Given that we were planning on coming back to the US for an indefinite period of time last April, we wanted to be prepared to move back as soon as we felt it was covid-safe enough for our risk tolerance. Jon came up with the brilliant idea to do some house sitting as both a way to cure our wanderlust and to potentially have a way to transition out of our apartment to either rent or sell it before heading back to the US.
There are numerous websites for house sitting and Jon signed us up for 2 Australian ones to get started. We did our first house sit at the end of October 2020 and as luck would have it we’re doing our last house sit (for now) in the exact same place, more on that later. This house sit also includes taking care of a menagerie – 2 big dogs, 4 chickens, numerous budgies, and 3 parrots. It was pretty full on for our first adventure. Since we normally have just ourselves to take care of and that’s plenty to do thank you very much, we felt very accomplished managing to keep all the animals watered and fed for a whole week.
Our second house sit allowed us to get out of our place for Christmas and New Years. We only had to take care of 2 dogs this time, Lucy and Benson. We enjoyed lots of time on the beautiful front deck with the occasional dip in the pool to cool off. If only we’d remembered how everything shuts down on holidays in Australia. We were caught off guard when the only place open for take away on my birthday was swamped and wouldn’t be able to provide dinner for over 1.5 hours. Luckily we had enough food to scrounge together dinner at home instead, so much for a celebratory birthday dinner.
On Saturday mornings, we often do parkrun, a free timed 5K available in numerous locations around the world. Our local run was at Kedron Park, but since we were house sitting we decided to do a more adventurous trail run at Bunyaville. I was a little apprehensive about doing a trail run, but decided to go for it and got rewarded with the most scrapes and bruises I’ve had since I was a kid. Stupid me went full speed down one of the first hills and found myself on the ground wondering what happened. I managed to pick myself up and “run” the rest of the race finishing in my worst ever time of nearly 40 minutes. Live and learn, or something.
We were excited to be chosen for our third house sit in a house on the beach in a small town north of Townsville, Toolakea Beach, in February 2021. This time it was 2 dogs again, Emma and Brick (aka Boof). Given the distance from Brisbane, about a 16 hour drive, we decided to do the drive over 2 days and tack on a bit of a vacation to Magnetic Island off the coast of Townsville. Magnetic Island, or Maggie, was absolutely gorgeous and mostly deserted so we felt like we had the island to ourselves. We did some amazing hikes and relaxed by the pool and the beach before heading off to do our hard work house sitting.
Emma and Boof were the most energetic dogs we’ve watched which is impressive given the energy levels of Nelson and Kelsey. We took them for a super long walk every day on the beach and tossed the ball to them endlessly. They never grew tired before us. The actual water was off limits to us due to it being peak stinger (the deadly box and irukandji jellyfish) season, not to mention the year round risk of crocodiles and we had to be sure not to forget to keep any eye out for snakes when walking around. Oh Northern Queensland, you certainly know how to get me out of my comfort zone! Fortunately, the house also had a pool which we enjoyed daily.
