Bats in the Night Sky

We sit on our back porch, sipping a 1999 Ironstone Pressing. The nights are starting to draw in, with darkness creeping in at 7 something rather than 8 something as we move towards the equinox. The cicadas and toads are relatively quiet. But every now and again we see the silhouette resembling a raven flap across the night sky. Its a very large fruit bat. We've seen them take off in their thousands from the Botanic Gardens, and given that our neighbours have ripe mangoes hanging from their trees, its not surprising they come to visit. Yet it is still very shocking and alien.

Clovelly Beach

We've been in Sydney for two months now, and we're very comfortable in our suburban cul-de-sac. The children are at school, I go to work from 10-6, and Helen finds plenty to occupy her time. But we do try and remember that we're on the other side of the world, in one of the prettiest cities in the world, although that's not immediately obvious out here in our Inner-West suburb.

So on Thursday, after I had been on a long coding gig, Helen and I jumped in the car whilst the children were at school and escaped across the city in half an hour for a romantic day at Clovelly beach. A pleasantly warm 25 Celsius, and a strange narrow beach, more akin to an oversized swimming pool than an Australian beach. Since it was midweek, the sea was full of people doing their laps (of which Helen will write more in another post), and even though we'd read that it was good for snorkelling, it didn't seem promising - after all, there was no one else in with snorkels. Undeterred, I waded in, and saw a few little fish about as I swam up the inlet. But then I was really shocked, when this enormous 1 metre long blue fish emerged from under a rock and glided past me. I had met a blue groper. I swam on, and was rewarded with the best underwater seascape I've yet seen whilst snorkelling, with a wide variety of colourful and strangely shaped fish.

I returned to Helen and tried to encourage her to come snorkelling to see the metre long fish, but she was strangely worried by the idea of fish in the sea. Could I encourage Wendy to write emails waxing lyrical about the joy of underwater sightseeing?

We had a pleasant lunch at a cafe on top of the rocks, walked around the point to see Gordon's Bay, then had a last swim before returning to pick up the children. We had planned to travel out to Manly at the weekend, but we decided to return to Clovelly with the children, so they could enjoy the Clovelly experience. Whilst Ethan is making progress with swimming, it was left to Georgia and myself to try out the snorkelling again, and Georgia thought that the snorkelling was really fun, and she found it very interesting to see the fish so close. She also got to see the Groper, and this time we also saw a female as well as the male. We're now very excited about exploring other snorkelling spots, and even seeing carpet sharks and other more interesting fauna, not to mention the eventual trip up North to the barrier reef.

(We didn't have a camera with us, but we saw these images almost exactly, with due thanks to the person we're borrowing them from).

The Blue Mountains

One of the nice things about Brighton is that the sea is at the front whilst behind there are the Downs. Sydney has something similar, although the Pacific is slightly wilder than the Channel, and the Blue Mountains are somewhat higher than Ditchling Beacon. We went away to the Blue Mountains to see if there were better views than from Mount Caburn. And you know what? There were.

We stayed at a cottage in a place called Springwood, which had a minuscule cooker, and we were expected to cook on the barbeque. Australians are famous for their barbeques - one might even say they're proverbial. Now to us parochial English folk, a barbeque is a tray of not quite white charcoal, over which meat gets completely crisp on the outside yet somehow remains raw inside. So I always wondered why all Australians were so keen on Barbies when they were so proud of their meat. And then we saw that an Australian barbeque has nothing to do with charcoal, and everything to do with having a fully equipped outdoor stove, with adjustable rings and a perfectly controllable griddle. Arriving in Springwood, we found we had our own barbeque on our own deck, less than 1 metre from the bush of the Blue Mountains National Park.

Eating our barbequed steaks, we heard movements in the trees in the darkness. We peered into the leaves of the gum trees and could just make out a rather large bear-like shape, about 1 metre long. It was a possum. Not only Georgia and Ethan were excited. Other nightlife were the most vicious mosquitos, which bit Helen everywhere but for some reason didn't go near Ian. Inside, our little cottage had a very large spa bath and after everyone had been in it at least 4 times, we set off to explore the mountains the next morning. At first we weren't sure what all the fuss was about, the main road is so ugly it gives no hint of anything picturesque. We finally turned off at Leura and found the most amazing views.

