Time for another post

Hey, hey, we've been a bit slack in posting pictures regularly... A lot of exciting stuff has happened since the last post. Enjoy ;-)

Visiting Sydney and our friends Maxime and Lisa. Maxime gave us a little tour through his workplace at Google.

Meet the receptionist's little pet parrot Basil.

Jan's favourite parrot:-) 

Next stop: Croydon!

Visiting the Farquhar family for a catch-up before catching the Spirit of Tasmania.

Meeting Jason's new friends, the squirrel gliders. Can't wait to visit you guys again. Every time we visit, there is a new little pet.

Back in beautiful Tassie, dicovering Bruny Island.

New hobby: Rock climbing.

Evyn preparing for his first climb.

And doing very well.

On the way to the West coast of Tassie for a nice and relaxing Easter Weekend.

We waited maybe 20 minutes to catch an extremly expensive ferry ride...

Yay, it somehow seems to be our mission is driving over screws... But this time we at least had a spare tyre.

Nice surf and great spot to chill out.

Jan's excited :-)

A couple of cows enjoying the spot at the beach as much as we do.

Looking for a spot to climb.

Visiting Germany and attending Chris' wedding.

The girls

The cake, mmhhhhmmm

 

Bine's like a giant compared to the others. 

Yep, having a bit of fun.

Thanks for dinner Anke. The asparagus was delicious.

More food!!!

Our last day and last BBQ with family and friends. Thanks guys it was great to see you all again!!

the forgotten post

 Hi, happy new year everyone,

this post was all finished and supposed to be uploaded before christmas. Somehow forgot about it...
Its spring (it was) in Tassie and Anke (Jans Mom) is visiting us for a few months. So a good excuse to visit a few places around Tasmania and get Mitsu back on the road.

Echidnas all over the place this year:

check whether Jan is a threat or not

 taking ages to climb up on the log

 snacking on ants

looking ridiculous while walking

baby Echidna enjoying Bines company

view on Hobart from Mt. Wellington after sunset

Anke leaving to drive Mitsu to Victoria and then up the East Coast

Meanwhile at home...

...Jan is enjoying the nice view

Jason was visitng Tassie and invited us on a little fishing trip

an Albatross happy to scavange the leftovers

Jan happy to go fishing for the first time since sometime last century in Italy

a single Australian Fur Seal chilling out on the rocks

Mana (second right) cooking fish for all of us (Bine was back to work outside of Hobart so she couldn't enjoy it)

 The new waterfront building at which Jan's got his desk

A weekend in Adelaide and a new chapter begins

And another 3 months have passed with no news from us...
What are they doing? Where are they? What has happened since June?

Bine is really busy so I took some time to report to you what has happened so far.

Well, we're doing really fine, we still live in Tasmania and will move in about 3 weeks into a new flat not too far from were we are at the moment. We are now definetely staying here for at least another 3 years as I just got my scholarship approved and will start my PhD within the next week or so. For those who don't remember: It's about biodiversity modelling in the southern ocean using sparse data. In a short version this means I will first have a close look at an area in the southern ocean, where there is some data on fish species and their abundance  as well as data on the physical environment (like water temperature, cloud cover, bathymetry, ice cover etc). From this I will try to build a model that allows to predict biodiversity using just the physical data. The data is already collected so my PhD is strongly based on the statistical analysis of the data. However, I might still be able to hop onto a boat to the antarctic sometime in the next few years.

Bine is currently in Adelaide beeing trained in managment and administration. When she comes back in about 4 weeks she's supposed to take over and manage the tasmanian office of her company. She's doing really well and I'm pretty confident she's going to have a lot of success with her job.
So at the moment we're exactely where we want to be: at the start of a really exciting new life in Hobart.

Enjoy the pictures and if anyone wants to give us a visit in Tasmania you are very welcome :-)

Cheers Jan and Bine

Last weekend Jason and Chanda (the owners of the company Bine is working for) invited me over to Adelaide to spend a weekend with them. I had a short stopover in Sydney on my way to Adelaide and the pilot was kind enough to take a little detour around the bay

That picture was taken shortly after I got notified that I was getting my scholarhip for the PhD

The next day Jason and Chanda invited us on a hot air baloon trip an hour away from Adelaide. We got up at 4 o'clock after having a few drinks the evening before. Everyone was a little tired at the beginning, but the excitment soon took over and a later event made sure we had lots to talk about for the next few days.

 group selfie

and lift off

Jason and Chanda

About 5 seconds after the pilot f#### up and we landed in the water. I somehow didn't get too scared and took this picture of Jason.

Thinking about it afterwards, it was quite scary as water got into the basket pretty quick and pretty high up to the knees on one side and over the ankles on the other side of the basket. A little less hot air in the ballon and I don't know how our trip would have ended. The pilot somehow still managed to get us up high to enjoy the view. 

 short before landing

our wet feet

lunch at a farm in a beautiful setting

BabyBjörn

Tassie life

Hello everyone,


we have been living in Tasmania for about 4 months now and its time for a little update.
Its winter in Tasmania, so temperatures have fallen quite a bit since our last post. It gets to about 5°C at night, or pretty much a soon as the sun is setting. When there's sunshine and low wind its still really nice during the day with 15-20°C. However there are now more overcast days than in summer and it is therefore quite often a little chilly.
After staying on a very basic caravan park for almost the first 2 months, we moved into a nice little house in West Hobart at the end of march. Finally we got out of the van! It's been nice, but as it got colder and with Bine working everyday it was just about time to move back into a real home.
After looking at a few places we decided for this place where we are house sitting (zwischenmiete) for Leah (the main tenant), who is in France on a 7 months trip and we are also taking care of her cat and of the garden. Leah also allowed us to use her car, which is a lot more convenient than the van. The view here is also quite nice as you can see in the pictures below, however we should cut down those trees... It's too bad we have to move out in october and look for a new place, as we really like it here.
Bine is currently in Western Australia for work and will be back in about 5 weeks. She's doing quite well in her job, however there are a few issues with the visa that we have to deal with. It might take a little longer to get the working visa for her than planned, but we are positive it'll work out. We'll know more on that in the next few weeks.
For me, nothing major has changed in the last few months. I have been working on publishing a paper and have been preparing myself for the PhD. Apart from that, I've found some really nice surf spots, but as the surf is quite inconsistant, its more of a once in two weeks sport, so I guess I need to find something additional to keep myself busy.
About a week ago I applied for a scholarship for my PhD and I should get notified on the outcome within the next few weeks. Let's hope for the best, but as my paper has not yet been published, I'm not too confident about it. We have to wait and see, but if its granted I could start immediately which would be absolutely amazing.
Last weekend we had our first visitor when Bine's cousin Allan flew over from Sydney where he attended a conference. He's on holidays and stopping over in Australia before vising home in the Philippines.

Enjoy the pictures and  if you don't hear from us that often it usually means we're fine ;-)

Cheers Jan and Bine

 Still on the caravan park, in the suburbs of Hobart

 Artistic/funny show by a french sailing couple at the Hobart harbour

 Free campsite about 50km outside of Hobart

View at our garden and at the sea from our dining room

Lots of birds enjoy the berries next the windows in our dining room

Bine's cousin Allan on a short visit during his holidays from his UN-job in Liberia

 Stunning view at Hobart and surrounds from the top of Mt. Wellington