Very early on Tuesday morning we arrived back from Australia, with quite a bump when landing at Heathrow! I had to make this trip by the end of June in order to validate my Spouse Visa - so I am now officially a resident of Australia! Because of how Australian immigration currently works, I’m able to continue living in the UK for the next year or two, at which point a decision is made whether or not I get permanent residency - and during this time Dawn should also be able to get UK permanent residency in June 2007.
We had a good holiday, being tourists in both Sydney and Melbourne as well as making a trip to Brisbane. We rented a car in Melbourne, and I even managed a “hook turn” there - a bizarre manoeuvre required at road junctions in central Melbourne when going across tram tracks where you turn right from the left lane. It feels very odd doing it, but fortunately I had someone in front of me who I just followed.
In Sydney we got to Taronga Zoo, Watsons Bay (with the famous, and expensive, Doyles Fish & Chips!), and also spent some time in both the city/Darling Harbour and Glebe (an area I stayed in quite a lot during a working holiday in 1999/2000). During our time in Melbourne we celebrated our 1st anniversary by going to a Japanese restaurant in the Crown Casino complex - we had window seats overlooking the River Yarra and city! We also saw Captain Cook’s cottage, imported from Yorkshire, met up with a guy I first met in Glebe in 99 (he is also from the UK and was on a working holiday back then) who now lives in Melbourne, as well as visiting various suburbs in case we ever decide to live in Australia and in particular Melbourne.
Finally the jetlag is beginning to go away, and in just a couple of weeks Dawn’s sister Julie will be visiting us! She’s on holiday visiting a few other European countries. Then soon after that someone from our DTS is getting married in Norfolk which we’ll be going to - and another person from our DTS recently announced their engagement. They’re dropping like flies, with just the 3 Canadians from our DTS remaining single!