Katoomba is one of the highest points in the Blue Mountains, with absolutely spectacular views over the valley. It's hot here still but that didn't deter Ian from planning a hike through the bush, that began by descending 1,000 steps, from Echo Point, down past the Three Sisters. We then walked through the bush until finally reaching the cable car to take us back up to civilisation. Ian went up the hard way, via the steps and a wine shop. The cable car brings you into Scenic World, truly awful and we were glad to escape this tourist trap. We went back to the highway and drove onto the Hydro Majestic Hotel (1904), which had fantastic views across the valley and did a very decent afternoon tea. After scoffing scones and sarnies, we headed back to our cottage and another BBQ, now Ian's got the hang of it


The next day we went swimming at Jellybean Pool, a waterhole in the National Park at the base of the lower mountains. The water was clear and cool, a really relaxed way to spend Sunday morning. We drove further into the park along dirt roads, in search of kangeroos, which we found in the domestic surroundings of the camp site.

It was only 45 minutes from our house to the Blue Mountains but there was so much 'nature' up there compared to surburban sydney, that it felt much, much further. We plan to go back soon.

Croydon: Its like no other Croydon

We're living in an Inner-West suburb of Sydney, 5 miles down the beautiful Parramatta Road from the Central Business District, which is called Croydon. We're two miles from Ikea, and there, the similarity ends. Its an almost grid-like arrangement of streets, but with plenty of cul-de-sacs which connect into each other, concentrating traffic onto the main roads, and keeping the streets pleasantly livable. We live on such a cul-de-sac (Google Earth) in a beautiful Federation bungalow, tastefully restored and extended to form a great place for us to live.

We've been here for a month, and it now feels like a home. We're embedded in the local community to the extent that we pop next door to use their pool, and get asked to pick up children from school. Ethan and Georgia now spend the hours from 4pm-8pm playing on the street with the other local children. There are three boys from 8yrs to 10yrs, so Ethan is immensely happy, and Georgia is enough of a tomboy to join in most games. Both children are now at Croydon Public School and coping well, we think. Education seems pretty traditional here and maybe more like the UK private sector than your average state primary school (small class sizes, lots of uniform, homework and games lessons).

Georgia did herself proud today at her first Australian competitive sports event, the Swimming Carnival at the local pool. She did wimp out of the first event, as the competition was pretty fierce but after a few stern words about 'taking part not winning' from her parents, she entered 2 races, getting ranked third in the backstroke race.

Anyway, back to Croydon...the neighbours and school mums have been really friendly and hospitable and basically we're very glad to be here rather than a more trendy central neighbourhood. We also have responsibility for a small dog called Cocoa, he's very cute and we've all grown very fond of him, just look at the pictures and you can see why and he's really affectionate, especially with the kids (OK, cleaning up dog poo and being licked a lot is a bit of a downside). We live near the station, so it's fairly easy to get into town quickly and past the station is a small parade of shops, including, thank goodness, the excellent Strand Cafe, which does an great cappacino, a frequent requiement after dropping the kids at school. Big shopping needs to be done at the local mall, I will be happy never to go into another shopping mall in my life after 8 months here.

Coppermine on a Friday Night

On an ordinary Friday night, after the children's second week at school. Ethan has achieved ten pink stamps, the only one in his class to have achieved such honours. At least we think its an honour - we assume that Sydney's rainbow education uses pink as a colour of praise, appropriately. Georgia has been out to art class, where she has bought her first set of oils (Ilse Marshall, eat your heart out), and has created a wonderful butterfly. Ian has spent the day getting rid of annoying administrivia which eventually catches up with you, no matter where you flee. And Helen? Well, she's walked the dog, finished Richard E. Grant's With Nails and done lots of washing. Are you all impressed if we say it all dries in half an hour (a pleasant 5 degrees celsius in Brighton so the BBC tells us)?

