Happy Anzac Day!

Today is Anzac Day in Australia. Anzac Day marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. It is one of the most important national occasions in Australia - dawn services and marches take place across the whole country, and it really is a very moving day.

Since I last blogged, things have been moving at a fast rate over here. We attended an outback first aid course, which was fantastic in terms of what we learnt and also the people we met. The bloke that taught the course was a real "ocker" as they call them here. This translated into English means a proper outback Australian male who abbreviates absolutely everything. Over here, everything seems to be abbreviated to end in an "o", for instance, an ambulance is an "ambo", a service station is a "servo", your vehicles registration is "rego" etc etc. Once I had gotten used to his terminology and him referring to something as like a "shag on a rock!!!" (meaning something very obvious!), I really enjoyed the course and would recommend it to anyone who is going travelling for an extensive period of time. The people on the course were all really great. Once they had gotten over the fact that I was a "pom" (as everyone likes to point out over here in case you had in fact forgotten that you were indeed English!), they all offered advice on travelling around Australia, lent us books on certain areas and gave us so much invaluable information.

Regarding the "battered fish" herself (photos will follow shortly), there have been a few concerns over her well being. We took her to get the engine converted so that we can use vegetable oil on the trip. The guy that was doing the conversion thought that she was a bit sluggish compared to some other troop carriers that he had converted of the same age. He was concerned that the engine may not make the trip and recommended a compression test be done before he did the conversion (for those of you like me who have no idea about cars, this basically tests the engine of the car). To cut a long story short, after 5 days of waiting, the compression test has come back fine so we can now go and get the engine converted. Although we have wasted a lot of time doing this, we now have peace of mind that the "battered fish" is mechanically sound for the trip. It would be a good thing for people to get the engine tested before they buy a second hand vehicle as a new engine would be pretty expensive.

One funny thing that happened during us taking the car back and forth to mechanics is the driving around Sydney. To get to the place where the car is being converted, you need to go over the Sydney Harbour bridge. When we went to pick the car up, the opera house was on our left, which meant when we were coming back (Gerard driving the Battered Fish and me driving a sister's car), the opera house was to be on our right. I lost Gerard when I was driving and was confident coming over the bridge on the way back because the opera house was indeed on my right. However, I then took a wrong turning off the bridge and found myself stuck in the one way system. I then came across the harbour bridge again, this time opera house on the left - bad sign as this meant I was going back into the city! I tried to get off the bridge to turn around and ended up checking out quite a few suburbs of Sydney before I found signs again for the harbour bridge. I then crossed it again (for the third time in the space of 30 minutes!!!) and luckily this time, the opera house was on my right so I was heading again in the right direction. The one bad thing is that you have to pay $5 when you cross the harbour bridge so I racked up a few dollars that night.

We have also been to pick up all our camping stuff and the camper trailer (which is to be our house for the next 8 months) from kangaroo tent city. We have SO much stuff that we are going to have to do a trial run with packing up the car and the trailer as I just don't know where we are going to put everything. It will also be very interesting setting everything up for the first time - the demo of opening the camper trailer and setting it up looked very simple but I am sure when it is our turn to set it up, it will be a very different story!! It has also been a bit showery here in the last few weeks and you can bet any money that the first day we try to set up, we will be setting up in the rain.

I have had a few emails from people asking me how I am fitting into Australia and the differences from "back home". It is still early days but I have noticed the following things already.

Pros
1) The mornings - it gets light really early here and everyone is up and about doing things as soon as it gets light. People are walking their dogs, going for a run or a surf and as the weather is generally good, you want to get out of bed and do things! Even though it has been a bit showery here and I am not known to be a morning person, I have been getting up really early and have been enjoying sitting outside with my toast (with Vegemite on of course!) and coffee and watching the world go by! Where Gerard's parents live, there is a pool and quite a few trees and it has been fantastic watching all the birds early in the morning duck diving into the pool. The smells too are fantastic - because of the weather and the trees, it smells really tropical here.
2) The food - you even notice the difference with the food in the supermarkets, it is fantastic. You have much more of a range and everything is so fresh as it has been grown here in Australia. You also get fantastic fish and seafood shops.
3) The scenery - every time I see the opera house and the harbour bridge, i get excited. Sydney really is a beautiful city. I am trying to think of something in Birmingham that I cold compare the opera house to but I am struggling!!!!!

Cons
1) It is expensive - I have noticed this already, not just London expensive, but a bit more. You have to pay for things such as getting money out of the hole in the wall ($2 each time), the roads (most roads are tolled) and even to be able to drive (about $300 for 3 years). I know this is not much, but it all adds up. Also, the interest rate is 9% so buying a house will be out of the question.
2) It goes without saying, my family and friends are over in England. We have been extremely busy so homesickness hasn't really kicked in yet but my family made me a CD with clips on of everyone saying goodbye and I still have not been able to bring myself to watch this yet! Gerard's family have been great with helping me fit in and there has not been a day yet where we have not seen some family or catching up with Gerard's school or footy friends.

I would love to come up with more cons and shall keep on thinking (!) but at the moment, everything is going really well here. In the next few days, we will be concentrating on getting last bits and pieces for the trip and practicing packing and unpacking the car and the trailer. We go on our 4WD course next Friday, 2 May and are hopefully leaving for the start of our trip on the 5 May providing everything between now and then goes well.

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Take care
Rach and Ged x

Arrived in Sydney!

After all the farwell parties and the talking about it, you will be pleased to hear that we have finally arrived in Sydney and can now truly start the preparations for our trip! We would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who attended our numerous leaving parties all over the Country (!) and for those of you who phoned us before we left wishing us well - it really does mean a lot to us.

I can now also give you a word of advice if you are ever thinking of moving countries - do not go to the airport a) hungover or b) with your family! It was a really emotional farewell and I was extremely sad to be leaving my family and friends in the UK. The only good thing about having a tear stained face when we checked in was not having to pay the excess baggage fee of $300 that they were asking for!!! When they asked why we had so much baggage, I just could not control my emotions and ended up pouring my heart out to the poor check in attendant about the emotional farewell that I had just encountered with my family. Not only did he not charge us for the excess baggage but he also gave us a semi upgrade on the first leg from London to Singapore on Singapore Airlines new plane, the A380. It was a real shock on the second leg from Singapore to Sydney when we were hurded back into cattle class on a standard jumbo 747!!

Before we left the UK, there were some further developments regarding our trip. We heard from a carbon neutral car insurance company called "ibuyeco" regarding sponsorpship for our trip. I have attached the webiste link to ibuyeco under the heading Sponsorship - check it out!!!

We also received great support from a Shrewsbury (UK) business called "Castell", suppliers of Satelite phones to aid agencies, who very generously provided a satelite phone for our trip at a discount. This pleased Mum as she can now keep in contact with us even when we are in the outback!!

Thanks to ibuyeco and Castell for their genoristy and remember to look at their websites as they both do tremendous work.

Ok, enough of that - keep us posted with what you are doing and how work is going!! I am just about to go and jump in the pool at Gerard's parents house - I think I will get used to this Sydney lifestyle!!