Retrenched we slowly decided to change everything…

Where did the years go. Suddenly, having been retrenched, I retired at 52. Retrenchment changes things, it opens up to new opportunities and makes you look at what you want to do in your life. I was lucky, in that my husband suggested that I retire. A huge step for me.

I had been working full time for around 16 years having commenced work when my children were 5 and 6 years old. Although, at first, we missed my salary, we adapted easily. I enjoyed being a stay at home wife. Life became easier for us both. We decided that we would take the opportunity to renovate our house whilst my husband continued to work with the thought that we would later sell and downsize to a smaller property in the same area.

We lived in a large 1980’s house on an acre of land in Berwick. I was kept busy for a couple of years organising the renovations, enjoying my new life and making new friends in Berwick. During this time I had an old school friend and husband visit us from the UK. We took a month off and travelled together around Victoria and Tasmania. It was our first trip to Tassie and we immediately fell in love with the place. We did all the usual tourist sites, Cradle Mountain, Freycinet, Hobart and the Franklin River. We spent three days at Opossum Bay on the South Arm Peninsular, thirty minutes drive from Hobart in a wonderful holiday house set right on the beach, overlooking the Derwent River and Mt Wellington. We fell in love with the area and with Hobart with its many layers of history and eclectic architecture.

On our return to Melbourne we began to consider moving to Tasmania when my husband retired. We thad many discussions as to where we would like to settle but he still had four years of work before he retired. It was then that we decided that we would sell our house on its acreage and perhaps move somewhere smaller with less land as we also had a small holiday house on acreage in the High Country Victoria.

When we had bought our holiday house many years earlier it was with the intention that we would retire to the property and rebuild. We loved our holiday house as it was our sanity in our busy working lives. It was certainly easier now that I had retired as we spent every other weekend at our holiday house, travelling up on a Friday and returning on the Sunday – a two and a half hour journey each way.

It was still our intention to move to the High Country but we still kept thinking about Tasmania. After seven months on a depressed housing market we sold our house and acreage in Berwick. We considered renting but with my husband working for another three years or so we decided that we would purchase another property. Soon after signing the sale contract we found an ex display home of 40 squares (which was slightly larger than the house we had just sold) on just over 500 sq metres (here was the downsize) in a small development of five houses in a gated community. This seemed to us to be ideal. No gardening and a gated community for security when we travelled to our holiday house. (We were now thinking of spending two weeks at the holiday house and two weeks in Berwick once he retired).

Our bi-weekly weekends spent at the holiday house continued to work well whilst my husband worked. I still found myself searching the real estate site for houses in Tasmania and along the Victorian coastline. In the meantime, we had a few short breaks in Hobart where we explored the local area. Driving up and down the coastline – looking at the different areas. We fell in love with Bruny Island and Kettering. We looked at a house in Gordon. The estate agent was amazing. She pointed out the pros and cons of living so far from Hobart (over an hour). Telling us how long it would take for an ambulance to reach us, did we consider how far we would have to travel to rent a DVD, or to see a doctor or to get to a hospital. It made us think.

Did we want to live so far from a town or city? What facilities did we want or thought we needed nearby? We also considered purchasing land on Bruny Island. Again, it was pointed out to us that the last ferry to the island was at 7.00 pm and it would mean staying in Hobart if we wanted to visit the cinema, go out to dinner, etc. The cost of building was also expensive as everything would have to be transported by ferry to the island. It gave us food for thought.

My husband retired in March 2011. Now life had truly begun for us both. I had to get use to having somebody around the house (after 6 years of peace and quiet and doing my own thing) and he had to get use to having me around full time. As had been planned we spent two weeks at the holiday home and two weeks in our home in Berwick. We enjoyed it at first but eventually after 6 months we realised that by moving between the two properties we were not spending time with friends in either community. On return to Berwick, we would collapse in a heap. Returning to our holiday home, we would find ourselves busy catching up with jobs around the property that we were not becoming involved in the local community.

We continued to travel to Tasmania looking at houses and the different areas around Hobart. In early December a house we had seen online two years earlier and fell in love with re-appeared on the real estate site. We talked to removal companies to get an idea how much it would cost to move our furnishings to Tasmania. We began to get the garden and holiday house ready for sale. We were still not sure what we truly wanted to do. We began looking at coastal properties in Victoria but water views were totally out of our price bracket. We had not mentioned about moving to Tasmania to friends or family although we had spoken to our two son’s who were extremely supportive.

I was still uncertain whether it was truly what I wanted to do though my husband was keen. We had three grandchildren ranging in age from a few months to 10 years. It would be a wrench for me. But when we sat down and discussed it we came to realise that our sons’ had their own busy lives and Hobart was only an hour’s flight from Melbourne and flights could be purchased relatively cheaply so we could fly back on a regular basis to see everyone.

Still not sure what we wanted to do, in early January 2011 we decided to speak to an Estate Agent with regard to our Berwick property, just to see what it was worth and having only owned the property for three years whether it would be worth moving. He persuaded us that we needed to put it on the market pronto and that we would recoup our stamp duty and removal costs and perhaps a little more. We bit the bullet, knowing that life wasn’t working in our retirement, and placed the house on the market. Within a day, much to our amazement, it was sold and the sale contract signed. We were due to move at the beginning of April.

