We are coming to the end of our first month in Albury, New South Wales and are finding that, we quite like it here.
We are currently in West Albury and are finding life here very enjoyable. As far as house sits go it is excellent. We are right beside some small hills with an abundance of trails and are only 1.5km from the lagoons and the Murray River which forms the border between New South Wales and the state of Victoria. The trails and pathways are wonderful.
One of the challenges of house sitting without a car is getting around some urban areas. Some municipalities have fantastic public transit, and some not so much. The only downfall we have found in Albury has been the transit system. It is here, and there are stops near our place, but the buses run hourly for only some of the day and the cost is a bit high. It cost $16.80 for the two of us to do a round trip to the shops. However, we have found the perfect solution. A wonderful lady at one of our previous house sits introduced us to the joys of home delivery. With a small bit of planning the local grocery store, (and liquor store) will deliver to your doorstep for free. How good is that?! These fine gentleman actually bring the groceries right into the kitchen and lay them out on the table for you. It is awesome.
We have also been fortunate enough to watch some of the local emergency services at work when there was a brush fire less than a kilometre from our house.
With temperatures 10C above normal here the fire was not that surprising and provided a bit of entertainment and reminiscing. We still managed to get our daily reading/pool time in despite the excitement.
The other neat aspect of living here are the kangaroos. We have been in Australia for 5 months but this is the first time we have seen kangaroos in the “wild”. Wild being our front yard. It is very cool to be going for an evening walk and come face to face with 20 – 30 kangaroos. It has certainly checked one of the must see boxes for Australia.
We are looking forward to our next house sit here in Albury at the end of the month. We will just be having a little vacation down near Melbourne for a week before we start that one though. One must remember to take it easy periodically.
Life is good.