Australia: Living the dream
Australia
Email Date: 17th August 2005
Subject:
We’re back by popular demand…..
As the hours, days and months have flown by our life down under has really lived up to our expectations…
Where do we start. Well if you remember, from my last epic email, we were due to move into a flat in Randwick (Eastern Suburbs, Sydney), but the day we were due to move in the estate agent contacted us to say it had been sold! Our dream was put on hold had to book ourselves back into a traveller’s hostel in Coogee – a week flew by and as I told everyone before and during our world tour that lady V had the working visa and I had the holiday one – this dream came true!!
Anyway after a weeks worth of looking for another flat we decided Coogee was the place we’d live the dream. We wanted to be near the beach, accessible to Sydney CBD and lady V’s hospital – we’d whittled our flat choice down to a flat in Randwick which was previously lived in by an Aussie granny and all her furniture was still there (this was my favourite) or a modern flat 10 minutes stroll to the beach…..I lost.
The majority of flats are unfurnished so we had to organise this quickly. This is where Lady V
took on another craze teaming up with her infatuation of bananas – this was searching for second hand
bargains, whether it be in newspapers, advertised on gumtree.com.au or on A4 bits of paper sellotaped
to lamp-posts - there was a point when no piece of junk or second hand furniture was not unturned in the
Eastern Suburbs of New South Wales! One plus side of buying second furniture though was having to hire a
UTE (Stands for utility) to pick it up purchases – you beaudy!!! Because I had my license I was the
lucky one to drive! This brought me one step closer to being an Aussie – whilst I’ve begun to grow a
mullet (Glen Mcgrath style) I’ve begun to achieve the look but what really labels you an Alpha Aussie
is to drive a beautiful UTE!!!!.....I ripped the prized machine up and down Coogee beach front, with
stereo waked up, window down and mullet hair do blowing in the wind, you beaudy maaaaate!!!!
Within a month we’d kitted out our flat, lady V was cutting down her shift work and I’d just got off my backside and found a job working for the government at New South Wales State Library No I’m not stamping books but being an environment to be quiet I thought I’d struggle but luckily they have put me in a soundproof office! My commute is 30 minutes on a bus from outside our flat and lady V’s is a 20 minute trot so commuting is a breeze.
Sydney CBD is a cross between London’s City and West End – it has green parks and concrete squares.
Lunchtime is fantastic – work people don their pumps and power walk or trot around neighbouring parks
in and around the CBD. There’s organised football tournaments at lunchtime just outside the library,
which I watch, also nearby are the historical botanical gardens which runs to the side of Sydney opera
house and looks out at see, just as Lady Macquarie once did, waiting for Lord Macquarie to return from
his coastal explorations. We both celebrated our birthdays this year outside the UK for the first time.
As I said lady V’s was on the ‘Ise Pearl’, a Japanese Pearl Lugger whilst mine was in the Lord Nelson –
the oldest public taverner in Sydney, situated in the Rocks, alongside Sydney Harbour. The turn out
was surprisingly good. With a few cheeky beers at the state library roof bar we continued drinking the
locally brewed lager till midnight – we were battered on cloudy Aussie grog, beautiful mate! By midnight
I was in rugby tackle mode and knew if was time for home!...\
Sport over here is easily accessible and with fantastic cloudless skies day in, day out it’s rude not to be active! Moore Park is a 10 minute bus ride away and is a big outdoor park holding tennis courts, golf club, Sydney cricket ground (SCG) where Aussie rules is played and cricket and the Telstra dome where rugby league is played. Of course where there are sport grounds come bars –pre-matches these bars are rammed, full of Aussies supping on schooners of VB but of course the Brits take over and are by far the loudest!
Continuing with sport I’ve joined a tennis crew that call themselves the “Wackers” club and lady V has found a netball team called “the Phoenix” (although after four weeks of play and the team has folded just before the start of the season – lady V was happened!!??!!). The Wackers play on public courts just 10 minutes walk from our flat and every Wednesday the organiser pairs the some 60 wacker members up for doubles action over 3 hours and congress thereafter for 4 hours of solid drinking and eating Italian prepared nibbles. Every wacker has a wacker nickname; mine is Mr.Yuppie and have attached my picture card – it’s not pretty! There is a website http://www.toniccreative.com/wackers/ which goes into details about the club, commitment and picture gallery (I’m not in, yet)…
..lady V is very worried about this wacker “cult” club!
Last weekend myself, lady V and Kym ran the world’s largest organised fun run. It’s called City2Surf
and the course was a mere 14km long but Sydney believe it or not is not flat! (although according to
Trivial Pursuits Australasia is the flattest continent which I find hard to believe considering New
Zealand is pretty mountainous!). There was a hill called heartbreak hill which sounds as bad as it was –
in fact we had to walk up this…in fact we waked most of the course, it was just too hot…or maybe we were
just too dame lazy! With a sprint finish at the end alongside Bondi beach we had tickets for a marquee on
the beach! For $5 we ate bbq food and drank limitless VB listening to a live band wail Wonderwall – well
that was me wailing and that’s not whaling just ‘cause we were on a beach!! We had a fab afternoon with
“Davis Cup” (fellow wacker and friend), his wife Julie and Kym….by 5pm for some drunken reason myself and
lady V decided to walk home from Bondi to Coogee along the coast! It took us over an hour and a half to walk,
it’s fantastic scenery but crazy to do it after running 14km and eating and drinking 14km’s worth too!!!
Through lack of cash and urge to do too may activities since our over exertive travels we’ve not done a great deal but luckily through the nightly pull of Australia Big Brother (can you believe Nadia made a guest appearance last week!) and the gripping Ashes test series we’ve had every reason to stay in!!
Now with the Aussie Summer just around the corner, the ashes will be England’s, big brother will never be televised again, lady V would have bought second hand furniture to replace our existing second hand furniture, family and friends will be out here living the dream and my McGrath mullet will be fully grown – YOU LITTLE BEAUDY!!!!!!!
Bye for now,
Dougal Yuppie Down Under.
p.s I’ve attached a few photos from city2surf, our flat, coogee beach, my wackers badge