Cruising the Murray on the old steamboat, Emmylou in Echuca, Victoria. Tea and scones, anyone?
The plan is to drop little pics here and there from our trip south. Just read the captions for details and maybe I'll fill in a detail here or there if I think of it. All I can say is Victoria is a long way away. Just like most things in Australia. Partly because you may be cruising on the Interstate one minute and the next minute you are at a roundabout in the middle of some small town like Dubbo, for instance. Which isn't that small, comparatively speaking. I just couldn't think of another podunk village off the top of my head and I'm too lazy to reach for a map. Anyhow, we've moved on from Victoria and now back in Queensland we continue our search for a house. I'm feeling more hopeful as I see more and more houses added to the real estate website. Of course, we had to get a new perspective on the cost of rent in Brisbane....$600/wk seems to be a good rate but then there are limitations. I know, I too was aghast. Most suitable houses go for around $1000/wk and these aren't even the luxury houses. Buying a house is even worse. If you want something livable, it's going to be a cool million to start. A tear-down is 600k. So if you think you've got it bad in Houston, think again.
By the way for those of you keeping up...Sophia's visit to the ENT went great. Her ear is fine. Just a lovely fungal infection. She was thrilled to have it vacuumed out. Seriously. The doctor couldn't believe it. She's had goop in her for a month so I don't blame her for wanting it out. Total visit was $200. I'm waiting to see how much I get back from the insurance company. Ear drops were $21. Back in the States, our trip the ENT was over $1000 (and that was just for lab work). So although real estate is high priced...at least medical costs are more normal here. And if I were a permanent resident it would be even less because of medicare which makes medical costs mostly negligable.