On Friday, we've always sat to eat dinner, and Australia is no different. Except that here, we get to drink all the fabbo Australian wines we can buy at auction. Tonight, its prawns and steak, with which we match a D'Ahrenberg Coppermines Cabernet Sauvignon 1997. The tastes? Georgia says spicyish, sweet and sour. Helen - smooth, peppery in depth. Ian - leather around the mouth in a pleasantly long finish, front of the tongue has pepper and spice, with a large alcohol kick from vapour, really needs something in the middle to complement the big things happening at the side. Of course, after we're eating, more interesting things happen - predominantly vanilla in the middle, which explains why other people rate the wine.
On other matters, we've watched the whole of "The Worst Week of My Life" in two big chunks served up by ABC. Have I told you all that I played football with Ben Miller at college? And we were happily and joyfully surprised that Ben had produced something that was funny. We've met Ben a couple of times since college, and he's been walking a fine line between being normal and a wee bit too self-focussed. But he's still fundamentally a nice bloke and its good to see him doing well. I'll leave it to Tuhin to add the Rachel Weisz tales.

Somehere, The Pet Shop Boys

Seven O'Clock. Just completed the family dinner without having to tell the children to eat. Watering the lawn, where first Helen sprays Georgia, Ian sprays Helen and Georgia sprays Ian. Showers and joint shaving. The afternoon spent lazing with Brett and Simone, the next door neighbours with the pool. Ethan arrives from the kids across the road to take his part in watering, which ends with him running around naked with the dog. I bring ripe kumquats in from the tree.

We miss you all terribly, but you know, there are compensations.

Bidding for Birthday Happiness

It was my birthday, and for the first time in many years, I wasn't able to gather friends around a table, for my favourite dinner of the year. Disconsolate, I sought for ways to revive my spirits, searching high and low on the InterWeb for a suitable birthday present to myself. Nearly everything was discarded, but then I found Langtons. Wine auctions have been taking place for many years, but for various reasons, they never seem to have taken off over the Internet within the UK. This is something that obviously needs to be investigated - I presume there are problems with licensing - and I'll have to go spend good EPSRC money to find out why. In the meantime, Australia seems to be happy to flog second-hand wine, for extermely reasonable prices.

Searching through the lists a few days before the end of the auction is like seeing an oenilogical Christmas list. So many exciting new tastes, for seemingly so little money, with the joy that many of the lots were single bottles. I placed a few bids down on things I wanted to try, and then returned every day to see if the prices had changed, expecting the normal EBay style of last minute bidding and sniping. And there was - I wanted to try one of the big Penfolds wines, a Bin 707 from 1997, so I put in a bid of $69, which went up on the day of sale to $102. However, other wines were obviously less attractive - for instance I got 3 bottles of Tyrrell's Vat 47 Chardonnay 1999 for only $2 more than the initial bid price of $20 ( I should explain, that just like EBay, the site uses proxy bidding, where you enter the maximum value you're prepared to pay for an item, and it will bid up on your behalf. Whilst superficially this should encourage single bidding, for knowedgeable buyers, an optimum strategy ends up being to do last minute bidding see The Timing of Bids in Internet Auctions: Market Design, Bidder Behavior, and Artificial Agents for fuller explanations).

Unfortunately, even though the auction ended on 29 January, I couldn't pick up the wines from their warehouse until the 1 February, so the actual birthday dinner was accompanied by a rather more prosaic 1998 Metala Original Plantings Shiraz - you can see that I'm getting quite blase about commonly available wines now. The Shiraz was pleasant, blackcurrant and coffee, but still rather closed with a short finish.

The Tyrrell's thus emerged with dinner when we entertained Mike Fry and his wife Kate. Mike is the guy I'm working with in Sydney, and great fun it is too. One paper written, with several more to come. We cooked the Endsleigh special of Beetroot Risotto with Parma Ham Quail's Eggs and Horseradish, then Salmon wrapped in Parma with Puy Lentils. Of course, the local supermarkets aren't like Waitrose, and we haven't yet found a posh food delicatessen. There is a gaping hole in Autralian supermarkets for better class of shop than Coles or Woolworths, but more of that another day. Instead, Helen had to travel into Davy Jones for the ingredients, for a day's shopping whilst the children were at school. Life is hard.

