Australia: Tales from a Canadian Nomad: Settling into the New Digs

I moved into my own place on Thursday. The apartment seemed quite cavernous at first, as I had no furniture other than the coffee and end tables, and my camp chairs. I slept on my air mattress which was rather cold to be honest. Winter is just a few days away here and while the days are beautiful and sunny, the nighttime temps drop to about 0C which is cold when floors are not insulated or carpeted. I had my bed and fridge delivered the next day, so was happy about getting off the floor and quite a bit warmer as well. Yesterday I had a sofa and dining set delivered so I'm pretty well set now. I have more stuff coming from Canada, but not much furniture other than my cabinet for my television and a small night stand. The rest is just STUFF. I've gathered things for a cinderblock bookshelf, as there were many extras in the back courtyard. I scrubbed them clean from dirt and spiderwebs, and then bought some pine boards and stained them. Finding a good wooden bookshelf/bookcase can be tricky as most are made out of that melamine particleboard crap that weighs a ton and looks like shit. Any that are made of wood here are very expensive, so I chose the cheaper route. I've had cinderblock bookshelves before and they work well.
I cooked my first supper in the new place last night for my friend F. who moved in two blocks away. We couldn't get the oven lit (gas oven) so had to use the oven grill as that part of the oven would light - the stove has two ovens - a regular oven for baking and a shallow oven for grilling. We had grilled pork side ribs and they turned out wonderful in the grilling oven. I hope to find a barbecue somewhere so I can get back to grilling on open flame. I have plenty of room in my courtyards for a bbq. There is also a garden in the back courtyard, but has nothing planted in it, likely because of the 10 year drought they just came out of here last summer (Canadian winter). That will be a project for this week and next, bringing in some soil, plants, etc and get that shaped up. It will add to the already green look of the garden. There is a pergola overhead that has some kind of climbing vine growing over it, which is just lovely. Once the garden is planted I'll take photos of that.
I had 4 cockroaches when I first moved in, but nothing since. I hope they are not plotting to overtake me...I really hate those scurrying bugs. No spiders yet though, and no snakes...they are both very common here in central Australia and the snakes are almost always poisonous.
There is a park just at the end of my road that runs along the river, so my friend F. and I are going to check that out today, see what the park is like. There are a lot of Aboriginals that camp in the dry riverbed at night, so we may come across some of them. The river only runs during the wet season, which is summer, and only if it actually rains here.
I discovered that I have 3 skylights in my apartment which is very lovely! There are two small circular ones in the dining/living area. I thought they were overhead lights but I couldn't find a switch to turn them off, and they turned out to be skylights. There is a bigger rectangular one in the bathroom, so I don't need to turn on any lights there during the day. My hot water is solar powered, which is the norm for here it seems. Awesome. There is never a shortage of solar power here.