A New Life Down Under!!

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Well, we finally made it….We are back in Oz!!

After much stress, collecting together a ton of papers and information, having x-rays, medicals, blood tests, police checks, paying out almost 1000 quid and waiting the longest 6 weeks of our lives, we were finally granted a visa to come and work and live here!

We arrived in Melbourne on the 25th March and, as we landed after 9 in the evening, decided to stay the night in the city before making our way down to Koo Wee Rup the following morning to see Tony, Val and Beau. And for our reunion with Tilly!! We have managed to catch up with most people in Melbourne in the last week, (sorry to have missed you Harley and Betty!) and, as always, had a ball relaxing with Tony and Val.

It has been fairly surreal being back in Australia, kind of like we never left, despite it being almost 6 months. We really don’t feel like we live here yet, I guess because we are still travelling, although I am sure reality will hit when we have to start work next month!

So anyway, we left Tony, Val and Melbourne behind this morning to start on the long road North. Although as you might have guessed, us being us, we are making the “long road” even longer by taking a few detours along the way! We have stopped for the night at Seymour about 4½ hours north of Koo Wee Rup. We had stayed here a couple of times last year and decided it would be our first stop as it is about half way to Tracey and Jeff’s where we are heading tomorrow. Also we have seen Koalas here before and we are hoping to see some more!

The drive up here took us through the Yarra Ranges, where the worst of the recent bush fires were. It was really quite shocking, all along the road you can see houses all but burnt to the ground, lots of them have a caravan or portakabin next to them were the owners are now living. The town of Marysville nearby, which we have passed through before was one of the worst hit places, one in five people in the town died. The bushes at the sides of the road are completely gone and the trees are blackened or burnt away. Amazingly the trees are already showing signs of recovery, shooting new leaves and the ground is sprouting new grass and plants.

So, the plan from here……Well tomorrow we will head up to Albury to see Jeff, Tracey, Jeremy, Megan and Amelia (my cousins) and spend a few days catching up with them. Then we plan to travel west along the Murray river until we reach Adelaide. We have only really ever spent a couple of hours there before so I think we will spend a few days there this time. I think we will need to visit the immigration office and get our visas stamped and also it will be the last time for a good while that we will be in a city! It will actually be our second nearest city being 1530km (950 miles) from Alice Springs. We can always go to Darwin though, that is only 1490km (925 miles)! I think if we were going, we’d say to hell with the extra 25 miles as you can swim in the sea in Adelaide without worrying about the crocs!

From Adelaide we basically turn right and keep going, eventually we’ll come across Alice! We’ll probably stop in at Coober Pedy for a few days and maybe try our luck fossicking for opals again, but apart from road houses and cattle stations there is not too much else to see. That makes it sound very boring, but it isn’t at all, we loved it before!

Anyway, we are loosely planning to arrive in Alice the 20 something of April, that will give us time to get settled and sort out all the stuff like Tax numbers (AGHHHHH!!!) and bank accounts and get settled into the house, meet the neighbours, find the gym/pubs/Indian restaurant etc!

So you guys are all just starting work there now, being 9am, which means it must be beer o’clock here so we better get on with that!

See you in Alice!…………

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Photos

View From Our Hotel Room In Melbourne
At 5am!