Life on the Penal Colony: September 2010

Intro

Introduction
Our family has moved halfway around the world to Sydney Australia for me to crunch numbers in another hemisphere. This blog will document our travels and provide enough number crunching to satisfy your wildest dreams. It may even give you a feel for the authentic Aussie life, which consists of drinking Fosters all day and eat blooming onions at every meal (I have already offended my mates here with that comment). I named this blog Life on the penal colony because Australia was where convicts of the British Empire were sent during the late 18th and 19th centuries (History). They were critical in building up Sydney to what it is today (cheap labor). As you can see Sydney is a far cry from any remnant of colonial life, in 2009 Sydney was ranked as the 2nd most expense as well as rich city in the world ($$), it reminds me of Randolph County, NC in so many ways (now I have offended my mates at home). If there is anything you would like to see more of or any questions please let me know.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The Great Ocean Road

Last weekend we decided to head to Melbourne and drive along The Great Ocean Road. This is a stunningly beautiful drive along the southern coast of Australia. It is filled with sharp sandstone cliffs, limestone rock formations and beautiful countryside. It is a 2 lane road the entire trip and stretches for 151 miles. It was built by soldiers returning from World War I and is a memorial for those killed in the Great War (the world's largest war memorial obviously). This was my first experience driving in Australia. While I have enjoyed public transportation in the city (because I could sit back and relax) I was ready to get in the car, blast some music and drive. There is a certain feeling of freedom in a car, until you realize you are about to go head on into traffic b/c you are on the wrong side of the road. It took a little adjusting, but I was able to keep us from totaling our rental. The post after this one has some good pictures of signs we ran across on our drive. As you can see below it was well worth the trip. We found this diamond in the ruff town on the way, Port Campbell, and stayed in a great little inn. A town without a stoplight but it had a lot to offer. We had dinner at the local diner and it was great. There are two chefs who have moved out to Port Campbell to get away and everything we had was incredible. It was the better than any restaurant we have been to in Sydney thus far.

First view on the Great Ocean Road

Our van

Small obstacle

Driving in Australia

During our trip on the Great Ocean Road we came across a few signs that you will not see in the US. I guess you have a lot of foreign travelers, I just found it funny they post signs for all of the visitors about how to drive. Australians are more blunt than Americans are as you can see on the caption to the 2nd picture in an advertisement posted by the government. And instead of deer crossings you can see in the last picture there are Kangaroo crossings.

Driving on the left side of the road.