Our place!

We moved into our place in Mosman yesterday! Really pleased to get in and i'm happy that Adam likes it as it was only me who saw the place! We ordered beds and a mattress to arrive yesterday, but the shop we ordered from, Harvey Norman, managed to mess it all up. Eventually, after numerous irate phonecalls to them, the warehouse manager brought us round half of the delivery at about 9pm. At least we had something to sleep on!

Got woken up around 5am by the cockatoos and other loud birds, but I don't mind too much yet! I went to a local yoga class which was hard work, but relaxing at the same time.

Today was really sunny, but we had to do more shopping for furniture. Managed to get a patio set, but still no fridge freezer which is going to make food shopping a bit annoying. Doesn't really matter though, as we've just put the patio set together and had the first beer out on the balcony! Watching the birds and the boats in the habour is really lovely. Here's a pic of a kookaburra sitting in next door's garden.Looking forward to heading off for a dinner in our local pub in a bit, it's about 20 minutes walk to get to the main area but not a bad evening for it :-)

Manly fish and chips

It was a pretty sunny day so we went back to Manly. Sat on the beach for a bit and watched
the surfers on the massive waves!

Then we went to the pub across the road for fish and chips. The best fish and chips I've
ever had I think. The fish was john dory, yum!

A place to live!

We have just put down a deposit on a flat! Hurrah!

It has been quite difficult with the rental market here and not really knowing what or where we wanted.

Today I saw 3 in Mosman, a big 2 bed with view of the harbour bridge in a block of 4 flats near the ferries, a smaller 2 bed in an older block but with a pool, and a bigger semi-detached further in-land near the shops.

We decided against the semi since we wanted to live nearer the water. The first 2 were difficult to decide between though... in the end we thought that although the pool would be great in the summer the finishing and the size of the other one and the view won it! And our relocation agent told us that Manly is only a 10 minute drive away from Mosman anyway so we can easily get to the beach to cool off in summer.

It is the top left part of this photo (yep Adam wasn't too keen on the colour at first, but I quite like it!), it has 2 bedrooms, seperate living and kitchen, new looking bathroom, seperate 'sun-room' (like a conservatory), and a balcony for barbecues. Also a shared garden area out the back.

Very excited! We are moving in on 29th. Can't wait to move out of this hotel room and get settled.

Celeb spotting

I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art this afternoon in an attempt to get a bit of culture. I saw some Australian artists and an exhibition by Yinka Shonibare, a British Nigerian artist.

He "explores issues of race and class through a range of media that includes sculpture, painting, photography, and installation art" it was actually pretty cool if a bit 'shocking' in places, the african style fabrics he creates are amazingly detailed and all symbolic and stuff.

But, I have to admit I was more excited by what I realised was going on downstairs. The cast and crew of the new Baz Lurhmann film, Australia (inc Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman), were doing a press conference in one of the rooms, and then came outside to have their photos taken in front of the opera house. Can't wait to see the film now!

Employment!

I'm really please to have gotten a job! Sounds like a good opportunity and am very happy to have a job with all the news about job cuts in Sydney at the moment.

Thanks so much to Carl and Kyle for providing references for me. I know it was very difficult with the timezones, so really really appreciate it!!

I still have to get the Tax Reference Number through, for anyone else coming to Aus I would recommend getting that sorted as soon as you have a visa as mine seems to be taking a while and you get taxed 45% unless you present it within 28 days. You can get it online here.

Starting work on 24th, so I have a few days to keep looking for a place to live.

Sydney Wildlife World

On Sunday we thought we should take advantage of our central accommodation so went over to Sydney Wildlife World, a small zoo just by Darling Harbour.

I've never seen Koalas before so was very excited to see them. We saw loads of cute Aussie wildlife: wombats, kangaroos, birds, and the Koalas! Also some not so cute reptiles and spiders - good to know what to look out for!

Sleepy koala!

Bondi again!

I went over to Bondi again, this time it was sunny and I really fell in love with it. The sea was such an amazing colour and everyone seemed really relaxed.


