Windhoek to Perth: The other end of the Big Move down Under

On 29 August 2008 we signed off the papers when our container doors were sealed in Windhoek. On 28 January 2009, we finally packed out all our stuff in Perth.

We landed in Perth on 18 September 2008, and rented a house in Hocking. Just before our container finally was cleared by customs, we decided to rent another house in Darch, right next to the school. The container was kept in storage until now.

This means that the last time we saw any of these items was at least 5 months ago. We have been getting used to surviving without all of this, and I would have preferred the insurance payment in stead of all this junk. If the Somalian pirates got hold of that ship, it would have saved me a lot of trouble.

Now suddenly I see things that I've already forgotten. And all the emotional baggage that comes with them make you feel depressed. It's nice to see some of the old things, but some of it is not so nice, it just brings back stuff you've already forgotten.

It is amazing how much junk you can accumulate in a few years. We gave away four loads of junk in Windhoek, and sold a whole bunch of things, and we still ended up with two 20-foot containers on our doorstep. A lot of these things could just have gone back to the garbage bin, and we wouldn't even have missed them.

Some of the junk we gave away in Windhoek.

By the way - our stuff in Windhoek was loaded into one large 40-foot container. When it landed on the pavement in Perth, it was in two 20 foot containers. Someone had shifted all of our stuff over into these two containers:

The original 40 foot container in Windhoek

The two 20 foot containers that landed down Under.

Three friendly men arrived with the containers, and they unloaded the whole lot:

One of the big moments were when Celesti's piano was finally standing in the sitting room. She immediately tried it out, and we were pleasantly surprised by the fact that 5 months inside a hot container - over 10000 km in all sorts of wheather conditions - did not really tune it out that much!

I had to struggle to get my internet connection back on line again. The modem had decided to die on me, and it took a while to get everything sorted out again. And the Foxtel installation couldn't happen, because I need permission from the owner of the house, and he cannot make a simple decision in a few days' time.

The first day of moving was chaos. Vonnie and I had to drive around with furniture and stuff from the other house, and at one stage we did the African thing and loaded the dinner table onto the car's roof. We worked till late at night to get everything done.