Final week in oz

With only a week to go, and my family having safely arrived in NZ, I'm now staying with my best friend in a small flat in Randwick.

It's February, so as is typical of this time of year in Sydney, the air is so thick and muggy you could drink it with a straw. The fact that I'm leaving hasn't really sunk in but I can't wait to escape this heat.

And to make it all the more unbearable I'm having to take Sydney's world class public transport system.

Sitting on the bus with my shirt stuck to my back and my Y-fronts feeling a tad disgusting it reminds me of when I first arrived here in the beginning of 1999. I took a bus across the harbour bridge to a job interview, and at the time I couldn't believe that I could be so uncomfortable in an un-airconditioned bus that must have been near on 20 years old. I had just come from India and had been on better buses there (now they have quite an impressive metro system). I actually wrote a letter to Sydney Morning Herald to voice my disbelief.

Well this morning I think I took that very same bus and it was just as full, and sticky, and horrible. And now it's 30 years old! The NSW government. Now that's something I WON'T miss!!

Meanwhile I've nearly reached work and the back of shirt is now wet, (not to mention other extremities) from the luxurious vinyl seats in the 30 year old train. Still I shouldn't complain too loud. Apparently Auckland's system is even worse.

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Location:Albert Ave,Chatswood,Australia

We're off on a scary/exciting adventure

After two children and a lot of deliberation my partner and I decided to head back to New Zealand. She has lived here for 24 years which is longer than she'd lived in NZ. I have lived here for 11 years, and overseas for 8 years before that. The longest I've lived in any country as a fully functioning adult.

Sydney has been great to us but, amongst other things, you don't get much for your money here when it comes to housing and daycare is ludicrously expensive. The other gripe for me is that the forefathers of Sydney were wise people, creating wonderful parks, foreshore and pretty choice bridges but the current account holders seem to be doing their best to run this beautiful city into the ground. They are horrendously corrupt and should be hung and quartered.

At the end of the day, though, it comes down to family and wanting my kids to know their grandparents and their cousins. So here we are packing our bags ready for the big move across the ditch.

I've never written a blog before and being a procrastinator till the end of time I hope I stick with it and I can use this as an exercise to increase my brain function and I may even get some satisfaction. Talk soon.

Packing up

Once we made the call to leave, the big question was who to trust with transporting all our precious belongings.
I went online to see if there were any review forums on international removalist companies but there was very little (one of the reasons I also wanted to write this blog). We received a quote from 5 companies and they all appeared very professional and all gave us the various reasons as to why they were so good.

In the end they all seemed similar so we chose based on price. We ended up going with Movements International who were willing to hold our container back in Sydney for four weeks, which we required. It turned out that they used Crown Removalists in Auckland which is one of the other companies we received a quote from.
The insurance is a bit of a rort. It cost us roughly $6000 to send our stuff and they wanted to charge near on half that to insure it. We chose to insure our electrical only. Mind you we had a full 20 ft container to ourselves so not much chance of goods being mixed up with other people you share a container with.

The day of the move Mick & Eva turned up. They were a lovely husband and wife team and as soon as they arrived my fears of having my precious record collection 'go missing' were layed to rest. At least at this end anyhow. I just hope they don't get cooked in the container.

It was just the two of them and they were awsome. They methodically went thru each room and converted everything we owned into brown boxes or brown paper. Kind of sad to think you're whole life can be reduced to brown paper. Perhaps if they'd used coloured paper I might feel better about it.

The next day they again arrived but this time in a truck with a 20 ft container on the back. It looked absolutely massive but by the time they'd moved everything from the house into the truck and started working on the garage stuff i wasn't sure they'd get everything in. But Mick worked his magic (I'm sure he is an expert at Tetris) and everything got squeezed in with barely enough space for a couple more boxes. Quite impressive really.

So we won't see our belongings now for another 7 weeks if all goes according to plan.

Hopefully by then we'll have a car, house and job. Fingers crossed.



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Location:Waterloo Rd,Macquarie Park,Australia