Moving to Australia? 10 things you should know.
Australia is massive and the distances between places is huge. Towns 3 or 4 hours away are considered just down the road. When you live here you will think nothing of spending a weekend in the Hunter or the Yarra wine-tasting or popping up to Daylesford, The Blue Mountains or Stradbroke for a weekend getaway. There are lots of other places to see too including The Barrier Reef, Uluru, Kakadu and Lord Howe Island just to name a few
No one except Alf Stewart says “flamin galah” or “stone the crows” but Aussie’s do like to abbreviate things. You will be saying “arvo”, “barbie” and “Gday” before you know it.
Breakfast is a thing. Australians like to meet and catch up over smashed avo on toast and poached eggs. Fry ups at the local greasy spoons will become a distant memory.
Whilst there are plenty of dangerous animals including brown snakes, funnel web spiders and great whites et al you will be lucky to ever see one outside of the zoo or aquarium. If you stick to living in one of the major cities, you should be safe 😉.
Active wear rules. Weekends are for active wear whether you are being active or not.
You can swim, surf, paddle-board or kayak before during or after work and people do. Living by the ocean makes water -based activities a normal way to spend your day.
The coffee is excellent and some of the best in the world. The Ethiopians may have been the first to discover the lawyer’s beverage of choice, but it was the Australians that turned a daily ritual into an art-form. Never will you find a nation with more lawyers on first name basis with both their Barista and their Barrister.
It isn’t always summer. Even though magical places like Summer Bay do exist, it does occasionally rain and believe it or not, people do drive down to the snow to ski in winter.
Words can and do have different meanings. It is worth noting that Aussie’s don’t wear Jandals. Thongs are footwear. Aussie’s take eskies hiking not chilli bins tramping. Pants are trousers and at night we sleep snugly under our doonas.
Vegemite, Tim Tams, sausage sangas at Bunnings and eating meat pies at the footy are a part of life here and we wouldn’t have it any other way.