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If I had health problems I would rather be in the UK than Australia. Yes, things are going to be crazy in the UK for at least three more years. They have an awful lot to work out. But if I was in the position where I needed benifits and healthcare I would rather be in the UK. Sorry.

I know where I am going on the weekend. The delux boot looks great!

I thought that UGG was only a brand outside of Australia and inside Australia it is just a term for the Ugly boots. But I could be wrong. While not being the best looking things they would be worn happily around the house, keeping my feet warm. I was wondering if anyone knew a good sheepskin store in Sydney that made their own?

It's cold here, I want some ugg boots, maybe a pair of moccasins? I want real Australian Uggs, made from real Australian sheep skin. Does anyone know where I can buy some in Sydney? I know there is the company that have trade marked the UGG name, but they just sell the skins with a fake fur liner. Awful things. What I am after is the real deal, real lamb fur tickling my toes and keeping them warm, I want the real Aussie feeling.

It was a fry up! In the local greasy spoon. It wasn't so much the food, but we had made friends with all the people in the cafe. Our first meal in Australia was a macca's at the airport when we landed. The first meal in Australia I cooked was kangeroo steak with a kale salad, which had so many root veggies in it I just put it in the pan after the roo and just wilted it with some soy sauce, roasted white sweet potatoe. Simple but yummy.

I think this is more like what I was looking for. I have eaten in fancy restaurants and the food was lovely, but when away from a country for awhile it isn't the best food that country has you will miss. It's the weird snacks, the day to day stuff you eat between meals just to fill a hole in your stomach. So for lunch it is waitrose sausage rolls, davidstow cheddar cheese on toast, roast beef hula hoops, washed down with elderflower cordial.

We will be moving to Sydney, but are in Brighton UK at the moment.

Sorry Sydney. Yes I would like to bring a pub with me, the place, not just a generic place to get drunk in, but a pub to socialise in and quaff ale. But that roaring log fire is there because it is bloody cold outside, windy and lashing down with rain, absolutly no fun on the walk back home. I'll take a Gin and tonic in my hammock in the sunshine any day over that. I've lived in character cottages, I have scars on my head fron the low beams and door ways, churches and cathederals creep me out, they were built to scare the poor and make them bow down to the power and the glory or to instill the fear of being dammed into hell, either way I only see them as a means to control and steal from the poor. I do like pretty flowers though, but I would have thought with all the sunshine in Australia, the flowers would be growing bigger, brighter and stronger. I know the fruit and veg is better. Yes the stuff you get in Woollworths and Coles is only a bit better than Tesco's or Sainsburys, but if you go to a decent fruit and veg market the selection is wonderful, the quality is enough to get any chef excited. We used to go to the veg market first and plan our meals around what ever veg was in season. Plum and peach season was great I never knew there were so many varietys! I never purchased a candy bar over there, why would you when there is such great fruit to satisfy your sweet tooth. The fish market was good, I never found the meat market though, I will have to look for that. I'm not just looking for a good butcher, but the place where the butcher gets his meat. I do enjoy coming home with a side of pork and surprising the wife, the last time I did it they threw in two heads free of charge. Braised pork jowl with truffle mash potato, went down very well. Although the terrines and pies I made with the heads and trotters were eaten very happily, untill I explained to the wife what she was acctually eating. So if anyone knows where the meat market is I would really appreciate knowing.

To be honest bacon and ham are the only thing I will miss. Finding out I can buy it in woolworths brings me so much joy. I don't eat that much really, but decent ham in a quiche every so often makes everyone smile. It seems that I won't miss a thing from the UK. Bring on the sunshine!

Wendslydale, oh that will be down on my cheese course for sure. Thankyou very much.

Just those last few things to eat that I won't eat again for awhile. The beef thing makes me laugh a bit, every country thinks they have the best beef. In Texas they make a big deal over it, Scotland, Argentina. What I have seen is the best and worst of all countries, it's down to the farmer, you can get the best beef anywhere. Although I would like to go to Japan and try wagu fresh. I'm looking forward to a bit of kangeroo myself, nice and rare with the juices running into my salad, mmmmmmm. I tend to miss the things I would never normally eat. Fry's Turkish delight, pickled onion monster munch, space raiders. Never would I normally consider purchasing these items, but not having the oppurtunity to makes me wonder if I should buy a can of Irn Bru just to savour the taste?

The visa has been granted, we will leave in about two weeks. So I have been thinking, what will my last meal be? Is there anything you wished you had eaten as a last meal? I'm thinking a chedder cheese sandwich with pickle? Finish it off with a Fry's Turkish delight and a can of lilt? Roast beef and Yorkshire pud? I can make that over there, just as good. Bacon sandwich, with double bacon? What would your last meal be?

I was discussing this with my wife and I have a fair bit of grey in my beard and I told her that when I go for my first job interview I will shave it off that Morning. As I was shaving my head yesterday I looked in the mirror and looked at the tan on my head and it suddenly occured to me that if I was to shave the day of my interview I woudl turn up with half my face as white as a sheet! Or worse pasty white with a touch of sunburn? So when we arrive the deal is that I will shave as soon as we get a car, that way I can get a tan on my chin that will match my forehead. I am planning on starting my job clean shaven, stubble for the first week and then just start shaving my head and grow my beard out again.

Is it pet air who won't ship the dog or is it the airlines? Some airlines will not ship certain breeds of dogs. Yes YOU have to pay the quarentine fees, when YOU get to Australia as YOU have used THEIR service, not pet air.

