Originally Posted by moneypen20

Blimey, Kala, sounds like you have been welcomed by every section of Aussie going - including the dolphins - cute. Almost makes up for the rest. Hope your stuff arrives soon and everything is peaceful for a while.

Look forward to hearing more of your news when you have a spare minute - whether good or bad.

Lots of luck and love

Originally Posted by Rog Williams

It must be a BIG van to get all those doonas in ! <g>

Congratulations on making it after all the hassle. I will keep fingers crossed that your welcome was just an anomaly but based on what we see around us here it seems more like the norm.

We have seen open drug dealing, girls dropping their knickers and peeing in the area around the cafes - likewise youths, drunks by the hundred every night, cars being driven round and round in circles by the lights etc etc. At least you are woken around 4.30am (having been kept up until 2.00am) by the sweepers getting rid of the glass, vomit and the odd body.

Oz never used to be like this.

Originally Posted by JayDeee

Polly you hit the nail on the head there, I love it and am thoroughly enjoying it, It has pride of place on the wall.

Sorry guys I have been manic.
Arrive in Perth on the friday, slept all day, woke up saturday at 2 am sat borded for a few hours then went searching for a car. now this is where things started to go wrong, cars are cheaper in Perth than they are in Gero so we had the weekend to buy a minibus kinda thing for the business.
so off we go saturday morning, only to find out at 10 to 1pm that all car garages close at 1pm, so having found nothing we were a bit buggered, spent the afternoon looking through the papers/quaka/auto/trader for a private sale. This is why we were not at the Perth meet, we found nothing on the saturday so had to keep looking on the sunday as we had to leave perth on monday. we finally found 1 sunday afternoon. a delightfull toyota delica imported from Japan (seemed like a good idea at the time as all of the type of vehicle we were looking at were imported)

so we call the insurance company only to be told that getting a japanese import insured is not an easy thing to do. we managed to get it insured 3rd party just to gert us up to gero.

so monday morning we set off, got to the pinacles on the way do go if you get a chance, it is amazing. a few hours later we arived in gero, set up camp at the MIL's house for the next week before taking over the backpackers on the 1st november.

so on tues I went and took my driving test AND PASSED with 28/30 got 2 stup[id questions wrong and I personally think they should change the law as I'm sure my answer was right. then next day had to take another driving test so I can ferry people arround PASSED that aswell (clever little bitch ain't I )
We have done so much, the building and business insurance, the vehicle insurance (finally) the signing over of the business, the accountants etc etc etc bla bla bla, finally it was monday the 1st nov and we were taking ove the business.

saturday night we went out with some friends and went to the local nightclub, wither I have got really old or nightclubs have changed and I am most certainly not up for goin there again. we couldn't get a taxi and and started to walk towards the house hiping to get a taxi along the way. sudenly there are a bunch of people who have decided to chase us up the street, I have never been so scared in my life, it was me, Ant and a friend sarah being chased by 5 big drunk blokes, now please dont get me wrong as I am not a racist person and have never understood why the australians have such a problem with the aboriginals and have really defended them when I have heard people slagging them off but after saturday night and a few other things that have happened (i'l come to that later) I can see that there is definately a problem with certain groups.

any way we ran bloody fast, managed to hail a cab and got home safely. on sunday morning we went to town and drove the nightclub we had been at the night before only to see that a wall the we were sitting on only 8 hours earlier was no longer standing, some drunk driver had totaled it and done a runner before getting caught round the corner.

sunday came and went and it was Monday the 1st November, the big day, we arrived at the backpackers at 7.30 to take over, quickly realized that we needed some stationary so I went off to get some and came back to find thepolice at the backpackers, we have lockup parking out the back and unfortunately some very nice people had jumped the fence and smashed 2 car windows and taken 90cd's from one car and $20 from another.

The people who owned the cars were staying at the backpackers and were really nice about it, so after learning the ropes yesterday we had a BBQ for a 1st nite and threw them in a BBQ and had a great evening chatting with them, Turns out one of the is from Horsham (8 miles from where I am from) small world eh.

So today is a new day, We have cleaned like lunatics all morning and are now trying to make it our own, Can't wait for our stufff to arrive, I just wanna freshen the place up and cant until it is all here. we are goin to improve the security on the car park in the next week so that should make things better.



I must say though that although we have had a bit of bad luck on the way I am really happy to be here, I dont think I have made a mistake in the slightest but dont what ever you do think that life in Australia is crime free as I have seen more crime in the last week than I would usually see in a year.

Anyway I will update more soon but I best go and help Ant with getting this place sorted.

hope everyhting is fine for everyone else Lucy whats happening with the Visa??? fingers crossed for you. Sorry I missed the Perth meet guys, hopefully I can get down for another and If any of your are heading this way pop in and say hi.

Kala