So we thought we'd try to look for places to live around here. The commute would be about 35 minutes into Central and another 10 minutes for Adam to get to Pyrmont. So not too bad...

We went back on Saturday for the official 'inspections'. This was pretty crazy. You get 20 to 30 people all turning up at the same time, there's just not enough property available at the moment. Bit annoying as London was completely the other way round when we were trying to rent out our place! You have to be there ready to make a decision on the spot and be the first to get to the agent with all the forms filled out, references, proof of previous addresses, identification and a deposit. Most of them will have gone by Monday morning.

We were ready to do all of that but unfortunately it seems you pay a big premium for the beach. We were looking at properties higher than our initial budget, but none of them were all that great. And hardly any had air con, which I think we really need for the summer.

We went over to see some friends in Mosman Saturday evening, had a lovely time with them and fantastic barbeque! They told us where the shops and things are in Mosman, so we like the idea of that a bit more now. Might have a look at that area again instead.

Paddington terraces

On Sunday we went to have a look at the Paddington area which is just east of the CBD.

Really beautiful little victorian terraces with wrought iron balconies there. There is quite a good atmosphere with lots of small cafes and bigger shops along Oxford Street.



Also it's right next to Centennial Park which is massive and has lots of big ponds and lakes. Would be good for running. Saw some black swans - maybe they have migrated from Dawlish Warren?!


We liked the area, but I went back on Monday to have a look inside some of the properties available, and for what we can afford we can only get quite a small place. So I think we'll continue having a look at some other areas.

Mosman coast walk

We went over to Mosman on Saturday to have a look at the area for a place to live and to do the walk along the coast.

We took the ferry to Cremorne and walked about 6 miles around the coast of Mosman to Balmoral Beach. It took us quite a while though as we were wearing flipflops and the paths were quite rugged and steep in some places.


Really lovely area, the houses all over looking the small habours and beach coves, and the birds make it sound like you're in a tropical aviary! In some parts it even looked a bit like rainforest.


I think it would be a lovely area to live, very peaceful, although I'm not sure if the commute might take a bit long.

Birds and bats in botanic gardens

I decided to take a break from the job applications yesterday and took a walk to the Botanic Gardens near the harbour.

It was lovely, really beautiful flowers and great place to take lunch if you're working in the city I imagine.
One thing that surprised me was the strange noises I started to hear - looking up I realised there were hundreds of bats above me! Loads of them everywhere! Really bizarre. Apparently the thing to do is to go around sunset and you see them all flying up.


Also a strange site was flocks of big cockatoos, very friendly, they came right up to my feet looking for food I think. I liked this one who was trying to drink from the water fountain, I considered turning it on for him but thought I might get a finger taken!


Looks like a great place to run too, hundreds of runners out from the offices at lunch time and have a great view of the opera house and harbour bridge.

Australian government officials are lovely!

I am very impressed.

Just went to the immigration office (26 Lee Street) to get the visa stamp put into my passport.

After experiences in the US I was expecting a 2 hour wait, gruelling interview, and moody officials. But no, I was served by a jolly lady who did it all in 5 minutes, without feeling it necessary to be behind bullet proof glass either. It would have taken 2 minutes, but she wanted to finish watching the results of the Melbourne Cup race on the big screen TV.

Relocation company

Hurrah, we have free internet! Well, Crown relocation company is paying for it now, rather than us paying $15 a day (rip off!).

Would recomment Crown Relocations, it's all gone really smoothly and they sent us a nice welcome pack with guidebooks and sunscreen too (easily impressed!). Probably it costs a lot, but that is where relocating with Adam's work helps!

Our flat

Here's a quick pic of our temporary appartment.


It is pretty small, but very central. Can't wait to move into somewhere with an outside area for a barbie!

Glorious sun!

Ah, today I really loved Sydney. At the weekend I thought it was good, but today the skies are sunny and it is 28 degrees! This is what I'm here for!

Poor Adam has gone to work so I won't go on about it too much ;-) but it is great!


Had a walk down to Tumbalong Park, which is not far from where we are, then came back for meeting with recruitment agent. Fingers crossed for interview tomorrow!