I always wondered the same thing. Such large distances between towns, I would have thought catalogues would have been a big thing there, then when the internet came along I would have thought it would have blown everything away! But it seems the average Aussie wants to drive into town, haggle to get a deal, shake the salesmans hand and drive back home with a smile on his face and a "bargain". I walk into a shop, try to do the haggling thing, pay the price "Which if it was any lower they would be selling it at a loss" only to find I could have got the same item for $50 less delivered to my house if I had of purchased online elsewhere. So now I just buy online, skip the haggling, climb into my hammock with a book and sip on a tonic water.

What do you mean by sadly suspicious? Are they mobile theives? Brothels? Drug dealers? or what? I have been in permenent parks in America, some have been lovely, people so friendly. Some you drive into and reverse straight back out, you know it's not the place for you. I think I was just looking for a gathering, maybe a route that they would follow.

I am guessing I am more of a grey nomad, than a hippy. I just wondered if there were gatherings for people and if it was legal to drive out into where the earth is red and park up and have an informal gathering. Either an RV or a tent. Crack open a couple of VB's with other like minded people.

Are there hippy communes in Australia? What about travelling groups that meet up in RV's, would they be called that there? Personally I have been to Slab City in America, I enjoyed meeting the different people and viewing their alternitive lifestyle. It was not for me, but I do think the world is a better place for having places like that. Christiania in Copenhagen is also an interesting place, just people living an alternitive lifestyle. Same for the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous in Arizona. I have been to Nimbin, it seemed more aligned to kids just wanting to get high. If thats your thing then go for it, there is more to life than living it in a haze or a daze. So I am wondering if there are communes around Australia? People just trying to live in harmony, or just trying to live to get by? Do people drive ariound and meet up with other caravans and campervans? Are there face book groups? Do people meet up in the desert for a party like the burning man festival in America? Or is it a solo kind of thing there? There must be lots of houseless people there living in vehicles? Anyone know of such events?

I'm awful at haggling, I truely hate it. The Mrs is great, so we make a bit of a show, I look grumpy, we pretend to have a bit of an arguement I wave my arms around in a negative fashion and I storm off. The sales man comes over and asks the wife if everything is alright, she then haggles, bats her eye lids and uses her grumpy husband as an excuse to get the price down. I then get a text message outside the store, come on in and pay, you will never guess how much I got the price down to... She is great at this.

Ah sorry, I we both got our wires crossed, here. My bad. Yes we had Ikea stuff in the UK and wanted to use the move as an excuse to upgrade from our uncomfortable Ikea sofa and wanted to buy something more comfortable and longer lasting. It seems a shame to replace a sofa every two years from Ikea when we could buy a quality item that will last longer.

But this is exactly what we have done, Ditched "the affordable Swedish furniture" and we will be buying new in Australia. We know we can get Ikea stuff in Sydney, but we want a higher quality, we wanted advice on where to buy that, not a "I told you so".

We had to throw all our furniture away, we saw how badly the Ikea furniture was made and we will be needing new stuff. But where do we buy quality furniture over in Sydney? We would have been lazy and just gone to Habitat or John Lewis over in the UK, where should we go for Beds, sofa, chairs and all that kind of thing. What are the shops that have a similar build, quality and choice for home furnishings?

The last time we came I was on a spouse visa, My wife who is now 50 (sshhh don't let her hear that) had the 457 sponsorship visa. She had the fancy job working in the tech industry. What Raul Senise called a high paying job. Unfortunatly she encountered racism at work and it really got to her. It broke her heart, she didn't know how to handle it, she hadn't experianced anything like that in decades. I encountered a little racism towards me as well, even though I am blonde haired and blue eyed. I was able to make a joke and laugh it off, make the guys doing the talking feel a little bit silly and small. Still you know what they say, small minds usually come with large mouths. So our little plan was for me to get sponsorship and get us both over there. Find a migration agent and ask them if it would be best to have my wife in a sponsored job or just on the spouse part of my visa. Find out the best and fastest route to an Australian passport. My wife would be in the tech industry. Me? I thought a man of my cooking skills just applying for a cooks job in a mining camp would have been snapped up. I would have thought head chef in less than six months. When we were over there last I started saving to open my own business. I can see a catering opportunity in Australia that would be great for me to do, revitilising a classic Australia dish. I even had found a premisis that would have been perfect in Sydney and was saving up to buy ovens, mixers, fridges and so forth. You guys probably wouldn't even guess that a decent table in a profesional kitchen costs about $1000, Ovens are around $25,000 and the list goes on and on. It would take a fair wedge of cash and a lot of hard work. The only difference being that I would make every sauce from scratch, from bones. None of the Bisto gravey here, just good honest food made with love from fresh ingredients. Thats the key, serving a quality product only costs a little bit more, but takes a lot more hard work and effort. It would be my business I would only serve food that I would eat myself, I know I would be starting work at 5am and finishing at about 8pm for the first few years that would be 7 days a week, 364 days a year, as the business built up I could hire more staff and cut my hours. I don't just want to work sit in the sun and drink beer. I want to build something that is mine, employ Australians, give something back to the society that can give me opportunitys and then when I have done that I can open up my hammock crack open that beer and drink it with the biggest grin I can imagine.

A little hope is all we need! I have my cooking qualifications, and I thought that fifo chef work was not something that most people wanted to do. I cook really well and could do the job easily. I know there is lots of competition for a dump truck driver or welder in fifo work, but not for the kitchen. So I thought I could work fifo and save up to open my own business. My wife works with computers in the technology industry. What would a high paying position be? Also how would we wrangle getting sponsorship at our age? From sunny England as well?

Damn. I don't think I will ever get back over there. I can always dream.