The leaving of Liverpool and arrival in OZ

Its very hard to imagine saying goodbye to everything you know and love until you have to do it. Saturday 8th January 2011 this is exactly what we did, and let me tell you as sad as you expect it to be times it by 20 and even then your nowhere near. The only word I can use to describe it is Devastating. Not just for us but for our families too. The guilt that was felt came over like a tidal wave, we had sort of planned for this by arranging 2 days in London before we set off to calm ourselves, this helped until late on the Sunday afternoon we realised that we ( ok I) had worked out our baggage wrong cue more stress and panic and loading up yet more relatives with our stuff.

So off we went with the hire car to Heathrow dropped Sue and James off at the airport with all the stuff and i went off to drop the hire car off, this was a job and a half just trying to find the car rental place, eventually i found it and all was good including the shuttle back to the terminal Sue was getting stressed as she stood there with all our luggage. Then was the test had the bathroom scales been accurate enough, had we brought too much? Would they refuse to take the car seat? All questions that only Qantas check in could answer. So we handed all our documents and other stuff over and loaded the cases on the scales whilst looking at the floor and shuffling about trying to look inconspicuous. Then..........all accepted no extra baggage fees woo hoo.

 Then the flight, our flight was to Hong Kong then on to melbourne after a 2 hour stop. I have to say the flight was excellent the staff were excellent and more than that James seemed to love it and the time didn't bother him. So much so that he only fell asleep when we boarded the Hong Kong flight.



The rest of the journey passed without incident apart from not being able to find the car seat when we got our luggage. (there is a seperate oversized luggage conveyor) then we got picked up by the hotels shuttle bus and got to our room for a good nights sleep. James unfortunately had other ideas and had us up at 4:30 this gave us a chance to get some internet and book a car and realise it was pissing down.

We left the hotel and got the car, got it loaded up and set off for Geelong. First stop was the estate agents for the keys which we got then set forth to our new home. This was the part I was dreading we had only seen the house online when we decided to take it so had no real idea of the condition of it. Its fair to say it was better than I expected but it hasn't been lived in for a while which is given away by the musty smell and the few bugs we've seen. It is also sterile and the furniture is old and antwacky so our next challenge is to turn it into a home for the next 3 months. that being said its location is fantastic it is only 3 minutes to what I have to say probably the best waterfront i've ever seen, it is stunning and with fantastic facilities for kids and adults alike. I suspect a lot of time will be spent in the kids pool teaching James to swim.

Geelong itself and the shopping centre is very charming it reminds me of olde world england with lots of seperate little independant shops, and it has a very modern and very nice shopping mall. All within a couple of minutes walk.

There is no doubt that we underestimated the impact that emigrating would have on us, that partnered with the jetlag and all the rain has made our first few days a bit surreal but throughout all of the emotional turmoil we haven't said that we can't make this work, we can and we will Australia has a lot to offer and James although still suffering with jetlag absolutely loves it, the place is made for families with all of the facilites set up for family activities. There are kids playgrounds on nearly every corner, and the australian people are very friendly whenever you come into contact with them and are happy to help you this makes everything easier.

So i'm just settling down with a beer now off to the Zoo to meet up with Sue's cousin tomorrow which will be good.  I'll tell you all about it in my next thrilling (or not) installment.

Oh and this is just genius