It doesn’t seem that long ago when I blogged about a dead Whale which had been washed up in Hillarys boat harbour just down the road from where we lived here in Quinns Rocks.

Back then, the carcass was in the news because it was starting to draw the unwelcome attention of a great white shark which caused the usually family friendly beach to be closed.

Less then a year later, another humpback whale (all 15 metres of it) has been washed up to shore but this time onto a beach a few hundred yards down the road from Hillarys in a placed called Sorrento. Sorrento just so happens to be the place we stayed when we did our original rekkie to Perth back in early 2006.

Whilst en-route to its final resting spot on Sorrento beach, two sharks were seen this time circling the whale’s carcass when the whale was first spotted offshore at Hillarys.

I know these things have to end up somewhere but I’m unsure what the draw is to our local beaches. Thankfully it’s not one of the whales we saw a few weeks back.

Article Popularity: 9%

One of the (more obvious I guess) reasons why I love Australia is down to the fantastic climate, to at least attempt to personify this I thought I’d chuck up a couple of photos that I took when we took our rekkie to Perth earlier this year.

Western Australia must have some of the best sunsets in the world, you have to be quick though as I’ve never known the sun to set so quickly anywhere. You can literally see the sun setting, slowly falling under the line of the horizon (or the ocean on our case for this photo).

The second picture is one that I took whilst enjoying some quality family time in a park right next to the Swan River in Perth.

The thumbnail may look just like a blue blob but this is actually a pic of the sky… You’ll never realise how blue the sky can be until your sat on a nice grassy bank looking….err…skywards Click it, I know you want to.

It was a beautiful day and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky (apart from the miniscule wisps you may see in the top left of the photo)

Feel free to save these as your desktop wallpaper. Click the image (opens on a new page) Click the image again (to maximise it) and right click with your mouse.

You’ll be presented with an option to save the image as your desktop background (or similar depending on the browser you’re using).

Article Popularity: 3%

Oh well, here we are. Almost three weeks on and we’ll be leaving the beutiful country of Australia to travel back to the UK tomorrow afternoon at 4pm Aussie time.

Well probably spend our last day at Kings Park before heading back home to watch the sunset at about 7pm. Then it’ll be time to eat whats left of the food in the fridge.

We had the brother-in-law, his missus and their son over to stay from Sydney in the past week. They really enjoyed the laid back lifestyle of Western Australia although they were surprised how expensive property had become.

The view from the ‘East side’ seems to be that you can still pick up properties for £50,000.

Now although you may be able to do this in the outback the number of Immigrants moving to the west coast is slowly starting to push prices upwards.

Take Sorrento and Hillarys for example. The number of $1 Million + houses being build and sold is staggering although even for these properties, similar properties in Sydney would cost you 4 to 5 times this amount.

Having said all this, compared to the UK, what you get for your hard earned money over here is significantly better. A house of ‘mansion’ proportions could still be yours for under £200,000 if you had this sort of cash to hand.

I think we’ve made the best of our time here in WA. We’ve got a really good feel for the different suburbs, we’ve identified a school for our son. We’ve got a good feel for house prices and what we’ll get for our cash. From a work perspective I’ve also met with a number of recruiters who’ll I’ll continue to keep contact with when I get back to the UK.

I’ve also taken hundreds of picks which I’ll upload to the site when we get back later in the week.

For now, more updates when we get back to the UK. Just a short 20 hour flight and we’ll be back in Blighty. Oh joy!

I’ve added some pictures of some of the houses we visited so check out this post titled – What will you get for £150k in Australia for more info.

Article Popularity: 3%

Ok, blatant sweeping statement but the jet lag over the last couple of days has meant I’ve had insight into the world of the folks who wake up and get going before 8am. Well actually. Lets go for 5am!

Over here in Perth its just starting to get nice and light at 5am and renting a house which looks out onto the main strip of Sorrento beach, its amazing the numbers of people having a quick run or ‘power walk’ prior to a starting work.

Were talking between 5 and 6am here! Yesterday was the most impressive. We were woken, just before 6 to the words.

“Right guys, are you ready….3….2…..1…..go!”

Wiping the sleep out of my eyes I looked out of the window to see a group of approx 20 people, skipping, running on the spot and throwing medicine balls at each other whilst the personal trainer walked back and forth barking out the next motivational order. Read the full story

Article Popularity: 2%

Well g’day from down under

I was hoping that I may still be able to post small updates and it looks like, due to the wonders of technology I can.

Well, actually, thanks to the wonders of smartphone technology.. For anyone remotely interested. I’m currently using my SPV M2000 to post updates to getting down under (google SPV M2000 for more info).

