I’ve just spent an hour getting online quotes from AAMI, Allianz and RACV for our home and contents and car insurance. We’re currently with Allianz.
Here are the wildly different quotes that I received. The premiums are for monthly payments.
Car insurance
Each quote includes: rating 1, no claim bonus protection, no windscreen excess, $500 basic excess, no drivers under 30, rental car, agreed value $34,000.
Why are AAMI so cheap? Their cover looks as good as the others (I read the Product Disclosure Statements). If I can’t find a reason why I shouldn’t switch to them within the next 7 days then we’re switching.
We’ve decided on the boat’s name. Exit Tasty … enter Muchacha.
It came down to a choice between Tight Squeeze, Backwash and Muchacha. Tight Squeeze was good because the boat’s a tight squeeze for four people plus the wake gear. Backwash is one of those names with a normal meaning (when you stop quickly from speed a big wave nearly breaks over the back of the boat) and a slightly seedy one.
Both pretty good, but Muchacha won because we reckon it has the most personality.
MOOOOOO CHA CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!
I think we’ll have a naming ceremony this weekend with Georgia and Lindsay. In the meantime I’ve started a new category for it on our blog.
I gave up on Fly Buys a while ago because unless you shop at Myer and only buy the bonus points items on your NAB credit card it takes forever to earn enough points to redeem them for something. Also the likelihood of you ever earning enough to redeem them for a flight (hence Fly Buys) is almost zero. Jayne, however, kept the faith, and smiled knowingly when our latest statement arrived showing that we had enough points for some of the items in the catalogue. I, on the other hand, was gobsmacked.
So. What to choose.
We made our way through the catalogue, and carefully considered (but ultimately dismissed) a year’s supply of caster sugar, half a dozen bags of unprocessed wool, a fully-installed automatic lawn sprinkler system, his and hers ice skates, an Ansett Airlines mystery flight (one-way) and a family pass to see The Tony Barber and Ian “Turps” Turpie Show at the Dandenong Workers Club.
Finally, on the last page, tucked away in the corner next to a huge promo picture for betamax video players, we spotted a suitcase deal. A three case set - and we had enough points. Bargain! Deal! Yahtzee!
Others must have spotted the same sweet deal as us, however, because 10 days after we put in our order Fly Buys sent us an apologetic letter explaining that due to the popularity of the only item in the catalogue worth having, they’d run out of suitcases. Luckily, the second half of the letter told us not to worry, as they would honour our order and send us even better suitcases than the original ones.
And they did. They came yesterday and we’re quite happy with them, actually.
jayneandmarty.com might misbehave at times this weekend - I’m moving it from one blogging system (TypePad) to another one (Wordpress).
So far I’ve successfully moved all the posts, archives and comments and pointed the domain name to the new webhost (which is why you can read this) but I still have to sort out the photos and design the look and feel.
The move was pretty painless, but aspects of it are fiddly so it takes a little time.
Back to normal posts about interesting things later today.
Right. I’m getting this done. Three weekends ago we had a great time in Apollo Bay/Marengo and I haven’t written about it. Time has conspired against me - I knew that writing about it would take a while. Well now I have half an hour (Desperate Housewives is on and although I used to watch it I don’t anymore), so here we go.
After a lazy breakfast in Anglesea we took our time we along the Great Ocean Road. We’ve driven it plenty of times before but not in the last couple of years, so it was nice doing it again. The traffic wasn’t too bad (we left home early to beat the tour buses) and the weather was clear, so we could see forever.
We were camping at Marengo, which is about 5kms past Apollo Bay, and after setting up our tent on a great site overlooking the ocean we went back into Apollo Bay to stock up with some food for our walk that afternoon.
The weekend is our engagement anniversary weekend, which we prefer to celebrate instead of Valentines Day (means nothing to us and we don’t even bother with cards). In past years we’ve ridden the Murray to the Mountains Rail Trail (twice), ridden our own cycling tour of Rutherglen’s wine region, and sold a house.
This year we thought about doing the rail trail again but our bikes are in disrepair so Jayne suggested walking part of the recently-opened Great Ocean Walk, which runs 90kms from Apollo Bay to a homestead right around the other side of Cape Otway. We had two sections of the walk planned for Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday’s walk started with a 30km drive towards Cape Otway lighthouse and a left turn just before it onto a dirt road towards Blanket Bay. Our walk took us south through the trees and along the clifftops towards Parker River and back, about 9km in total. The weather was clear and fine, a little bit hot and steamy actually, and after an hour and a half of walking we emerged from the trees to the small secluded beach where Parker River meets the ocean.
Jayne, bless her, had brought our swimming togs, so we quickly donned them and cooled off in Bass Strait. After we’d toweled off we started to make our way back along the same route, but there were some surprises waiting for us along the way: the fattest echidna we’ve ever seen (it could have been a wombat), and a nasty-looking tiger snake.
I was walking in front of Jayne when I saw the snake maybe three metres in front of me, just off the track. I stopped walking, said “whoah”, and Jayne was already running in the opposite direction before she even knew why I’d stopped. I had no idea what sort of snake it was, although now I realise I should have picked it as a tiger - watch the video. I just sort of stood there hoping it would go away. Eventually it did, but it had a good look at us first. The video footage isn’t great (but at least I had the presence of mind to flick the camera on), but you can sort of see how it has its head and neck all bunched up. Ready to strike at our juicy-looking legs, probably.
Anyway, we finished the walk in one piece and made it back to Apollo Bay and Wayne’s Craypot Bistro for tea. No cray on the menu, mind you, but Jayne had a nice steak, I had some chook and we washed them both down with some local Otway Ranges vino.
The next day we had planned to walk another section of the Great Ocean Walk, but we were feeling lazy so a fun drive up the Beech Forest Road took us to the Otway Fly walk instead.
Worth going if you get the chance. Apparently it’s the highest treetop walk in the southern hemisphere. It was as good as the one in the Huon Valley that we visited in 2005 but was more of an effort to walk around. It’d almost be too tough if you were unfit. Luckily there’s a golf cart to take you back up the hill to the visitor centre.
We had pizza and beer that night then drove home the inland way. Yet another great weekend.
Tomorrow I’ll write about this weekend, which we spent wakeboarding up at Mulwala and Bundalong with friends. We’re lucky to live in such a State with such diverse landscapes and activities and so few crowds.
