This has been our second Australia Day since moving down under and I have to say I really wanted to get to see the Lotterywest Skyworks this year.

Last year we were in North Perth and although we got a half decent view we were on the city side as opposed to the River side so only managed to get the views from behind the Bankwest Tower (the triangular shaped building in this picture (click thumbnail for a bigger picture).

Apparently the 2008 Lotterywest Skyworks were a massive success again this year although we decided in the end not to make the journey into the CBD.

Traveling into the CBD to see a firework show which doesn’t start until 9pm with a 5 year old, 5 month old and 500,000 other folks trying to leave the CBD at the same time didn’t sound like to much fun so we decided to give it a miss.

Maybe next year

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 It’s been a little while since my Bunnings Warehouse post but I’ve been pretty busy of late :-/

My folks have been over from the UK for the last couple of weeks and it’s been really good to catch up with them after not seeing them now for well over a year.

I have really missed my folks but as our regular readers will probably know it’s been a damn busy year. Time literally has flown by in the last twelve months or so. Still it’s really nice for them to visit us here in our new home.

Living in Australia you’ll always have people that want to visit. It’s actually pretty amazing how many ‘friends’ creep out of the woodwork when you migrate down under. Continue Reading

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Bunnings Warehouse may be a name which will not ring many bells with folks living outside of Australia but be rest assured anyone (OK, any Bloke) who likes a good poke around their local DIY store will soon come to love their local Bunnings!

Bunnings is a pretty big part of DIY life down under and is the southern hemisphere’s largest hardware chain store, with more than 249 (155 Warehouse, 65 smaller format stores at time of typing) all over Australia and New Zealand.

On average a new store is opened every three months and it’s probably mad people like me spending stupid amounts of cash on stuff I don’t really need that’s helping this aggressive rate of growth.

These guys have a slogan; “Lowest prices are just the beginning” and they aren’t half wrong.

When you multiply lots of ‘lowest priced’ items you start seeing some big big bills!

You see Bunnings is one of those stores that you can’t help spend to much money in.

Every time I go there, even with the best intentions in the world I tend to come out with tons of stuff I had no intention of buying in the first place! :-/ Continue Reading

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BBC’s wanted down under seems to be drawing in the crowds to getting down under as of late.

I actually remembered that last year when the first series was on the TV our visitor volumes spiked as people jumped onto the web to find a little more information about the show.

This last week its been a little crazy, within two days of the first show airing on TV we’ve been seeing over 2000 unique visitors to the site every day with ‘wanted down under’ and ‘wanted down under BBC’ being the main search terms used to find our site

With this kind of interest I’m still slightly bemused by the fact that the BBC chooses to air the show at such a daft time.   9am in the morning when most people are at work isn’t the best time to show a program like this and I really hope the folks at the BEEB are receiving similar kinda feedback.

If your found us looking for info on the show then make sure you say hi

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Hi Guys

Just a note to wish you all a happy and prosperous new year.

I’m sure 2008 is going to be a very exciting year for many of our regular readers as you take your own journeys down under so I wish you the very best for your endeavours.

Drink wisely, eat lots and have a great time!

Cheers

Mark and the Clan

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The BBC’s extremely popular Wanted Down Under program makes a return on the 2nd January 2008 at 9:15am.

Nadia Sawalha presents the second in the series in which British families are given a look at life down under.

Wanted Down Under will be showing every day from the 2nd to the 11th of January on BBC1

I’m unsure why the beeb has decided to show such a popular program at a time when most folks are at work but it’s still good to see so much interest being shown in a new life down under.

The first in the series covers the Treanor family from Paisley who are facing the daunting decision of whether to emigrate to New Zealand.

While parents David and Yennifer yearn for an easier life and more time with the kids, teenager Caitlin must be persuaded to leave her real dad behind. Continue Reading

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It’s been a while since I’ve written a decent sized blog entry so I thought I’d spend a little time writing this one.

It was the 25 November 2006 when we landed in Australia and over one year on we still call this place down under home.

Although I’ve written a lot about life in Australia during the past year I didn’t think I would be right to give an ‘informed’ view about living here in Oz until I had at least got a full year under our belt.

We still have so much to learn about this country, its culture and its people. After all, although I’ve travelled to all the Aussie states on business in the last 12 months, we decided to call Perth our home and the majority of our Aussie experiences are based on our time here in Western Australia.

Having said all that and in no particular order. Continue Reading

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Hi Guys

I Just thought I’d take a second to wish you all the very best for Christmas.

Its our second Christmas here in Australia and it’s forecast to be a chilly 38 degrees Celsius today and an even more shivery 40 degrees C tomorrow

We’ve got a pretty lazy day planned. Now we have our own place it’ll be nice to take a break with the family and do a whole lot of…well nothing.

OK, well, I’ll get chance to do nothing once I’ve finished putting the trampoline that we bought junior for Christmas together. I thought the barbecue came in a big box.

Speaking of barbecues, we’re going to cook the turkey on the barbie today. Could prove to be an interesting exercise but hey, how difficult can it be

Take it easy folks and working on the basis I don’t give myself a nasty bout of food poisoning then I hope to be back with you very soon

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I can’t believe that it’s been one year today since we first set foot on Aussie soil.

It only seems like two minutes since we were saying our goodbyes and leaving the UK.

So much has gone on in the last twelve months. We’ve struggled to find rental accommodation, we’ve bought a car for the missus and for me, we’ve had a beautiful baby girl and we’ve bought a house!

To say the last 12 months has been busy would be an understatement but what a fantastic and exciting 12 months it has been.

I really can’t even begin to explain how at home we now feel here in Australia.

