Shamballa Cruising Yacht Club: House Sitting

Our plan was to spend six weeks in Australia catching up with family and friends after being away for about 20 months. Realistically we could mooch off family and friends for only a few days at a time and staying in hotels would totally blow our budget. We toyed with various other options for accommodation; renting or buying an old caravan, AirBnB but none suited us. Then we Googled House Sitting and a whole new world opened up for us. There were thousands of hits for these global house sitting web based services. We chose Aussie House Sitters.

For a small fee (less than the cost of one night in a hotel) we registered with the service. We lodged a short biography of ourselves for prospective home owners to read and searched the site for those home owners who wanted someone to mind their house and pets for the dates and location we needed accommodation. Once we found a listing that looked promising we flagged our interest with the home owner, who in turn would get in touch with us via the web site. A conversation would start and if both parties felt comfortable, a deal would be made. In exchange for looking after their house, garden and pets, we receive free accommodation. It is the perfect win-win situation and quite amazing as it is all done on trust and good will.

Our first house sit was a small townhouse recently purchased by a young couple, Greg and Corrine. It is located in a brand new suburb of Canberra and we were looking after Daisy, the greyhound. The townhouse is located just down the road from where our sons live with two other young men, our family dog, Toby, and three chickens in a rambling old farm house straight out of The Young Ones.

The family dog, Toby

The chooks

The townhouse is in a new development of monochromatic grey and white medium density housing. The townhouse was white - white walls, white furniture, white bedspreads, white cushions, white cupboards. All surfaces were clear and uncluttered. There were tiny yards front and back which were recently landscaped nicely with shrubs and flowers. It took as a while to get use to the starkness of a new development but one could see that there was a community budding (as evidenced by a Boxing Day regatta of model sailboats organised by the residents). When the trees and gardens grow over the next few years, it should be a vibrant district.

Bob and Daisy in front of our Townhouse house sit

Standard roses bursting into bloom

Man-made lakes dot the new development

Our daily evening walk around the neighbourhood with Daisy

We spent our three weeks in Canberra celebrating the holidays and spending time with the boys, catching up with friends, shopping for all those little things that are hard to get in Turkey and Greece, visiting old haunts and generally enjoying the Nation’s capital. One day we took our family dog, Toby, for a walk around Mt Taylor, a walk we did weekly when we lived in Canberra. The kangaroo population has exploded on the mountain.

Friendly mob of roos

Canberra is very quiet during the Christmas / New Year period and throughout January. Many do the annual exodus to the Coast for the summer holiday leaving the streets empty. Still, I enjoyed re-acquainting myself with this very pretty Capital where we lived for nearly 20 years.