Dinner was excellent, with grown up company, with conversations ranging across a wide panoply of subjects - I now have a slightly different perspective on Austrlian politics. The wine, Tyrrell's Vat 47? Well, I destroyed the cork in opening the bottle, so I had to jug and fish out lots of cork bits. The colour was surprisingly dark, very green and oily. The texture matched, with the thick gelatinous feel that comes from good old wines, which coat the entire mouth and stay for several seconds afterwards. The flavours were initially lemon and rather simple in the first taste, but then opened up with sweeter melon flavourings in the more complex later sips. We drank one bottle from the three that I bought - others will come home for drinking in the aniticipated cold of the English Autumn.

Sydney Opera House

One of the things that you have to do in Sydney is go to the Opera House. So what do you go to see if you're from Brighton? Well, the Lost and Found Orchestra, of course, mostly funded by our council tax, and featuring a large range of people who look as though they spend too much time walking around North Laine.

We booked our tickets way back when (this Interweb thing is very useful), and had talked up the occasion to the children immensely. Georgia was therefore very insistent that we should all be smartly turned out, and even Ethan insisted on getting a new white shirt. And she was right; we were still slightly underdressed. Despite the prejudices we were exposed to before arriving in Oz, we've found Sydneyites rather smartly turned out, and given the opportunity, they will put on very glamorous clothing.

Helen had planned a perfect Sydney evening out. We travelled into Darling Harbour, where we stopped at the Blackbird Cafe (does a great children's menu and it was Happy Hour). We then caught the ferry around to the Opera House, seeing glorious views of the CBD, the Bridge, and the Luna City amusement park. We arrived with time for a glass of champagne on the Opera House veranda, soaking up the architecture and excitement. The show itself is excellent - lots of great theatrical moments, focused on making music out of recycled objects - the music is actually very good. Georgia thought it was great, and Ethan enjoyed it until he fell asleep.

Canberra: It's a capital, it's beautiful and it's empty

The drive up to Canberra from the coast is through the Great Dividing Range, going from sea level through wooded mountains, and even high rain forests. Lots of very twisty well-maintained roads, which is good fun for the driver, less fun for the passengers. We stopped at a little town called Braidwood for lunch, where we had some quintessentially Australian experiences. First, the town appeared to be just one main street, the continuation of the highway. This was wider than some English villages, and the buildings were of the wild west persuasion, with delightful verandas.

Then we discovered an olde fashioned sweet-shop, with hundreds of jars of sweets that seemed to have disappeared - does anyone else remember Blackjacks? Georgia and Ethan behaved like, well, like kids in a sweet-shop, and stocked up on confectionary and bought Cyrus a birthday goody bag. Across the road was the pie shop, selling award winning pies, which it seemed everyone in town was coling to buy. So we sat and ate pies for lunch, bacon and cheese in gravy, curry, and steak. Everything contributed to the feel of a town stuck in some fifties time-warp. I'm sure that behind the lace curtains they all have plasma TVs and Internet connections, and are up with all the latest fashions, but it hasn't made an impact on main street.

We continued along the highway to Canberra, past the surprisingly high numbers of very large road kill. We saw kangaroos of course, but also wombats and what seemed to be a bear. I suppose the putrifying corpses is another good reason for air-con and keeping the windows closed.

The Medina apartment in Canberra had two large bedrooms and a reasonably equipped kitchen, so we planned to cook most of meals at in the apartment. Nigel and Chris were in town visiting rellies (that's what the Aussies say, although it seems a strange spelling), so the children were keen to hook up with Ollie and Cyrus, their two boys. And it all worked out as a most excellent week. We saw

• National Museum of Australia
• Telstra Tower
• Old Parliament House
• The Diplomatic Quarter
• New Parliament House
• Questacon
• War Memorial
• Captain Cook Memorial Fountain by pedalo

We also went swimming with the various Larcombes at the art deco classic lido in Canberra, had a great day at Nigel's cousin Sandy's house up in the hills, and finally went to our first BBQ, hosted by Sandy and Caz at their house. Even though they didn't know us, Sandy and Caz extended great hospitality to us, letting us stay overnight after we were turfed out of the apartments, endured my drunken explanations of how reputation systems will let me walk into their house and control their appliances and not even complaining when Ethan was copiously sick the next day. We are eternally grateful to these wonderful people.

