Australia 2009 | ElseyWorld

Travel Blog: Australia 2009

The Adventure begins here. Quit the job…check. Rent the house…check. Stuff in storage…check. Cat holed up in cattery…check. Purchase full compliment of road warrior techno-toys…check, check (and yes, just one more gadget for good measure) – check!

Three years ago, Lynn and I moved down to Sydney from the states to experience a more mellow, equitable lifestyle. The work life balance in DC had become, well, too imbalanced. Enamoured with the Sydney environment, and impressed with the Aussie attitude to work and play, we decided to make the move down here ourselves and give it a fair go.

Three years on; we’re still very much in love with the country, but have somewhat failed in our attempt to move one lane to the left in the rat race. We find ourselves living in a big house, with a big mortgage, and both working hard in big, challenging jobs. Nothing wrong with all of that mind you, just not what we set our to do.

After much sole searching, we decided to yank the handbrake and take a sharp left turn out of the rat race. The goal – a few months of travel and adventure, followed by a year or so in another part of Australia a slower pace is a statutory requirement.

So, we’ve both quit our jobs (sorry Macquarie!), rented the house for a year and put our stuff in storage. For the past 10 days or so we’ve been renting a small apartment in Mosman [map link] so that I can work out my notice at Macquarie Bank, and the both of us can work out the kinks in our suitcase packing strategies.

Mosman started out as just some random place to stay for a couple of weeks before we hit the road, but I have to say we really enjoyed hanging out there. So much so that we were in danger of never getting past Go (let alone collecting $200).

One could really see one’s self living there – great shops, lots of wonderful places to eat, interesting neighbourhoods, a marvellous beach just a few minutes away, and – the pièce de résistance, commuting to work on the ferry. Who knows, the plan to spend a year in Adelaide after our travels might just transmogrify to a year in Mosman.

View from our Mosman Apartment

One could really see one’s self living there – great shops, lots of wonderful places to eat, interesting neighbourhoods, a marvellous beach just a few minutes away, and – the pièce de résistance, commuting to work on the ferry. Who knows, the plan to spend a year in Adelaide after our travels might just transmogrify to a year in Mosman.

You can also see more pictures from this trip here.