A few days later, after the shock of such a quick sale (what had we done!), we decided to contact the estate agent to look at the house we had seen two years previously on the internet in South Arm. The local estate agent was fantastic. He said that he would show us all the houses in the area he had on his books as well as the one we had requested to see. We spent the day looking at houses along the South Arm Peninsular. South Arm had a lot to offer, a shop with a post office and petrol station facilities, chemist, hair salon, cafe, two community halls, RSL with 9 hole golf course, public tennis court and an active community with many activities held in the local community centre. South Arm was also serviced by a community bus and bus service. Beautiful beaches within a few minutes walk or drive from the house.

The doctors surgery and supermarket and garage, were only a 15 minutes drive away in Lauderdale. Main supermarket a 20 minutes drive and Hobart itself only 35 minutes drive (on a bad traffic day lol) from South Arm. Needles to say after many viewings on the internet the house was everything we wanted. We stood outside together and just took the view in. Yes, we were going to compromise on the house, the rooms were a lot smaller and it wasn’t quite what we wanted internally and most of the acreage was untended and needed a lot of work but it was tugging at our heart strings. I turned to my husband and said “what do you think” and his words were “love it”. We played it cool. Telling the Estate Agent that we liked the house as we did one other and would think about it.

We drove back to the airport and sat in the lounge and all we did was talk about the house. We decided to take time to consider it and the move we might make. but as is usual for us, within a day we decided to make an offer. Things work differently in Tasmania compared to Victoria – you have to make a written offer so we needed a conveyancer. We spoke to our conveyancer in Berwick who was handling the sale of our house and she recommended someone in Tasmania whom we contacted immediately to draw up the purchase documentation, etc. and who would submit a formal written offer (subject to survey) on our behalf. With computer, internet and printer with photocopier/fax, receiving and sending signed documentation was relatively easy and things went through smoothly.

Now the fun had begun. We spoke to Removal companies. Received three quotes and decided upon one. Knowing how hard it is to pack up a house and because we were moving interstate we decided to have their packers pack the house. Moving interstate is not cheap. Shipping costs to Tasmania are expensive and we would need two containers to move our furnishings. Yes we could have sold our furniture – some people do when moving interstate – but it would cost us more to re-purchase even taking into account the cost of moving it over to Tasmania. Now the decision to move to Tasmania had been made, we now needed to sell our holiday home in Mansfield. We spent a few weeks at the house preparing it for sale and finishing off a few jobs in the garden and managed to get it onto the Market in mid February. A neighbour kindly agreed to dust the house and clip off the dead rose heads and to do some light weeding to keep the house and garden looking good for the sale once we were living in Tasmania. Her husband would also mow the paddock if needed. We knew that if our holiday house didn’t sell by Spring we would have to return to live to mow the acreage. in the meantime we booked our dog into the vet as there are special requirements when bringing any animal into Tasmania. Whether you’re bringing a dog into Tasmania by boat or by plane you need to make sure that within the prior 14 days of the dog’s arrival in Tasmania that it is given a worming tablet that specifically treats the hydatid worm. Then when you have given the dogs the tablet you need either a signed statement is required from the vet, or statutory declaration that he has been treated or evidence of treatment such as the pill packet.

Our move across to Tasmania went smoothly and everything fell into place. One container was delivered and unpacked on the day of settlement followed by the second a day later. We had two weeks to settle into our new home before we were due to fly to Queensland to catch up with my old school friend and her husband again from the UK for a couple for a couple of weeks.

On arriving in Cairns and driving to our rented holidays home we received a call from our Mansfield estate agent to say that he had received an offer on Kookaburra Cottage.  The catch was that the purchaser wanted a 2 weeks settlement! We told him that we were vacationing in Queensland for 2 weeks and could perhaps do 3 weeks. The purchaser agreed to our settlement terms. Now the fun truly began. We had to organise the move whilst on vacation in Queensland. We contacted our solicitor in Mansfield and handed the sale over to him giving him authority to sign the sale contract. Luckily we had the computer and a memory stick with us so documentation could be printed, signed and posted. We found a nearby stationery store who were able to print out documentation for us from our memory stick.

We contacted the removers who had moved us to Tasmania. After listing the contents of the house and receiving their quote (which we accepted) they were able to pack and move us on the date selected. We then had to organise transport for the tractor and trailer which would be shipped separately to Tasmania. It is amazing what one can organise via the net. With everything in hand we enjoyed our holiday in Queensland with our friends. We flew back to Melbourne and hired a car to drive to our holiday house in Mansfield. The last week was rather frantic getting ready for the packers, cleaning and also entertaining our friends but again settlement went smoothly and before we knew it we were driving back to Melbourne and on the plane heading back to Tasmania. After a week of touring the local area with our friends we waved them goodbye from Hobart airport as they headed back to the UK. We returned home and collapsed in a heap. Finally, our sea-change and downsize had begun but that’s another story.

(image: photo of our view of Mt Wellington from house and sunset)