Badge

I spent my last night in the UK last Christmas Eve at the Midnight Mass, as we were flying out Christmas Day on cheapo tickets. (Wife's idea - I'm not always a cheapskate).

So I'm gonna do my "First Year" post here in a few days, watch this space - or thread.

It's gonna be a blockbuster. There will be a bit of prose, bit of "What I love/like/disinterested bout Straya", "What I don't love", ala HUP and Hevs post, how was it for us yadda yadda.

Happy Christmas!!!

BM

Badge

It wouldn't be fair to leave you without a small preview.

My year's review could not go without a mention to this forum.

January 2004. Mike Stanton joined the site, and I spent most of the year arguing with him. I thinked I ended up asking him outside on a few occasions and spent many a hour ranting at how much he winds me up (to my wife's amusement).

So happy Christmas Mike y'bastard

BM

chocaholic

Happy Christmas & good luck with the prose

TraceyW

Happy Christmas Badge and Mrs B

Look forward to the post. You are a real success story mate.

I'm still drooling over the photos you sent me, we'll be over to your neck of the woods next year to see it with our own eyes. Keep that beer cold for us!

Pollyana

Are we having a Brit Expats Awards this year Badge??

Look forward to reading your experiences and hope to see you in March (when we are staying at a wonderful resort hotel in the outer suburbs of Melbourne.....!

HUP

So your not coming to ours anymore then

Badge looking forward to the chapter "Tales of the pissy matress"

Bordy

They do a lovely cup of coffee at that hotel Polly. Not sure about the head waitress though.

Pollyana

I gather she keeps the guests in order by brandishing a chainsaw...

steandleigh

Looking forward to hearing your 'years roundup'!

Am also loking forward to yours and Hup's expats awards again this new year - SO GET YER FINGERS OOT!!!!!

( My lady penelope avatar won a mention for best lookin' female last year...am wonderin' what me turtle will get this year!!!! )

mutant

I have come over all nostalgic Merry Xmas all

Don

Looking forward to that one.

Badge

I spent a year in Australia in 2002. Within weeks of arriving, I knew this was going to be where I wanted to spend the next part of my life. I had a varied and interesting year. Some people have accused me of being a rose-tinted dreamer and said that essentially a gap year couldn’t mean much and didn’t give much of an insight in to the ‘real Australia’. Well mine did – most of it was spent baby-sitting and working behind a desk 9-5 and shopping. I was too busy to go to the beach for months – just like a real Australian couple. I didn’t even have my own house or car like so many enthusiastic arrivals have, my spare time was spent running down to the oval and running up and down a steep hill overlooking the beach with a pack on my back trying to keep the cobwebs away.

That year, there were highlights though: Fitzgibbon's claret on Grand Final Day, consulting in Sydney, playing rugby, living in a small NSW town, flying, riding and mustering on stations in NSW and QLD, drenching and organising 2000 sheep, lifting 30kg rods whilst drilling for gold in 35 degree temperatures in the WA desert, crossing the Nullabor on the Indian Pacific more times than I care to remember, driving in an old Falcon from Perth – Alice via the Kimberlery, taking and passing my Heavy Rigid license in 5 hours, diving the Reefs off Cairns (NE) and Ningaloo(NW), HMS Swan in Bussleton(SW), and flying around the SW of Australia with a group of pilots where we had a few hairy moments..have you ever contemplated taking off using the width of the runway…(!)

I met my wife in London when I returned in 2003. I had the best spring and summer I recall and thought London life was idyllic – remember that summer? but I still pined for the rough edges of Australia. So we returned a year ago.

I went out and bought myself a 4x4 dual cab ute I had promised myself on my return– the rationale behind this was that it kept options open – the best of a sedan and a load carrying vehicle for a small business or operation. 1 year on – I haven’t regretted this; the only faults have been a fuel pipe (AUS20) and a new thermostat (AUS10). I do all my own oil changes and my neighbour has a shop in the town.

I decided that Sydney was expensive for what we wanted to do – we could, infact, have lived there quite reasonably if we compromised. We were delighted to find that Melbourne was actually quite a bit cheaper than even the Central Coast of NSW so we moved down there. My wife moved back to London for a few months to sort out a few things.

I discovered that Melbourne was not as grey as it had once appeared to when I paid a flying visit one day - I got suckered like many a fleeting visitor - and that given a few weeks, the greyness turned out to be changes that come through from time to time, which actually contribute to a very liveable city – Melbourne infact, had just won the most liveable city award.

Hevs and HUP were welcoming out in the South Eastern Suburbs and facilitated setting up home in a very modest 3 bed villa - they even gave me an old single pissy mattress that had been passed on to them. I was a tad suspicious of this, so just kipped on the floor for a few weeks.(!) I got a single makeshift bed weeks before my wife’s arrival – and then got a double mattress when I picked up my wife from the airport. I wanted her to choose. Ute came in handy, once again. The pissy mattress (suitably covered) then became our sofa for the entire winter. In fact, we’ve only just got a sofa…last week…

I even found time to fly up to Brisbane to Pollyfilla’s wedding. When I got home, the hard work started.

I got a well-paid job in IT within 6 weeks – facilitated by rugby connections – I had joined a rugby league club, and it wasn't long before I got a few knocks and discovered I wasn’t getting any younger – the 18 year olds gave me a good run for my money. I was able to earn a bench spot. My job is not always the best, but the people are fantastic and we have a lot of laughs. I have even become ‘popular’ if I may say so – not all Aussie offices are anti-Pom it seems.

