I think I am finally getting the hang of things here. I now know that Woolworths is a huge supermarket chain, Burger King is Hungry Jacks, sweets are lollies, crisps are chips, chips are hot chips, sausages are snags, rugby is football and football is soccer.
One thing that was a very pleasant surprise was just how green everything is. Australia is the country that makes up most of the continent with the least trees in the world but you would not believe it if you came here. Admittedly there is the huge middle bit with hardly any but the edges are full of them and they are massive, even Ian had forgotten how big they are.
The other delightful discovery is that so many of the trees flower and there is something in full bloom all of the time. When we arrived the jacarandas were in flower so there were gorgeous purple trees everywhere, in Sydney there are some residential streets where jacarandas are the trees planted along the roadside so the whole street is lined with purple.
My absolute favourites (so far, something else might spring in to life next week) are the frangipanis in the first picture, as far as I can tell they flower all the time. Not many of the trees are deciduous either so there is no really grim period with just bare branches, although that must mean no excitement when the first buds appear.