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This page will be updated when major events happen ...
After getting back to the east coast, Karen and I spent 1998 living with Karen's father in Sydney. I returned to work with Roche, and Karen took up an accounting position with a company called Alcon which makes opthalmic products. During the year we continued to visit the holiday house at St Georges Basin, and spent quite a few weekends looking for somewhere to live. We had decided that NSW is the best state, and that we would have to live close to the coast. We quickly decided that the South Coast is much better than the North Coast. Land and houses are cheaper, the area is far less developed, and it is simply more beautiful as well.
We looked at properties from Kiama down to Bateman's Bay without finding anything that grabbed us. Then one day we were playing golf on Vincentia Golf Course, which overlooks Jervis Bay, and we turned to each other and said "Why would we want to live anywhere else but here?"
One day we looked at a house for sale in St Georges Basin. We had passed it a thousand times, and referred to the up-market houses in the street as "Millionaire's Row." As soon as I had walked a couple of metres into the house I knew that this was "the one" and Karen quickly agreed. And it was so cheap when compared to Sydney's exorbitant prices. We sold our dumpy little Housing Commission house in French's Forest, paid off the hefty mortgage still owing on it, bought the great house in St Georges Basin and still had a little bit left over.
We joined the local country club, the golf club, the tennis club, the squash club and the bushwalking club. Within months we had new friends and a fantastic new lifestyle.
However, there have been some dramatic developments since the end of our Three Years on the Road. Barbara and Kevin, Karen's mum and dad, split up in the late 1990's but remained close friends. Barbara soon had another partner, Alan, and the two of them bought a house only a couple of kilometres away from Karen and me shortly afterwards. Kevin actually stayed with them when he came down to visit. Sadly, Kevin died quite suddenly in late 2002. Alan was diagnosed with cancer in early 2005 and died in late 2006. Barbara is still going strong, and has fully recovered from a knee replacement early in 2007. She now has a new partner, Brian, a long time friend who lost his own wife a few years back.
Peter and Mihkala also split up. Peter now lives in Albany with a lovely lady named Helen, and they have a daughter Tahlia who was born in 2004.
On 14th April 2008 an article about Victor, the naked nomad we saw in northern Queensland on three separate occasions, appeared in the West Australian newspaper. Click this link to find out more - Victor.
So, life and death goes on. For the latest happenings in our lives, please take a look at our recent annual letters to friends and family by clicking on the following links -
2006 Letter
2007 Letter
2008 Letter
2009 Letter
2010 Letter
2011 Letter
2012 Letter
2013 Letter
2014 Letter
2015 Letter
2016 Letter
2017 Letter
2018 Letter
2019 Letter
2020 Letter
2021 Letter
2022 Letter
2023 Letter
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