The winter was severe by VIC standards, and many a day was spent down at Olympic Park following our team – Melbourne Storm – the football team I supported – Hawks – were crap – I am now an Essendon supporter…In the spring, our spirits were lifted when we bought a property in rolling hills outside a village. We thought this was the key to surviving what many had fallen foul of – the soulless estate... The alternative thing seemed an established house in a 1970s court, or a cottage on a lane that crisscrosses the back of the likes of Berwick or Narre Warren. Our village has that old-style feel from the UK, with a butcher, supermarket, bottle shop, baker, steak house, hairdressers, hardware store/news agency and a rural fire station at the end of our winding tree-lined lane. Idyllic! We bought the cheapest, “smallest� house (3 bed, 2 bathroom, garage, deck and pool, yard, 2 paddocks) in a lane characterised by 3/4M properties for the same money as a small house in Berwick. Further past the village we have a highly rated primary school, a large pub on a vineyard and miles of rolling countryside with views - my boss confided in me and said that it, in his opinon, it is some of the best land in Melbourne – he also has a house here.(!) It looks like Shropshire or Oxfordshire – not all countryside in Australia is dried, burnt-out gum trees or grass. I am now an operational member of the CFA and love it. We policed the local Christmas Eve Candlelight Carol Service and were wowed by the sense of community.

Many of our friends are young families, and we have become ‘Uncle’ and ‘Aunt’ to them all. No family in Australia – create one for yourself(!) My family in the UK are not close at all – and within 6 months I felt I had a bigger family here in Australia than anywhere else – and my wife’s family overseas are also fantastic – they are very close. Our neighbours teens have taken to us; (on our first day in our new house, our neighbours climbed over the fence to say hello). The man of the house took me under his wing and said that I was to come to him if there was anything I needed to know or ask. My wife has made a whole community of friends whom we spent Christmas with.

We have a very pretty cat which is a real ripper of an animal.


THINGS I LOVE ABOUT AUSTRALIA

You can call me rose-tinted, but for me, 2 years on, it’s still the little things I like….
Holden SS Commodores, EF Ford Falcons (I hate the AU and derived models from 1998 onwards…), serviceable 1970s classic cars, stubbie holders, Rugby League, AFL, the laid-back attitude, the houses, (I like the fact every house is different, not the rows of 1930s semis) the opportunity, the excitement at living in a modern, thriving country that is so unique, different and so proud of what it has achieved in 200 odd years despite harshness of climate and location.
I was aware of Australia’s problems within weeks but they are often problems seen everywhere. Funny how most countries have, in fact, largely similar problems which stats can only just separate. For all London’s sophistication, it is lacking that certain rough edge…

I love owning 1 acre, on a bush plot, 1 hour away from a state capital in beautiful rolling hills and countryside with a modest mortgage and a good job. I can drive to the city in 50 minutes and park with little event or mishap and be in the CBD in seconds, with sport, art and fun to be had with world class stadia and facilities. I don’t have to get on the tube, or push past tourists – it’s my city. My life is as balanced as it has ever been. I can share it all with my little family.

Closer to home, I love pushing my mower up the gradient in the top paddock – it is good for exercise I tell myself; my neighbour pushed for 3 years until he got his ride-on – I am sure I can.

I also love the people; in the main, a personable and agreeable sort.

THINGS I LIKE ABOUT AUSTRALIA

I also like the variety, sea, mountains, art, culture, and the fact that it is all so accessible and not particularly hectic. The coffee shops and street culture of Inner Melbourne; Glenferrie Road.

THINGS I DON’T LIKE ABOUT AUSTRALIA

Hoon car culture (but give me a Holden HQ or a WB and I would be happy, or try a Mustang, or an old 70s Ford Falcon GT), deepest surburbia with Maccas. However, it is not really any different to the hundreds of estates found off even the oldest country town in the UK. The low speed limits can be annoying. At 100kph, (60mph) it adds a significant overhead to my 45km commute. Let’s face it, it is quite easy to cruise at 140kph in the UK. Plus side: the low speed makes for economical driving costs and probably makes even my wife’s Falcon less painful on the wallet.

THINGS I AM INDIFFERENT ON

Supermarkets – couldn’t give a toss. There are lots of shops – too many it seems sometimes, they are not – in the main crowded – and they compete together. Throw in ability to haggle and it’s all good.

THINGS I MISS ABOUT THE OLD COUNTRY

Rugby Union in pubs. I can get a version of that here, thankfully. Yellow Lemon shaving gel – I can’t get it here.(!)

TOP TIPS

Wrap up warm in the winter. It gets cold in all the southern states.

Stay flexible.

It's all relative. Keep everything in perspective.

STOP BLOODY COMPARING!!! Embrace the differences...

Stay open to all ideas, be sanguine and opportunistic. Don't come to Australia if you have a beautiful existence in the UK and you just want a change. You may well be disappointed. Stay focused, leave no stone unturned. Go the extra yard.

Yours Aye

Badge

HUP

I don't think that really does justice to how big a part that matress played in your home furnishings.

Nice post hope next years as good for ya. We'll see you in the new year. Tell Kiki that we wont let the kids throw water bombs at her .

HUP

Larissa

Great post Badge, sounds like you and the missus have landed on your feet. I love the description of your house and area, plus the little community nearby.
ATB
Larissa

Badge

Just like to add HUP; the pissy mattress was augmented by a couple of 1970s brown vinyl armchairs which again covered by a blanket, did a sterling job....