The 'gym' in the hotel is actually just a bike and a treadmill, and a 5 metre pool, but shouldn't moan - it is free. Hopefully some cycling every morning will help out the knees, not sure I could run outside any way in this heat!

Bondi beaches

Continuing our weekend tour, on Sunday we decided to head over to Bondi. It took a bit longer than I thought on a train and a bus from the CBD, I'm not sure I would want to commute that far.

The beach was really lovely, and apparently good surfing waves! We did a beautiful walk along the coast from Bondi to Coogee beach, stopping at Clovelly beach for a good lunch of john dory and chips. Clovelly has good scuba diving, might have to try it out sometime.

Bondi walk

Coogee beach
It was quite cloudy but still pretty warm, I know understand how strong this sun is, since we got a bit sun burnt even through the cloud! Factor 30 everyday from now on!

We went up to Newtown afterwards. I think it is the 'shoreditch' type trendy area. Doesn't look too great but has all the cool bars. I'm not sure I'd want to live that central but will definitely be fun to go out!

Still undecided on where to live. I think I prefer Manly at the moment, but yet to see Mosman and a few other areas Adam has in mind...

First day!

After getting to our new little apartment in Darling Harbour decided it was best to just keep going through to try to get over the jet lag asap. So went out to get my first real view of sydney!


As Bill Bryson says, having travelled so far, your mind almost expects to see the exotic. People riding camels, strange lettering, that sort of thing. But Sydney just seems so western, that it could be a european or north american city easily! Have to keep reminding myself that we are really in Asia!

We had a nice brunch on the waterfront at Darling Harbour (Carl what was the place called that you worked in?!), then got a day pass for transport so we could start to investigate where to live. this site has been really helpful for good reviews of local areas. We saw balmain first, which is quite suburban with lovely architecture - all balconies and cute little terraces.

Then we went over to Manly. Really liked the beach, it reminded me of Paignton in a funny way! Think maybe if the commute is not so bad it could be great to live by the beach!


Big cliche but the people in Sydney really do seem so friendly, from the chatty passport control guard, and the people helping us out with directions, to the young father and son who came over to offer us a look at the hole young Joey had dug on Manly beach. Apparently Joey was digging through to China, I suggested he could help us out and dig through to England instead, but apparently that was just silly.

Had some great news - we finally have tenants! We had been working so hard on the bathroom right up to 1pm on the day we were travelling (various disasters with putting up the shower rail!) so it was so great to hear that somebody finally wants our flat, not to mention the financial reasssurance.

Only thing left to do now is to find myself a job! I've been using Seek to look for jobs. Despite the economy issues there still seems to be a few josb out there. I have meetings with recruitment agencies on Monday and Wednesday, and a phone interview with a Ticketek - a company similar to ticketmaster in the UK, on Tuesday.

Going to head over to Bondi today, hopefully the sun will come out, it's been quite warm but not really sunny yet - although it is spring...

The Flight

So the first mistake was taking excess baggage weight - I thought it would maybe cost around #50, I was very wrong - more like #300! Not much we could do though, since we're without our shipped stuff for 2 months, and needed stuff for UK winter and Aus summer, it was always going to be a lot of weight.

Apart from that, we said goodbye to Adam's Mum and Dad and sister Sam (thanks so much for the lift and for coming to see us off), which was really sad, and then went on to board.

Have decided virgin is the way to fly, we were only in economy but somehow seemed much nicer than BA and the complimentary toothbrush/paste was much appreciated - small things can make the biggest differences!

It turned out it wasn't the new virgin direct flight after all and actually we stopped in hong kong.
Really odd landing in the morning our time ready to see the sun set over the HK mountains.

The first flight was about 11 hours, then the stop for 2 or 3, then 9 hours to Sydney. I didn't actually mind it too much as I managed to sleep OK. Only problem was that it seems to have aggrevated my bad knees. Hopefully they will recover after a proper nights sleep. IT does seem very odd to have just missed out Friday 31st altogether!