Miscellaneous.

Warm winter socks - I bought six pairs!

Marmite - readily available at your local supermarket.

Bonza View - a highly idiosyncratic sign in Kalorama.

The house of my mates in Yatala Vale, South Australia.

A section of the view from their verandah.

the question is Vash did you eat all four plus the ice cream

Mate, I ate everything on that plate - including the icecream.

LOL! Don't start on about bloody lettuces - you'll set Fraser off on one!

Nicky

well good on yer

Well, I took literally hundreds of photos (about 730 Mb in total!) during my brief trip home, but I'm sure you don't want to see them all.

For those who may be interested, my camera is a Canon Powershot A620, and my photos were taken at a resolution of 3072 x 2304.

I've had to crunch them down to 640 x 840 for the sake of uploading them to this thread, so the quality has suffered a great deal - but I think they've served their purpose.

Many thanks again to everyone who's contributed - particularly all you Tassie-lovers out there!

This is Vash the Stampede, signing out... for now.

WOW just read this, 2 cups of coffee, made packed lunches and taken kids to school, could not wait to get back from school to finish the thread.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. Its so nice to read something positive on here.
You had a great trip, lovely piccies. And i bet you cant wait to return.
Good luck to you, Denise

Vash, thanks for the entertaining thread, thoroughly enjoyed it !!!

are you not homesick for 'home' now you are back in the UK ?

Thanks Denise, I'm so glad you liked it.

If you spend more on groceries other things are cheaper like petrol, housing and rent, electricty less heating costs. etc

Cheers; my pleasure.

Yes - even more so than I had expected. I could have cried during the train journey to Birmingham New Street; the grinding tedium of countless terrace and semi-detached houses (all virtually identical, with no character, no driveways, and no front lawns!) was extremely depressing.

Mrs Stampede (who spent two weeks in Victoria about three and a half years ago, before we met) was utterly smitten.

She said that parts of South Australia and Tassie reminded her of Devon, where she spent most of her life. She found driving in Adelaide less stressful than Birmingham, was pleased by the sensible grid-style layout of the city (making it very easy to navigate), and frequently commented on the cleanliness of Australia's urban areas.

As a secondary school teacher, Mrs Stampede was naturally interested in the Australian curriculum. In Croydon we visited a shop specialising in curriculum materials for the Victorian Certificate of Education, where she spent a bit of time browsing. (She even made a few purchases!)

Her assessment was extremely favourable. She considered the standard of the curriculum equal to its British counterpart, and the curriculum resources outstanding. She noted that many of the books prescribed for English and Drama students are the same ones prescribed in the UK, and was impressed by the quality of the student workbooks, which she considered superior to the materials available at her school in Birmingham.

We were both pleased to confirm what I already knew: that property prices in South Australia have remained more or less static over the past two and a half years. Houses are very affordable - even in the Adelaide hills.

The same is true of Victoria's foothills; places like Montrose and Mooroolbark offer a great lifestyle at a terrific price. It's amazing what you can get for $270,000 these days! And of course, the suburbs tend to be a lot greener than their West Midlands counterparts; we saw row after row of tree-lined streets and avenues.

In Tassie, house prices have risen by a greater margin. This is good news for me, as I have an investment property in Evandale. At its most recent valuation (which I had done earlier this year) I learned that my equity is currently around 65%. That's going to come in handy when we eventually sell both our houses and buy a place in South Australia.

Really good post Vash. I enjoyed reading it immensely.

You are a better person than me, cos no way would I get back on that plane now and return to the UK.

Thanks mate.

LOL, can't take any credit for it; I simply had no choice!

Yes fair enough Vash - your report and photos are excellent mate - will have to wait until I experience living there myself before making statements like that.



Buzzy

Vash those photos are fantastic! I have an incredibly strong desire to visit Adelaide before we make the move over to Oz, I've a gut feeling that it could be the place for us - I doubt we'll be able to though