It's been a while since we've posted anything as we've just been settling into life in Syndey.
We're currently staying with our mates Steve & Alex in a two bedroom flat in Queenscliff, which is just north of Manly beach, Syndey. Arriving in the Sydney winter was a bit of a shock after 7 months in Asia. Although tempertures of 16 degrees are quite mellow by UK standards we'd long ago lost our native english resistance to that sort of temperature & the occasional biting wind. Anyway month down the line and happy to report winter seems to be fading rapidly with some days making it up to the 28 degree mark recently.
The Flats
Manly
Sunset from our balcony
Our plan for Sydney was simple. Week 1 - chill out, sort out banks, tax codes etc... Week 2 interview for jobs and Week 3 start work and settle down to life down under. Amazingly it worked out pretty much exactly as planned. Charl put out the feelers out to some old contacts from centrica and is now doing IT conract type stuff for a small sowftware firm producing some some of programme to do with derivitaves trading for utility companies ? (fresher - think you'd probably be the only one who'd be able to understand it.) As for myself i'm back with my old company BBT in their Sydney office.
Feshwater beach
Me & Steve on our way to the office!
my commute
One week into work and we ventured out for the weekend to do something poeple obviously often associate with Australia trips - snowboarding. A five hour drives gets you to the Snowy Mountains and the mountain town of Jindabyne. We only really manged a day and a half but it was great to get back on the snow anyway. The resorts aren't quite up to Alpine standards but they're not bad and fine for weekends (they do however seem to have an incomprehensible liking of T-bars as a way of getting up them mountains, a method of transport pretty damn uncomfortable for anyone on a snowboard and should in my opinion be fully outlawed)
Me
possibly the bluest photo we've ever taken
Soo other than that it's life as normal for now - with just a few subtle differences. My commute to the city is via the Manly ferry - every morning I get beautiful views of the oprea house,bridge etc... and the other day we had dolphins playing in the bowwaves, you don't get that on the M3!
We're trying to get into the whole Sydney fit and active lifestyle. I'm currently falling off my surfboard a lot and charl has signd up to every yoga class she can find. Plans include diving (which we can do off the loacl beach), running(to and from the ferryport), signing up to crew some of the local racing yachts and skydiving (possibly - Myself and charl are currently in negotiations over this one).
a quiet after work drink
middle harbour wiht the city just visible in the background
We're going to stick around for six months or so and see what happens -we'll stick some photo's up whenever we do anything interesting.
Take it easy
Si & Charl
