It’s Our Anniversary!

peterpecksen

4 years ago

Happy Anniversary! We have now been on our travelling, house sitting, exploring the world adventure for six full years. What a blast. This calls for a little reflection and round up of our activities to date. I am just focusing on our last year here. If you haven’t been following us or you just want a recap, feel free to check our our 4 year and 5 year anniversary blogs by clicking on the links. I think they are a pretty good read.

A year ago we were enjoying springtime in Adelaide, Australia. We have been fortunate to have met a great number of people and pets in the last 12 months.

During the last year we visited 10 countries and added 9 house sits to our tally of 22 countries and 47 house sits. We have now slept in 175 different beds, and enjoyed 84 flights connecting these destinations. We have cared for 56 dogs, 24 cats, 7 parrots, 7 chickens, as well as 19 other assorted birds, as well as fish and reptiles.

We have done some interesting diving in the last year as well. Everything from a hole (Kilsby Sinkhole) in the middle of South Australia.

To the incredible shore diving on Curaçao and Bonaire. With a week in Vanuatu thrown in to balance things out.

While in Melbourne we looked after the largest animals thus far on our adventure. Two wonderful Alaskan Malamutes. Ollie came in at 74kg.

A road trip including the Barossa Valley allowed us to connect with some great friends from New South Wales that we originally house sat for and were able to enjoy some excellent wine with them.

We also enjoyed a visit from Karen’s Mom, who travelled to Australia to keep in touch.

After a year in Australia it was time to explore some more and broaden our experience.

That started with a short house sit in Singapore where we were able to look around more thoroughly. Our first visit here was only 36 hours so having 10 days was perfect.

Our month in China was a big tick on the “Bucket List”. Without a doubt one of the highlights was our day with the pandas.

There are so many iconic sights there that it can be a bit overwhelming at times. We were fortunate to have a short house sit in Qingdao after our tour so we had time to process and enjoy some of China at a slower pace.

The next stop was new ground for us. Though we had been to Panama previously, this was our first time looking after a commercial property. Popa Paradise in Panama provided us with numerous opportunities to broaden our skills and experiences. From weather to snakes and so many other creatures, it was a fantastic experience and one we would not hesitate to do again.

The setting allowed us to pause and process whatever challenge we were presented with.

One of the other great advantages of our lifestyle is the freedom of choices. When we finished our time in Panama we had lined up a house sit in Colombia then had about a month before our next sit in Canada. We looked at a map and realized how close we were to the ABC islands of the Netherland Antilles and that they were simply too close to pass up on. So off we went.

Some time in Medellin and Cartagena in Colombia, then off to our island hopping.

We went primarily to dive on Bonaire and Curaçao. However we enjoyed all three islands and did some touring on Aruba as well. The diving did not disappoint and the islands were fantastic, though I have to admit I was somewhat partial to Bonaire.

And now, as our sixth year comes to a close we are settled in just outside of Calgary, Canada to experience our first real winter since departing. This will be our longest house sit so far, being 5 months long. As word of our returning to our home area spread we received some questions that indicated people somehow thought this return indicated we were done with our nomadic lifestyle. Wrong. We are looking forward to reconnecting with family and friends, taking care of administrative issues, and planning our next destination. Where the next six years takes us is totally up in the air. We know we are here until April 1, after that, the world is our oyster.

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