House-sitting

Coronavirus has brought our travelling to a halt! 

We have decided to come "home" (whatever that means) to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland until this blows over.  We are in Caloundra for a few weeks until we move to a slightly longer-term situation at Alexander Headland, where we will wait to see what happens in the next several months.

Here are our house-sitting pets from 2019!

They are a more conventional bunch this year, with no farm animals – they are virtually entirely dogs and cats, with just one picture there of fish in a tank.  Usually I wouldn’t bother adding a picture of fish (the interaction isn’t deep), and there were other fish that I haven’t included, but for our house-sit in London the fish were the only pets that had to look after!  

We are currently house-sitting a little apartment and a cat in Aguadulce, in southern Spain.  It’s a nice long house-sit (two months) so there's plenty of time to settle in and really get to know the area.  Aguadulce is primarily a tourist town that relies on its long and wide beaches and calm clear Mediterranean water to attract vast summer crowds from northern Europe, the United Kingdom, and Russia.  

Local markets are one of our favourite ways of interacting with local people as we travel around house-sitting.  Yesterday we visited the Liffey Valley Markets in northern Tasmania.  To complement our trip to the markets, we had a look to see what else was in the area, and we found that there are some bushland reserves that looked worth a visit.  

It turned out to be a great day with lovely experiences and beautiful Tasmanian rural and bush scenery.

2019 is here!  And I'm looking forward to another year with travelling and house-sitting. 

I've spent a major part of 2018 travelling and house-sitting around Australia and New Zealand, and house-sitting really means pet sitting, so I’ve looked after many different animals during the year.  This picture shows most of those pets (there's a few more odd ones such as some extra chickens and the occasional fish that I haven't added).

I am back in Launceston, Tasmania, again for another house-sit, a long one this time – about two-and-a-half months. 

Launceston is the ‘capital’ of northern of Tasmania. It's a medium-size town with a long European history, set in a beautiful rural and natural setting.  Launceston has most of the facilities of a city, plus the countryside and natural world within walking distance of the CBD.

We are house-sitting in Mountain River, in Southern Tasmania.  Our temporary pet this time is Kaya, the Alaskan malamute.  

Mountain River district is in the Huon Valley, and it's named for Mountain River, which flows from the alpine plateau of Wellington Park. The main peak of Wellington Park is Kunanyi/Mt Wellington, which forms the dramatic backdrop of Hobart. 

It’s a very beautiful area – a rural and wild valley surrounded by beautiful high mountains.

We have moved to northern Tasmania for our current house-sit – we are in Trevallyn, a suburb of Launceston.  Trevallyn is on a high ridge to the west of the city, and we are on top of that ridge.  Launceston city itself is just a few metres above sea level, but up on the ridge we are 130 metres up, so we get great views of the city and the mountains to the east.  It’s a great location; and we are only thirty-five-minutes’ walk from the city centre.  

This house-sit is just one night in a house in Marcoola on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia.  Like our other house-sits, this one was organised through Trusted House Sitters.  And, like our previous house-sit in Cazorla, Spain, this one is an accommodation business called  Glanymor Cottage, with rooms that are rented out through Airbnb. There are no guests this weekend, and the owners are going away to nearby Brisbane.

We are currently house-sitting in Cazorla, in southern Spain. This house is a small hotel called Cortijo los Abedules, which incorporates three self-contained units of various sizes. It's the end of the season now, and the owners have shut the business down while they've gone away for their own holiday, so we are looking after their house and their dogs.

I'm in Ireland now; in fact, I've been here for two weeks.  I'll have more to say about Scotland soon, but for now it's time to introduce Ireland.

We are house-sitting an 1839 farmhouse in Ballycarrigeen Lower, County Wexford, Republic of Ireland.  Our charges this time are a dog, a cat, a rabbit, and four chickens. 

Our house-sit in Melrose is a large, typical British house on a larger-than-usual (for Britain) block of land in a new rural subdivision on the edge of town.

House-sitting involves staying at someone else's house and looking after it for them while they are away, usually on holiday.

Accommodation is probably our single biggest expense when travelling around, so house-sitting is a great way to reduce our costs and enable us to travel for longer.  The other advantages of this arrangement is that we get to meet local people, including the people who own the property, that we wouldn't otherwise meet, and we get to know the local area much more thoroughly because of the time we get to spend there.