We enjoyed Canberra immensely. A lot of money has been invested producing well designed attractions, and there is a well-heeled feel about the town, coming from servicing the needs of the politicos and influence operators. However, it seemed sometimes as though we were the only people looking at these great attractions, and driving on the streets was surreal - this was the nation's capital, but nobody was going anywhere. Its very different from Sydney.

Ironstone Pressings on NYE 2006

The first in an occasional set of entries about interesting wines we drink whilst we're down here. Having spent rather a lot of money over the years on good Aussie wines such as the D'Ahrenberg Footbolt Shiraz, I thought I'd write about some of the more exotic things we come across. These are probably really boring for most people, and probably only of interest to Martin W and myself, but hey, I probably have too much time on my hands anyway (did you think Helen would be writing these bits?)

So the first wine of interest we came across was a D'Ahrenberg. New Year's Eve, and we'd just left the smelly hovel of Murramurang, and arrived at the luxury of a Medina two bedroom apartment in Canberra. Even though we weren't in Sydney, we thought we'd go look at the fireworks after dinner, so our plan was to cook dinner using the excellent facilities of our apartment (do you think they'll throw us a bung for all this hype?). I wandered out to the local supermarket, an IGA, which I think is the Oz equivalent of the Co-op. Now Australia Capital Territories have different licensing laws to NSW, and I was surprised to see a range of wines on sale. Even better, when I looked closely, there were some very fine wines in a locked glass cabinet, which looked as though they hadn't
been touched for years. I scanned with eager eyes through the possibilities, trying to find something to match the pancetta and scallops, then the fillet steak planned for the family meal. And then I saw a bottle that I had many a time coveted in Oddbins, a bottle of D'Ahrenberg Ironstone Pressings , but had always refused to buy since it would have broken my rather arbitrary limit on wine prices. However, here the price was a rather more reasonable $54, which immediately became better value when I saw it was a 1997, rather than a 2003 or 04 which are normally on sale. I grabbed it with eager hands and carefully carried it up to the counter. I was rather put out that the checkout person didn't treat it with due reverence. How do they train these people nowadays? But I was rather happier to find that the price had dropped by another $7 to $47.

Our plans to see the fireworks were somewhat stymied by the fierce thunderstorms which broke the seven year drought over Canberra. Weather warnings ran across the bottom of Groundhog Day on TV, so we thought it might be serious. Instead we concentrated on enjoying the wine.

The scallops were mostly eaten with the D'Ahrenberg Olive Grove Chardonnay (what else), and then we turned our attention to the Ironstone. This is a Shiraz whose first taste brought forward aniseed and fennel, but after resting in the glass and tasted with food we found a round richness of cocoa and blackcurrant, with a long throat enveloping finish. Every glass was enjoyed as we anticipated the year
ahead, the big Wakeman-Moss adventure in Australia.

Murramarang

It had been a hard slog through Autumn, trying to get everything done, and we had planned to stay at a beach resort down the South coast from Sydney, at a place called Murramarang Eco-Resort. Our vision was of days spent playing in the pool, learning to snorkel and surf, with walks through strange forests, whilst learning to deal with Oz culture. Unfortunately, when we were given our "villa", we discovered it to be a smelly, dirty, dingy, tiny hut. We tried to air the place to erase the horrible smell and blind ourselves to the decrepitude, but after returning from an hour on the admittedly gorgeous beach, we realised we couldn't live like hut trash and complained. The resort was full so we got our money back, and were given a decent beachfront villa that was available for one night only. The experience from there was pleasant, with kangaroos bouncing around, but we're all still staggered that any reputable company should try and sell such accommodation.

From there we went up though the hills to Canberra, where we stayed in a five star apartment with two bedrooms, for less than we were paying for the hovel. We have a whole year of beaches coming up in Sydney, so exploring the rather beautiful and empty capital of Australia was a better option than competing for crap hotel and resort rooms with vacationing Canberrites.

Arriving in Sydney

24 hours is a long time to sit in a metal cigar tube. Fortunately, most airlines now realise this, and provide various ways of keeping the hoi polloi pacified, ranging from the 30 bottles of wine consumed by the guy next to us, to the opportunities for Helen to cry once again at "Love Actually". The children sat and played with the Nintendos, watched Pirates of the Caribbean, and even had a sleep.