Anyways; I’m going to write a more substantial Blog entry about the good and bad of living in Australia in the coming weeks.

Now we’ve been here 12 months I recon we’ve all learnt quite a bit about living here in Aus although the next entry will need to wait for another day as I’m away in Sydney on business all next week and I need to pack Continue Reading

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Chemistry never was one of my strongest subjects at school and since buying our new house I’ve not got to involved with our new swimming pool other then poking a stick in the water or getting to grips with the ‘creepy crawly’, pool vac thing!

The pool is still pretty new, being installed only 6 months ago and if I’m being honest the folks who installed it did a really good job.

It’s just over 8 meters long by 4 meters wide, its not massive by any stretch of the imagination but is still big enough to have a decent wallow. Something we’ll probably be doing over the next few days as the temperatures are forecast to hit the high thirties.

It’s starts at 1 meter deep in the shallow end down to about 2 meters deep in the deep end. Theres also a safety ledge around the whole of the pool so Junior has somewhere to stand if he gets a little to tired from practicing his swimming.

Thankfully, after just over a dozen lessons Junior can now swim although the fence and gate around the pool keeps the water out of bounds unless mum or dad are around to supervise. Continue Reading

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At the beginning of September I mentioned how gorgeous the local beach was near our new house.

I also spoke about how the Indian Ocean was starting to turn that really nice turquoise blue colour.

I’m not sure why the colour seems to change. It may be the calmer oceans or the difference in the angle of the sun or some other strange thing going on but hey, who cares?

Driving back home yesterday I went the coast route and what I saw took my breath away. I literally had to get out of my car and take a picture to show you guys as trying to describe the scene just wouldn’t have cut the mustard.

The sea was stunning, it wasn’t just going a nice turquoise blue colour, it was almost green! Continue Reading

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A friend of mine in the UK sent me this joke and as its been a little while since I last posted a funny at GDU, I thought I’d share this one with you.

The story goes that these were posted on an Australian Tourism Website and the answers are the actual responses by the website officials, who obviously have a sense of humor.

Somehow I think this is kinda unlikely, still, if the Aussie tourism officials could give these kind of answers whilst getting away with it I’m sure they would.

Apologies in advance to our American readers

Q: Does it ever get windy in Australia? I have never seen it rain on TV, how do the plants grow? (UK).
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die.

Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? (USA)
A: Depends how much you’ve been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from Perth to Sydney – can I follow the railroad tracks? (Sweden)
A: Sure, it’s only three thousand miles, take lots of water.

Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Australia? (Sweden)
A: So it’s true what they say about Swedes.

Q: Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in Australia? Can you send me a list of them in Brisbane, Cairns, Townsville and Hervey Bay? (UK)
A: What did your last slave die of? Continue Reading

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Jeeze, what an absolutely knackering weekend! We’ve finally moved into our new house after what seems like a lifetime of packing and preparation.

All of our boxes which we packed up in the UK are now sat in the garage waiting to be unpacked.

Despite this, it’s amazing how much crap we we’ve managed to collect in less then a year living down under.

Although its nothing like it was back in the UK, I think we’ll need to do a bit of a sort out whilst finding a perminant home for all of our stuff.

We’ve got most of the jobs done to our house that we wanted to get done before moving in. A monitored burglar alarm was fitted last weekend and the refrigerated reverse cycle ducted air conditioning went in on Thursday, something that will really make a difference as temperatures continue to rise. Continue Reading

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Yay! Well, I’m writing this Blog entry from our new house.

We got Broadband installed this weekend so we finally have a decent Internet connection.

For the techs amongst you I’m currently getting download speeds of just under 10 megabits per second.

Even by UK standards thats incredibly fast (we had a 2 megabit connection back home) and may be due to the fact that the ISP I’m using here in Australia has a pretty extensive ADSL2 network.

ADS2 What?

Oh, its very technical… OK, it’s not really Here’s a half decent definition that I found on my ISP’s website: Continue Reading

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Springtime in Perth brings with it many great things. Beautiful spring flowers in the park, cleaner homes and warmer weather.

Unfortunately it also brings with it Flies; and lots of them.

Apparently there are millions of flies that hang out in the deserts during the cooler winter months, then as the temperatures begin to increase and the little buggers start to feel a little hot under the collar they fly west towards the coast where it’s cooler.

Unfortunately, the coast is also where 98% of the Western Australia population live, including me.

These little critters aren’t the type that just land on your bread roll whilst eating out at a restaurant either. Flying 100’s of miles from the desert to the coast is obviously thirsty work as most seem to be moisture seekers.

This means they make a beeline for places such as the inside of your ear, your mouth, nostrils, or eyes. This obviously gets a tad annoying after a while.

If they land on your leg or hand they’ll happily just stand there for minutes on end rubbing their front legs together like some manic chef sharpening his calving knives before cutting into a big joint of meat. Continue Reading

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OK, perhaps just pleasantly warm then!

Hmmm, sunshine. Probably one of the main attractions for many and one of the reasons why we choose Perth; officially the sunniest city in the world to be our home.

Speaking to some friends in the UK last night it was pretty wet and foggy. Late October is never a good time of year back in the UK but down under in Perth we are starting to venture into Spring and the weather is just starting to warm up.

Today we should be seeing temperatures touching just over 80F for the first time in a couple of months so I’m off out for some lunch now to enjoy the rays for a little while.

Remember, you can have a little look at the current weather in Perth by checking out ‘Shiela’ the weather chick on the bottom right of every page.

Having said that, if your reading this from somewhere else in the world there’s a good chance that it’ll be dark – Bugger!

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