We have been here almost 2 weeks!!! I know I'm sooo surprised too, don't get me wrong it's taken a while to settle in and adjust to everything but we are really enjoying our time here now.

We finished the weeding, made 5x fence panels, a sty for the pigs and a shelter for them, cleaned out the spa and cleaned the pool. Some of our time is spent with the 3 kittens, sharpie puppy chip and the rest of the dogs and generally messing about with the pigs, goats and other animals.

There's a huge mound of earth that needs to be leveled out from the cabin to the pool and another area at the back where the helpers kitchen is going to be and there will eventually be a vegetable patch. We have had a digger here since the 2nd day we got here but it packed up and doesn't work, first it was the battery and now the hydraulic line to the arm has blown so it's still out of action it would be nice to get the earth shifted for them before we leave.

Abbie's daughter Jess had her 13th birthday yesterday and had about 20 friends over as well as her 15 year old brother Tom's mates, they all stayed in the cabin next door and all we heard was Rhiana's Rude Boy being played all night and screeches from the girls, we were 13 once but enjoy our sleep now, old fogies!

They are hoping the animal centre to be open by December 1st this year. They are still waiting on funding to come through and until then there is very little money for materials so everything comes from any sustainable materials that you can find around the place and it is quite amazing what has been built from these things.

There are some frustrations here due to a lack of government funding and you can see it is needed to take this worthwhile project to the next stage but we are enjoying ourselves and have a pool and spa to use, loads of animals to play with and we're currently waiting on one of the pigs to have her piglets, it's got to be soon she looks ready to pop! There's already 6 from another lot that are less than a week old, they're so cute, apparently you can train them to sit and their much more obedient than dogs so we may try our hand at pig training.

On the Work front we both have interviews for the ski season June - September in the snowy mountains on 7th April we'd really love to get these jobs as we want to get better at snow boarding, work for a few months and travel again, so here's hoping that's what fate has in store for us.

We had a letter regarding Steve's ARTC application they wanted more info in the form of detailed employer references stating dates employed and detailed info on what Steve's job role was. We thought this was going to take ages but we emailed both past employers and had very good responses the next day. If he doesn't get the certificate after everything we've supplied then god knows how much experience is needed to be the equivalent to an Ozzy apprenticeship here. I think they also want us to be psychics too because they never tell you exactly what you need to supply or what they want to see.

If Steve gets his certificate he then needs to go to Adelaide and sit a wiring regs exam, upon passing that he will get a Southern Australia A grade licence which can then be converted to any of the other states, yep that's right you need a different licence depending on what state you are in as long as it's an A grade it is mutually accepted in all states and even New Zealand. There are so many hoops to jump through and red tape to do anything it really does take perseverance and also a bit of money which we don't actually have. If it turns out we can get sponsored to stay a few years I dread to think of what obstacles will be put in our way, but hey that's a long way off if not at all!! One thing at a time, as Steve keeps telling me. J