Our First Car And House In Australia

When people get their first house or car, it is a big deal.

Well, for us, getting our first car and house in Australia is a huge deal. This is us getting ourselves established, building our lives here.

We needed a car. In the first week of being here, I blistered my feet from walking everywhere. Adelaide is a big place!

Cars in Australia are very expensive. Cheap cars can be anything up to $8000. In the UK you can get a new car for not much more than that in sterling equivalent.

Our car is a ford falcon. It is 21 years old, dual fuel and has a 3.9 engine. Wooohooo.

We got it for a very cheap $1500. That is almost unheard of here. So we are very lucky. It has it's own personality but definately is a great car.




Our house is amazing. Our first house in Australia!

It has 3 bedrooms. The master is en suite. We have a central bathroom also. Then there is an additional toilet. We have a built in garage, gardens to the front and rear, and a separate utility room. It is all on the flat, so no stairs to contend with.

We have achieved all this, and we have only been here just over a week.

We had a little hick up when we bought a bed. We got the mattress at one shop, and the frame from another. Sam managed to squeeze the mattress into the car, and got it home without much trouble.

So we assumed the frame would fit as well. No! It didn't. The staff were very friendly, and ordered a station wagon cab.

The taxi turned up and was a normal car. Of course we tried, but it did not fit. The taxi driver said we should try one of their station wagon cabs! The staff ordered one, but he turned up 10 minutes later. When this was explained to him, he said he was not 10 minutes late! He was Indian, and our thick accents obviously was throwing him. We gave the taxi driver assurance that no, he was not late (carry on taxi?) and that we would like a station wagon. We were told it may take 2 hours as there weren't many in the fleet.

It never came. We carried it home. Us Scots can tough it out!

We haven't met the neighbours yet, but I'm sure they are going to be great! Hope they can understand what we are saying, or I foresee a few arguments.

It won't be long til we can organise barbeque parties, and meet people from the neighbourhood.

I start work tomorrow, so will meet loads of people then.