Singapore (Changi) airport was a delight after the overcrowded chaos of Heathrow. Big wide spaces filled with few people, large numbers of palms, and even an open air bar where we could experience equatorial heat and humidity. Georgia and Ethan thought that the airport smelt of the rainforest dome at the Eden project.

Arriving at Sydney was relatively painless, even if Helen was stressed that I might have sneaked through illicit mud on my walking boots and been arrested under the strict quarantine laws. For the first time ever, we walked up to the carousel and found our four cases immediately. Taxis were easily found, and the Unilodge Hotel was a happy place to finally arrive to, although lacking in expensive interior design.

We went to sleep at around 11pm, after we'd showered and eaten, but still we awoke at 5am. Luckily we could walk up to the roof garden to see the dawn, and be amazed by both the skyline of the Central Business District and that cockatoos were ambling around instead of pigeons. Time for an early bus and a visit to see the harbour proper...

Encountering the apparatus of immigration

If, like us, you live you life in the country of your citizenship, and
only ever go away to other countries on holidays, or the occasional
conference jolly, then immigration is rarely encountered. Indeed, if
you're lucky enough to live in Britain, then our imperial history has
ensured that there are very few countries in the world which even
require tourist visas (is someone anal enough to count them and see if
the visa-requiring countries are in the majority and so correct me?).

But when one starts gearing up to relocate for an extended period of
time, then the pandora's box of bureaucratic worries is opened, and
your lives are given over to feeding the ever-increasing appetite for
paperwork of the visa service. One goes through the web-site, and at
first it seems that one just has to fill out a form and present your
passport. But then you find a checklist. Hurrah! you think. Someone
has done the hard work of assembling a list of the bits of paper that
need to be sent. But then you discover there are inconsistencies
between the form and the checklist. Do we need to provide a letter
from my own university or not? And then you realise that on another
corner of the website there is another list of requirements that is a
superset of everything that you've already gathered from the form and
the checklist.

The list builds - forms, letters from every university involved, birth
certificates, marriage certificates, bank records, and so on - until
you wonder why you just don't send them every piece of paper that has
been accumulated over one's lifetime. At last, the paper mountain has
been brought to my arm, Ed. You purchase the largest jiffy bag
possible, and find that it isn't quite big enough - at least it wasn't
until the "do not fold, spindle or mutilate" labelled card has been
rolled and screwed to the shape that fits the spare corner of the
jiffy.

But then you realise in your careful attention to detail that nowhere
on the list of things to send has it specified passports. Surely
you're not meant to send off everything without proving that you have
a right to cross country borders. So you find out how to query the
visa folk, send off the email and wait in hope, carefully picking your
way around the mountain range of paperwork in the kitchen in the
meantime (it may have started off as a single Everest, but small
children have mighty erosion properties). Eventually they reply, and
yes, they do want our passports. So we send off our lives, and hope
that the UK immigration service doesn't choose to check on our lives -
since we now have nothing to prove that we live in the UK.

One week later we must have convinced the good folk of the visa
service that we really don't intend to stay in Godzone country
permanently and steal their very limited amount of air-space and
land. Everything came back, and now we have our very own 419 visas,
and can join the 419 club - or do we need to tell people about the
death of our close friend, the former dictator of Bwaniland who has
left $17 million ($17,000,000) IN AN UNCLAIMED BANK ACCOUNT...

Relevant links:
Australia High Commission
419 Visas
Checklist
147 form

So our family are off to Sydney for nine months, relocating temporarily from Brighton. Enough friends have suggested blogging our way through the process, that we've at least created the blog and will try and write regularly about our experience.

The introductions:

• Ethan, the six year old gourmet of the family with the palate which will be delighted by the variegated tastes that Australia has to offer;
• Georgia, who has already decided she's going to become a surf chick and reef snorkeller, and will probably become so enchanted by the place we won't be able to persuade her to return. She's nine years old;
• Helen, the carefree and eternally optimistic half of the adult partnership, who cares not that of the ten deadliest animals on the planet, eight of them are native to Sydney;
• and Ian, the over-burdened computing academic, who spends his time eternally worrying about exactly how to punctuate lists, and whether semi-colons are line terminators or separators.

S-day is currently three months away, but the preparations are now in earnest.