I had roaming activated on the phone so I’ll be posting via the Vodafone Australia network. I wasn’t sure if the roaming had been activated in time as I never got the SIM update I was promised but thankfully it appears to have worked.

Not sure how much the GPRS roaming costs will be but the posts won’t be that big since using the small thumb keypad on the m2000 isn’t particularly conjusive to typing massive entries.

Anyway, here I am in Sorrento Perth. Its 6:50 am which is a whole 2 hours later then it was when I woke up yesterday morning. Jet lag is a curious thing but I slowly appear to be getting over it.

Staying at the London Heathrow Hilton was an interesting experience. Nice hotel but damn, very expensive. The plan was to use the Hilton to reduce the stress of rushing to the airport first thing in the morning. The hotel links directly to terminal 4 at Heathrow airport so you can stroll over from your room, check in and then stroll back to your hotel room to relax until about an hour before departure where you can then wonder on back to your departure gate for your flight.

Only problem was, Singapore Airlines departs from Terminal 3 at Heathrow airport. Doh!

So, one train ride to terminal 3, a taxi back to the hotel to check out and a second train ride back to terminal 3 later, we were checked in.

Then we had to wait 45 minutes to get through security (due to some increased security checks…cue increased stress levels) culminating in a 1 mile run to the gate (literally).

The gate was displayed as ‘closing’ as we made our final dash and we could only run so fast due the the limited sprinting abilities of our 3 year old little boy. .

It reminded me a little of an old TV program that I used to watch called ‘treasure hunt’ presented by Anika Rice (spelling!) where she had a set amount of time to find clues which she would do before shouting ‘stop the clock, stop the clock!’ But we made it, and theres nothing like getting yourself, hot, bothered and sweaty in preperation for a 17 hour plane journey!

The flight itself was excellent. We have flown with Singapore Airlines 6 times now and I would highly recommend them. The inflight entertainment is excellent although with a three year old to look after, we didn’t see that much of it.

The flight time was a little shorter then I was expecting. Just over 12 hours from London to Singapore and then 5 hours flat from Singapore to Perth. It’s longer by about 2 and a half hours on the return (something to due with jet streams apparently).Our little boy slept for approx 4 hours of the first leg and 2 hours of the second which really helped us with the flight. Last year when he was just over 2 he didn’t sleep at all! Saying that, neither myself or the missus slept this time, however, reduced inflight stress made this flight a much better one and we were both really proud of how well our little boy did this time around

So, we’ve landing in Perth, go though immigration and get our visa’s stamped. Two years of blood sweat and tears and we’ve made it. We are now officially Australian Residents!!

I actually thought our Visa’s (the sticker they insert in your passport) would be stamped. However the lady in immigration just stamped our passports as normal.

She explained it’s the date on the stamp which is this important thing. The paper Perminant residency Visa is the Actual Visa but the date on the stamp in our passports validates the visa as it was dated within 12 months of issue.

We now have a further 5 years to settle perminantly in Australia although we know it will be much sooner.

So, the perminant residents pick up the hire car from Hertz and drive the 45 minutes north from Perth Airport to the beautiful town of Sorrento.

The drive was great and we were thankful for the aircon. It was 32 degrees C when we arrive at 2:30pm but who’s complaining. After the miserable weather we’e had in the UK of late it was a seriouisly refreshing change.

The layout of the highway network in and around Perth seems really well organised and pretty logical, almost modular. With my co-driver/primary navigator at the side of me, it wasn’t long before we came over the brow of a hill and caught our first glimpse of the Indian Ocean and Hillarys boat harbor…Stunning!

Off to the estate agents to pick up the keys for the house were renting here in Sorrento. Get to the houe (nice!) drop the bags off, back in the car again to find a shop for some grub (it was getting near dinner time) and some wine of course! Back to the house and time to finally sit down and relax.

First impressions of Sorrento? Fantastic. Compared to the East Coast of Australia Sorrento seems so much more chilled out. Lots of people chatting and walking along the beaches. There are mainly residential areas lining the beaches in Sorrento. Dee Why beach near Sydney where we stayed last year by comparison seemed alot more commercial. More cafes and shops.

I know there will be places more like Dee Why in Western Australia to, but for the time being I’m liking what I’m seeing.

Time to check out now, typing on this small ‘thumb board’ is going to leave my thumbs permanently deformed if I’m not careful. However I’ll post further updates as our Aussie adventure continues.

Small sidenote: My roaming charges came to over £100! Next time I’ll get an Australian SIM card

Article Popularity: 3%