The Adventure Begins

We set off from Heathrow on 19th November for the 12 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur where we had arranged to spend a few days with Zoe and Shaun. We were very excited as we had not seen Zoe since January.
 Spent a very comfortable three days in the Aloft Hotel which we booked through Trailfinders along with the flights. It was as cheap to fly Malaysian Airlines with the price of the hotel stay included as it was to fly with another airline with no hotel, this was because Malaysian Airlines had lost two planes in tragic circumstance in the past year through no fault of their own and people were avoiding them.
 As we were right opposite KL Sentral station and Zoe and Shaun's  hotel was a five minute walk away, we went everywhere using the cheap and highly efficient trains and monorail.
Kuala Lumpur is a fabulous city with a fascinating mix of Malay, Chinese and Indian cultures. We visited Batu Caves, a huge collection of Hindu Temples, the Petronas Towers, KL Tower, where Ian and Shaun bravely went out onto the open viewing deck while Zoe stayed with her cowardly mother.
After all this culture we decided to have a bit of fun and went to an adventure centre called Breakout. We were locked in a room and handcuffed to a bench where we had to solve clues to release ourselves and save the world from enemy spies.
We ate in Bukit Bintang each evening which is a fun area full of lively restaurants and pubs and definitely the best place to go for a decent choice of eateries. A rat scampered over Shaun's foot as we were eating but these things all add to the cultural experience!

 We arrived in Sydney on 23rd November and stayed for 3 nights in the Mercure Hotel, Kings Cross. It wasn't great but the location was perfect for getting around to do all the things we needed to like sorting out bank accounts and buying a car.
Before we left the UK we opened migrant bank accounts with The Commonwealth Bank. This was a sound thing to do as it is very difficult to establish your identity in a new country, without these accounts already in place we would not have been able to get phones, buy a car or caravan, register the car or caravan and so on.
It was still very difficult to do most of these things but the bank accounts really helped.
An important tip for anyone planning to emigrate is ....make sure you have an address, we didn't and, if it hadn't been for a dear friend in Sydney allowing us to use his home as a postal address we would have really been struggling.
I wanted to do some sight seeing in Sydney but there was not enough time but we did get to Bondi, Darling Harbour and Circular Quay so the rest can wait until we are settled.
Off we went to Pickles Auctions and found the car, this is to be recommended if you want a utility vehicle, they are mostly ex government owned and it is quite straightforward buying one.

So we bought a tent and a couple of chairs and moved up to Port Stephens where we thought we would like to settle. After a good poke around the area we agreed it was what we were looking for and started to look at houses in Lemon Tree Passage, which is a bit quieter and on a different peninsula to Nelson Bay where all the holiday makers go. We are still within easy striking distance but do not have to live with the crowds.

Next step was to find a caravan. After looking at caravanandcampingsales.co.au for months in the UK we fully expected to have to travel a long way to find what we wanted. As soon as we looked once we had arrived, we found one only 15km from where we were staying and it was just what we were after, an off road van with comfortable living space.

Within a week of arriving we were now very much at home in our new van in the Bays Holiday Park at Anna Bay and ready to start looking at houses.
We have chosen a house and exchanged contracts on 9th December. It needs a little bit of work before we can rent it out
and we are hoping to move the caravan onto the garden before Christmas.
Still exploring the area, we went up to Tomaree Head which is one of our local national parks. We need to visit these before Monty arrives on Sunday as he is not allowed in National Parks. The views of Port Stehens are sensational from up there although we are still trying to work out which bit is which.

Finally picked up Monty from his quarantine on Sunday 14th December. We set off on Friday and drove as far as Albury where we booked into a motel for the night, then pressed on to Melbourne. Once we had found the quarantine station we drove to the nearest campsite and set up our tent for the night in Werribee, a very pretty resort where people go for sea fishing trips. It was a bit like Norfolk with cabbage farms all around and it was rather rough but we had fun watching the boats come back and there was a fabulous sunset.
Got up early and went to collect Monty who was very excited to see us but seems none the worse for his experience, then did the long drive back in one go. Luckily it wasn't a day later as Sydney was in turmoil the next day with the terrible siege at the Lindt Cafe and it would have been very difficult to get through.

