The Long-Lost Cousins

After spending five weeks driving around Tasmania, in some very cold and wet weather, and sleeping the whole while in our car, we were very glad to have a few weeks house-sitting for Jason's cousin, Vince. They had a lovely place outside of Melbourne in a rural area, and it was our job to look after the house, sheep, cows, chooks, garden, and their little Jack-Russel, Lolly. We never knew just how much we had taken so many luxuries for granted; things like a proper bed, a hot shower any time of the day or week, a garden full of greens, and a real kitchen! Not to mention that they also had a hot tub, a computer, and a large house that we had all to ourselves. Five weeks cooking on our tiny camp stove or heating up cans on our engine block was quite the life, but we didn't winge to have a gas stove we could control, an oven, a blender, and a fridge to store leftovers. And being in one place for a period of time gave us the chance to look into ways to make a bit of extra money to fund our travels.

After much searching, we managed to land a job conducting door to door market research for an educational software company. It was the world's easiest job (just completing a five question survey), and our boss was a lovely Irish girl who was super easy-going. It wasn't exactly the most exciting job however, and we were soon a bit bored with it; but it was making us twenty-one dollars an hour, each, and we got to work as a team for four hours every evening. There were a few doors that got slammed in our faces, along with some other disgruntled home owners whose dinners we had interrupted, but we also met some really great folks and had some interesting conversations with some very friendly Australians. We were even invited in for tea once or twice!

It was in this way that we discovered a West African drum and dance group in the area, after Jason spotted a dun dun in the back of someone's car when he approached their house. Turns out he was a jembe player and led a class every Tuesday! We had only wished we knew about it sooner, we had so much fun drumming with these folks and met some really great people. The drumming was pretty heavy, and it certainly tested our memories and skills, but the lead drummer and the dance teacher were very impressed and pleased with our performance. It felt great to get back into the West African tradition and share our love of drum.

After house-sitting for Vince, we headed back to Jason's other cousins' place for a couple more weeks. Catherine and her family were the ones we stayed with before our adventures in Tasmania, and we were all eager to spend some more time together. They are such a tight-knit group, and that's a good thing as there are seven of them living in one (not very large) house! Plus the two of us made nine, which was so strange for us - we have had only each other for company for quite a while. We wanted to help out as much as we could while we were there, so we tried to share in the shopping and cooking for the family, and Jason helped Kevin out with some home plumbing and repairs. We had some great sushi and spring roll nights, pizza dinners and many other gourmet meals followed by family board games! It started with Pictionary, then slowly evolved into Charades, and then a mish-mash of both. It was nice to feel like part of this big family, when we hadn't seen ours for six months or more.

As we had all gotten so used to each other and gotten along so well, it was definitely difficult to leave Melbourne and continue our travels up north. After some really lovely days spent together, climbing the 1000 Steps with the kids, taking a family hike to the beach, and some lively cooking lessons, we finally had to move on. We still hope that one day we will be able to see all of them again, either when we come back to Australia in the future or maybe even if they venture to Canada one day! We truly loved our time with our Aussie family, and can't wait to see them again.