The End of Days

Well having returned from a fantastic trip to Chicago Liz and I set about uprooting our life to the other side of the world as I accepted a job from my UK employer, Canon, to move to Australia.

The last few weeks were spent in a blur of parties, goodbyes, packing and selling off anything we weren't packing. Constantly saying goodbye to all our wonderful friends made us feel very lucky and not a little unsure if we were doing the right thing but we both love an adventure and this was too good an opportunity to miss.

So having finally let out our loved Corner Cottage and said our goodbyes to our wonderful neighbours Rog, Sarah and Josh, we were winging our way on Singapore Airways and could, for the first time in many weeks, relax completely knowing nothing we could do now would change anything for the next 24 hours.

Arrival in Sydney was a shock, literally, it was 41 degrees and we just holed up in our hotel room with the aircon on trying to stave of a desperate desire to sleep. It took 4 days to get over the jet lag properly and roughly 4 weeks to get some kind of bodily acclimatisation sorted.


Work has been an interesting experience, it’s actually almost exactly like the UK in every way except people go home at 5pm and actually do stuff rather than working til late, eating dinner and flopping, exhausted, into bed. The main difference though, and the reason we came, is the ease with which you can find yourself enjoying any number of outdoors activities. So far we’ve been sea kayaking which we could get to love, hiking through the coastal trails, boogie boarding, bbq’uing and generally hanging out on the beach with all the associated sunburn us Brits manage to catch.

It’s also interesting to note that our xmas party was an extremely lavish affair taking place in the Grand Ballroom of Sydney’s Star City Casino with free champers and grub all night and a twirl from a much loved Aussie crooner and one time Australian idol judge, Marsha Hynes – think Cheryl Cole’s significantly less attractive grandmother who can actually sing. The point being that it’s absolutely like the Aussies not to let a Global Economic Crisis get in the way of a good p*ss up!

The other significant event to happen to us has been New Years Eve which is a huge deal here. We headed down to a less touristy vantage spot and were rewarded with a spectacular view of the fireworks over the harbour bridge. It was a great night and I’ve attached a short vid which simply fails to do it justice.

In a week’s time on the 9th Jan we move out of hotel room and into our new apartment. Neither of us can wait as living in a hotel is fun for a weekend but after 6 weeks the novelty has worn a touch thin – that and the fact that our apartment has the most incredible views over the harbour as well as a lovely guest room for all our friends WHO ARE COMING TO VISIT!