into Brisbane as on the 6th of August we had the appointment for the Apostille, luckily we could wait for it and send it to the “Notaris” in the Netherlands straight away, express and registered. It was all in time!

On the 20th of August the transfer of our house was a fact, everything was signed, my sister was handed over the keys and the house is ours!

They are all looking after it very well till we go back and be there to take over.

We still had some time left and we could go earlier to my aunt but we had decided that it would be better to sell our little house in wheels in the time we would do the housesitting! The timing was just better as it is before the big holidays and we had the great opportunity to clean it well and unpack it.
Of course we wanted to postpone that moment and so we decided to go back up a bit to Beachmere just to relax a bit and recover from all the stress. But that's next.......

Cheers!

The Victorian Goldfields

G'day Mates,
Did you share my blog in order to save Bali?? I wonder........


Yes, we have started our trip to Western Australia .....

Of course I am way behind, at this moment we are in Port Lincoln and I have to catch up a lot, so lets get started;

This is what I wrote on the 9th of January......


We said family and friends goodbye and from Newborough we are now winding our way through the Baw Baw shire towards Bendigo where we will be for a few days. The weather is perfect for driving, overcast and approx. 22 degrees. We're coming through little places like Willow Grove, Powelltown etc.

Movie time;

We stopped at the Gums Camp ground at Kinglake National Park which was in my bible. Coming there a sign said we had to book and there was a phone number which I called. Luckily we were still on the road and hadn't gone in yet as the men said, when he already gave me a site number, that it costs $ 37.80!! There is no water, no shower, no electricity just toilets!! Of course we know that these facilities are not there in a national park but to pay THAT money for it!! No way! So I told the men we'd rather go to a caravan park.

Looking back into my bible I saw something else coming on our path and that was Murrindindi scenic reserve so we went there. Look at this great spot, plenty room available, nice and quiet, lot of wildlife and only $ 7.00 to put in the honesty box.

Though the sky was dark around us and we heard thunder in the distance,  we just had a bit drizzle. Next day we packed and went towards Bendigo.

Arriving in Bendigo we went to a little caravan park which was flooded the day before when we were at that scenic reserve where we only had drizzle.
Because the forecast was bad for a few days we decided to stay at the caravan park before going into the bush to do our "bush walking with benefits". (Wonder what that means hey!)

When we just were emigrated to Australia and we thought our house would sell in the near future, we have been cruising around in Victoria to sort out where we wanted to live and one of these places was Bendigo. Because we then have seen Bendigo from properly, we didn't bother this time. BUT Bendigo is worth visiting and in those days I also made a weblog, the only thing is, its in Dutch. So if you are interested in Bendigo, just go to;

 http://tamfredinkangarooland.blogspot.com.au/2009/04/cultuur-ja-of-nee.html

also Bendigo has a lot of old style houses still; to see them just go to;

http://tamfredinkangarooland.blogspot.com.au/2009/04/misverstand.html



Now we have arrived in the greater Bendigo National Park on a free camp and as usual the camp spot is great, long drop toilets are available.
Today's it Wednesday the 14th of January and we had our first bush walking, but no benefits. (Still don't now??) Ah well one day we will have luck! More important is not to get bitten by a snake, I've got bitten by an ant and my god THAT HURTS!! Danny, our son knows, you remember Dan, Yamba!

There are more people here running around with a detector, maybe I should ask them if they found gold already and where haha, they won't tell!

Actually we are also very curious to know how long our new equipment, you know the second battery, will last and how long we can stay now with our own power? I'll let you know.

So, now in the meantime we are on that free camp 3 1/2 days, I've got back pain, actually pain over my whole body and blisters in my hands and look what I've gathered!

 Everyone here on the camp ground has found gold (Ah, does a bell ring?), some small and some quite nice ones! Of course I know I'm not experienced enough but still, my God someone found a nugget behind the toilet of all places !! Fred had put a bottle of bubbles in the fridge to celebrate my first found piece, not iron but proper gold! We had to take it out today and put it back under the bed, the bottle is too big for that little caravan fridge, so annoying.

But it's not all bad, we met a nice couple and because Fred doesn't like to come detecting (Yes, that's it) and he doesn't also like me going on me own, I was very glad they asked me if I would like to come with them and so I did. I also learnt a lot from him, his name is Hans, and I'm very thankful for that!  Ah well, maybe I've got more luck next time. AND, look at this, that's all on our front yard, what else do you want!

After the Bush adventure we were desperate for a shower and so we went to a caravan park in Maryborough and ooooohhh that shower was lovely!! I booked for a week because I also wanted to recover a bit from all the digging and I also wanted to work on my blog so we needed Internet too.

The blogs I was working on were the Bali ones.

A very nice caravan park in Maryborough, the one on the end of the Town, near the lake...

Even the Daltons were there to greet us....

Family of us wanted to see how prospecting (Gold digging) works so they came over for a day to come with us into the bush because Maryborough too is in the middle of the Victorian Goldfields.......

We had a very lovely day, nice lunch in the bush and dinner together, but no luck again.

Besides prospecting we also did a bike ride and we passed a few nice things in Maryborough;

The railway station

Very busy!! Haha, there are two trains leaving in the early morning....

A school....

The first part of the tour was very nice, through the bus and along paddocks 

We even passed an old goal......

Picture this, it's Wednesday the 21 rst of January, we went out to do some diggings again.  Suddenly my detectors produced a noise of which I found exciting and so Fred, he wanted to come with me this time, started digging. We swapped with digging and we dug deeper and deeper......

  Then the sound became weaker and we started to investigate the dirt what came out of the hole. The dirt in Fred's hand was beeping and it kept beeping even when he didn't had any dirt in his hands anymore.

I knew my hubby has golden hands but that the detector would ever prove it!!!!

I can tell ya, we were exhausted!!

Our neighbours at the caravan park, on the one side a couple, and on our other side a man on his own who also is in the prospecting business, were always curious if we would bring some shining yellow stuff home and waited every day for us with curiosity, unfortunately!

On the day we left, our male neighbour, John is his name, felt so sorry for me he made me this as a goodbye present;

OK Mates, that was it for now!

By the way, in the mean time we found out that we at least can camp free for 6 days, as long as the sun keeps shining and its not too hot. I think we could even do more!

Cheers!