Arrival In Canberra

In 2007, my wife and I had the opportunity to work in Australia for a number of months. It was quite an adventure and I kept a record of our time there…

We arrived in Australia, where it’s always tomorrow… …an upside-down world where we’re looking for a place to live with a sunny North-facing backyard; where we can sit out and avoid the bitterly cold South wind; and drink 2% milk, which is, of course, 98% non-fat milk. Perhaps the most annoying thing to hit newcomers is the turn signal lever on the right side of the steering wheel – so, visitors are the guys who use their wipers to indicate left! 

Kangaroo in Tidbinbilla

We left Calgary in spring and went straight to fall without passing summer. This gave me season lag – although I knew it was almost winter, deep down inside I felt like it was almost summer. Despite it being a quite warm 15°C, the leaves were falling from the trees, and people were wearing sweaters and wooly hats. It did get dark around 5pm though – spooky. 

We went looking for our first kangaroo. They’re everywhere, we were told, although most likely your first one will be dead… …and so it was. Our first specimen was road kill – laying quietly beside the road, as if sleeping, Later that day as dusk fell, we saw a live one – a large Eastern grey about the size of a deer leapt from the woods right in front of the car and bounded on regardless, unaware of how close it came to joining its friend. 

We’d been house hunting and I thought we’d found a place to live; the search was interesting... We were offered a brand-new duplex in a retirement community consisting of about 16 really plush homes (bungalows and duplexes). I was keen; if only so I could say ‘I live in an Old Peoples home.’ 

Rainbow Lorikeet

There was on Open House there on Sunday. Robert, a big man, introduced himself and I told him we were looking for one of the rentals. He snapped: ‘There are no rentals here!’ 

‘I think you’ll find there are,’ I said. 

‘Look mate, none of these properties are to rent… And besides, you need to be 55 or over to live here!’ 

‘I am.’ I said. But, I had to make a hasty retreat as he strode toward me. 

The following day we went back to visit two of these properties, available for rent from the owners. We parked at the back of #4 and a young guy met us and walked us round. It was a beautiful villa, so new the appliances weren’t installed. ‘You get a dishwasher, stove and dryer,’ he said, just before we left. 

We waited for the other agent to come and show us the duplex, which was a little cheaper. Our agent’s phone rang. ‘I’m in the street in front of the house,’ she said, so we drove round. She was parked in front of the same unit, #4. Our agent said: ‘Bob, I know you. Do not say anything!’ My lips were sealed of course, but we could not look at each other… 

We toured the house and eventually came to the appliances. ‘You get a dishwasher and a stove,’ she said. 

‘What, no dryer?’ 

‘No. No dryer... You have a washing line in the back yard,’ she added. 

Sadly, we didn’t take the villa/duplex; it just wasn’t where we wanted to live. Retirement had been that close… 

We found a place in a suburb called Kingston. I’ll tell you about that in the next blog.

Note: By the way, the comment it’s always tomorrow refers to the fact that Australia always seems to be a day ahead of the rest of the world, Canada anyway. It seemed we were always waiting for everyone else to catch up.

The Blue Mountains