One Month On...

When we arrived in Australia about a month ago we didn’t have long to overcome our jet lag and see the sights before we had to take care of the domestic tasks associated with moving to another country, like opening up a bank account, getting a medicare card, acquiring a tax code number, not to mention finding a place that isn’t stacked to the rafters with Brits on bunk beds all grinning ear-to-ear through their collective misery. Add to that our preference for a house within walking distance of the city and the whole enterprise looked a little shaky.

But one month on and the plan seems to be unfolding well. We have both since ‘discovered’ the downside to a working holiday is that you have to... well, work. We’ve moved into a house with enough room to swing a cat, or at least manoeuvre a couple of heavily overloaded backpacks. We’re living within close walking distance of George Street, Australia’s premiere and busiest high street - like Oxford Street but crisscrossed with tram lines for an added element of danger. Chinatown is also just around the corner, it's entrance marked out with a gold-gilded tree stump believed to bring good fortune to the Chinese community. Although for us, having frequently visited it’s unbelievably cheap food court in our first week the only thing the sight of the golden tree-stump brings us are raging hunger pangs the likes of which Pavlov could barely have imagined. A further 15-minutes up George Street is Town Hall, a popular meeting place next to two other imposing Victorian buildings: the QVB and St Andrews Cathedral, all now flanked either side by skyscrapers. By local standards these are old buildings celebrated the way Roman or Neolithic monuments might be in the UK.

Between sightseeing and making our way through that list of domestic tasks we’ve had little time to commit to the really important things, namely surfing. But this Saturday will mark our re-emergence on the seafront scene. Surfboards in hand (well, dragging behind in tow) we’ll be taking our skills to either Bondi or Manly beach. Either way Sydney is about to witness something very special... or at least their emergency rescue patrol will.