Australia has been very shaken by the siege, unfortunately we are rather more used to experiencing events like this in the UK and take them in our stride a bit more. You do get a real sense of being in a safer place here.

Back to everyday stuff. We have had a frustrating few days waiting for our house purchase to go through, everyone has to wait for the vendors bank to find the time to receive the money which will pay off the vendors mortgage(?) It all has to be done using cheques too, I can't believe what a cranky process it seems to be. We should now be set for Tuesday afternoon. We are buying this house purely as a rental to give us an income but it needs a bit of work so we will live in the caravan there while we are sprucing it up.

Discovered the Lemon Jam today, monthly Saturday afternoon music and bit of a boot sale on the waterfront at Lemon Tree Passage, our new home. It was pretty good and a very pleasant way to spend a Saturday. There were carols and a very sweaty Santa because it was the last one before Christmas but, once that was over, the music was pretty good.

Got the keys to house number one on 23rd December. This house is purely an investment we hope will fund our lifestyle here. We complete on the one that will eventually be our home mid January. This first house is very grubby and needs a bit of work so we are moving into the front garden and living in the caravan while we work on it.

The renovations are going well and Ian has surprised me with his carpentry skills, building a fabulous outdoor seating area. It is amazing what we are finding we can do ourselves when we don't have to fit it around work.

It has been very hot so we gave ourselves a day off and went to the Hunter Valley, which is less than an hour from here. It was a great day out and reading the history of the family wineries that started up in the 19th century was fascinating, it is impossible to imagine how tough it must have been for them.
 

As it is the holiday season there are some great things to do around here and this week there was a free cinema under the stars in Nelson Bay. So we took our chairs and trotted along to watch a film about some whales. This is a big whale watching area so the must try to find a film that will promote local business, it was a very pleasant change from all that decorating.
It was Shaun's birthday at the end of January so we set off for Melbourne to celebrate with him. It was wonderful to see Zoe and meet Shaun's family, who made us very welcome. We met at the Rochford Winery where we were booked for a Segway tour and lunch then onto a house nearby where we had a bbq in the evening and all stayed the night.
The segway tour was hilarious, we had our share of casualties but no lasting damage, lunch was excellent and we had a very pleasant weekend. The next morning Zoe was reunited with Monty after over a year, she came with us to pick him up from the kennels where he had spent the night.
We had the caravan with us so we decided to take a few days travelling back along the Princes Highway which follows the coast.
First stop was Eagle Point, the weather was not good when we arrived and it looked a bit grotty but when we got up the next morning we saw it was a beautiful spot and the campsite was a very old fashioned one with plenty of character.
After exploring we moved on along the very hilly and winding Princes Highway stopping at Oborst, a lovely old country town where many of the shops and buildings have information boards outside telling their history, filled up with fuel and coffee and carried on.
We reached Eden in the late afternoon and settled on a campsite there. Opposite us was an opal miner with his truck. He was showing anyone who was interested how he polished the opals and his wife was selling some bits made into jewellery.
Carried on through some pretty towns, Merrimbula was particularly memorable, along the Sapphire Coast and set up for the night in Huskisson. We really liked it here, there is a sand spit where you can watch people chilling in the calm bay on one side just feet from people battling the waves on the other side.
Completed the journey with a traumatic stop at IKEA in Sydney, where we managed to get the caravan into a lorry loading area, travelled all the way through the staff only areas of the shopping centre and got out again without being arrested.
We were very excited when Zoe came to visit and we were able to show her our new home town. Lemon Tree Passage did itself proud by planting a koala right in the middle of a tree where it was impossible to miss it. Zoe must think we see them that easily all the time. We walked up Tomaree Head, visited Nelson Bay and Birubi Point before she had to fly back on Sunday afternoon. Newcastle Airport is only 20 minutes from us and the flight from Melbourne was just one hour so quite straightforward for a weekend visit.