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.

We would love to hear your news so send us a comment by going to the bottom of this post where it says "0 comments" and post a comment. Because of security, we have to read your comment first before it is put onto the site so you will not see your comment straight away.

Take care
Rach and Ged x