Return to Brisbane

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The return to Brisbane meant the end of our travels in the van, but the start of our time living and working in Australia as 'normal people'. We returned to Mich and Phils and spent three weeks with them whilst we found jobs, sold the van, bought a car and found an apartment to rent. It was a really busy time organising our lives and making the transition from nomads into working people. For about 6 weeks life was manic as we sorted out everything, thought it was an exciting time and life is now returning to normality.

We've living in a suburb of Brisbane called Sherwood and have an apartment in a new build residential complex (Google Parklands Sherwood QLD and you should find some images of the place, we have a two bed flat). Dan is working for Brisbane City Council in their carpentry team and has just finished working on the fixtures and fittings for an exhibition at the Museum of Brisbane. I'm working as a Senior Planner with Ipswich City Council and am really enjoying it there, the team are great and are helping me with the transition from English planning regime to the Australian system. The principles are generally the same given that Australian planning originates from the English system so it's a plan led system, though the basis is zoning and the types of applications are different. As you drill down into the detail there are other differences that I'm getting to grips with.

We're driving around in Ford Falcon XR6 (4ltr v6 I think), which is a big change from the van! D loves the car and it's great to now have some time to explore Brisbane. For my birthday weekend we went back up to Fraser to complete the missing piece of the travelling jigsaw. Dan organised it as a surpise and we spent a few nights up there exploring the island in a 4x4. Fraser is the largest sand island in the world and has a unique array of wildlife and vegetation by virtue of it being a sand island and also its location at the interface between a range of habitats. Fraser is well photographed for tourist and travel brochures and for good reason, it's beautiful. There are many highlights, including Lake MacKenzie, Lake Wabby, the Maheno shipwreck, Eli Creek and lots lots more. I've attached some photos to this entry.

So we've now settled in Brisbane and are exploring our surroundings. We've spent some time down on the Gold Coast visiting D's cousins there and also spent some time exploring the mountains and bush around Brisbane. Ocassionally we'll come across a place that reminds us of England and we notice little things like the road signs are the same here. Other little things are different, the Cadburys Dairy Milk tastes different, gravy granules are different (!) etc etc.

So that's where the blog ends, we've come to a stop in Brisbane and life is returning to normality. All good things must come to an end as they say.

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Photos

Lake mackenzie
Lake Mackenzie