The First Six Weeks

Hi folks.

Well six weeks have now passed since we first put our feet onto Australian soil. My how time has flown and it seems like just the other day we first touched down in Sydney before taking the connection across to Adelaide.

Apologies for getting an update placed sooner but it has been rather hectic. We spent the first three weeks in a local hotel (motor inn) while Karin did the big search for a suitable house. There is quite a bit on the market but being two very fussy old fogies it took some serious searching to find a place which we feel could live in and within which our two furry children would be happy. With the two “children” being boarded time was also quite important and we found a place with the planned three weeks. It is a nice little 3 bedroom with the sea 500m down the road and a comfortable 20 minute walk to site.

No walking at the moment as the mornings remain a bit nippy; although the days are giving us some brilliant sunshine and the most fantastic blue skies, but once the ‘real’ sunshine starts I can see that happening. Although with a seven o'clock start on site it would mean getting up that bit earlier, so perhaps it is going to end up with just the walk home and the local taxi service (Karin) will take me to work in the morning.

It is probably a bit early to make any real comments about living in Australia and we still have to make up our minds about what suits us. We have 2 major supermarket chains close being Coles and Woolworths. As per the rest of the world one does get the feeling the Woolworths is that touch more pricey although trolley for trolley the prices are probably the same and it really boils down to where you prefer to shop. For the last while we have been going to Coles in the Collonnades shopping centre which actually has both. The Collonnades is about twice the size of the Albany Mall and is quite hike around it. We did it one our first Saturday outing and it took about 2 hours to get from one end to the other and no we were not doing shoe shopping en-route.

Australia most definitely it not as green as NZ and it is taking some getting used to. Also the variety of scenery along a motorway is not quite what one is used to, although that said it does remind me a lot of Africa, just a lot cleaner, in that one minute you will be travelling some very well maintained sidewalks and next thing you will have the natural vegetation growing right up to the side of the road. I think of it as a countryside in the making and there is still some time to go.

Roads otherwise are fantastic and the arterials around the city are just that; arterials. You will not find a traffic light every 100m and traffic flows along at the post speed and you must be very careful if you are not doing the posted speed as this will get you some nasty looks. But that does making travelling into Adelaide an absolute pleasure and even though we are some 27 kilometres from the city centre it only takes about 40 minutes and the other night coming back from Ikea; which is near the airport, I timed my travelling beautifully and only had to stop once the whole way.

The furniture arrived after 4 weeks as promised and cleared through Bio-diversity quite smoothly except for a refurbished table which they considered had wood borer; I think that the kid that did the inspection wood not recognise a wood borer if it bit him in the backside. But you cannot fight bureaucracy and the cost of having it treated was about four times it value so that was just a right off. They did open every single box which was labelled garage, tools, garden, shoes and wood. So it very much depends on the packers as to how they label things as some wooden items came through easily simply because they were within boxes labels kitchen. Does make one think though! Anyway it all went well and even though we did receive some rubbish advice on what one could bring in, we could have brought a lot mores tuff across, it had all found a home somewhere. Although one or two items still need to be made and thankfully Adelaide has an Ikea so some of it has been quite easy. Why don’t people build houses with built in cupboards? We all need them.

On the job front all is going well and I have now got my feet properly settled in under the desk and have a mental picture of the project from north to south, and next time I will tell you a bit more about that and also about our 2 trips out. For obvious reasons, like moving; we have not yet done that much sightseeing.

Until a next time, take care.

Pictures in order;
1) The Beach at Port Noarlunga South. Estuary for the Onkaparinga River and close to where we live and the view we had from the hotel.
2) Our local beach which is just a 5 minute walk away
3) Beach at Glenelg which is a lovely little shopping precinct close to Adelaide CBD and it is famous for its Tram line down the main street.