Hi Adam - great post.
I'm quite similarly skilled to you have CCNA, CCNA Voice, & half-way through my CCNP (am at CCNP level with good ASA experience). Consider myself to have pretty good inter-personal people skills!
I'm a little worried however that the jobs you were offered from 55k? I'm on 30k GBP and was hoping to get a job (when moving to Sydney) starting at 75k (which ties in with the x2.5 salary rule of thumb) - I've seen a few network jobs in the 90k region advertised on Seek, which I have the skills for.
Am I being unrealistic?