Rum & Dal

Beautiful sunny day, started off with an appointment in St Kilda.  All went ok until we left the building… the parking cost of $24 for only three hours!  You can just imagine how much it hurt the old wallet!

Anyway, moving on with the day we decided to take the rest of the day off work and take a trip to Hoppers Crossing to again look for furniture and ideas for the house.  Merrily going down the Princess Highway at 90kph in the 4th lane.  All of a sudden I realise the accelerator isn’t doing anything.  PANIC! On momnetum alone manage to get the car to the left lane but just missing the slip road by a couple of meters which would have taken me to a service station - damn! “Do we have breakdown cover?” I ask Rum.  “No” he says - damn, damn! “Who do we call?” I say. “Ghostbusters”, he says - damn, damn, damn! So we get out and go to the service station, get the number for RACV (Victoria’s Roadside Recovery), and call them up.  As we don’t have membership we are in the middle of processing this and the phone cuts out! Back to the service station to get more credit for the phone… back on the phone to RACV.  Incidentally, in the UK the first thing the RAC ask you is your mobile number, even before your name, just incase you do get cut off, they ring you back.  Now thats service!

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We did it, one whole year and what a fantastic year it has been.  Managed to get good jobs within weeks of landing made some good friends and our house is well under construction.

Yes that’s right; we have been here for one year today. The year has sailed past with no major glitches.  There have been high points and low point, but not so many of the low.  Many of you thought we would be back in six months and I bet you thought we were back for good when we turned up last Christmas, but that only encouraged us and made us stronger, we truly believe we made the right decision.  Though we miss everyone back in the UK the webcam is only a switch away.  Will we ever come back home, who knows; the adventure has only just begun.

We have been lucky enough to make some great friends, friends from Japan, Malaysia, Russia, Germany, Philippines, China, and many more; sharing their stories, culture and food.

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Its Sunday morning and Dal and I are a bit worse for wear. Well what do you expect? We went on a bender the night before. The occasion? Was there one? We just need an excuse these days. Oh yeah… we went to Kate’s birthday bash, her Hen night and Gerald’s Stag. These two love birds are getting hitched sometime soon. However the guest of honour was James, Gerald’s best friend from London. Many jokes were told, piss was taken out of others and pints went down smooth in the 35°C heat. Plenty of fun was to be had and it felt like we were home with our British/English friends and mostly the British sense of humour was on form.  Sitting in the Riverland pub on the edge of the Yaara River

Grand Prix morning, Dal and I met up with G and James, at the Transport pub at Federation Square… but where else. It’s about two in the afternoon and the sun is steaming and baking us in 41°C  this is one of those times you wish you brought a spare pair of undies. The crack of my ass was steaming.

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Took a trip to the Royal Melbourne Zoo on the weekend as it was a bank holiday and the sun was out.  In fact it was around 35°C and we were worried that the animals might not be moving around much.  How we were wrong, they were shagging and all sorts…  nah nah just kidding.  The lions were roaming; one was chomping on a piece of meat while another just continued to roar. There was a Puma that just continued to walk around in the same circle, over and over… made you dizzy just looking at him.  The monkeys were fun, one Orangutan looked like he was about to throw up over the side while the other had wet a towel, draped it over his head and was sound asleep under the burning sun.  Still haven’t seen a Koala yet, it was just too hot for the little guys I think.  The kangaroos were sitting under trees enjoying a cool drink.

Watched a young lady get over excited at the site of a peacock, she wouldn’t leave the poor thing alone, the peacock was to fast for her and she never got her photograph.  It was fun to watch her chase the peacock around the park and shouting to her friends to quickly take a picture, at least that is what I think she was shouting.  Classic photo time incident.

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Hi People, I thought I’d share our neighbourhood with you. If you click on the “view larger map” you can move around Melbourne and zoom in and out.

See how close the sporting grounds are to us. Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG)
Rod Laver Arena (Melbourne Open, Tennis and many Concerts) and Olympic Park.

Further down you’ll see Albert Park Lake this is where the Formula 1 takes place.
View Larger Map

Telstra Dome is to to the left of the city at the Docklands, this is where the big AFL games take place.  Don’t know much about AFL its a bit crap compared to football (soccer) and the ref blows his whistle every 20 seconds.

The beaches are about 20 minutes away by tram, great place to enjoy a nice cold macadamia ice cream.

Transport in the centre of Melbourne is great and you’re better off using public transport than driving. However if you love your car and can’t survive without it, like most of us then you’ll need to get yourself a licence for the state you’ll be driving in. Driving licences apply to states here and not Australia as a whole.

Currently you can drive in Victoria for a maximum of three months on your full UK driving licence. We decided to get a licence eligible for driving in Victoria for two reasons. One, we’ll need one sooner than later. Two, it’s a popular form of identification.

The government agency responsible for all motor issues within Victoria is called Vic Roads, UK’s equivalent to DVLA.  (you can get to Vic Roads via the tram, number 01 or 08 on Lygon Street)

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