Tying up the loose ends in Sydney

We only really spent about 4 months in Sydney but it left a huge impression on us. I say "us" but maybe it was only me as Oz and Beth have never been back in 20 years. I landed on my feet with the job that Gour lined up and I did meet my future wife so Sydney had good memories for me, but what of Oz ?


Oz spent a lot of his time working at a newsagent in North Sydney, round the corner from the station and opposite the big hole that eventually became the Optus Tower. It seemed very easy to get IT jobs and I was earning more money contracting in Sydney that I had been working full-time in the UK but the others in the flat had fairly low paying back-packer style jobs that at best just paid rent and incidentals. I was very happy staying in Sydney but Oz, Beth, Hels and Kate wanted to move on and keep travelling. Beth only had a few months away from work and she didn't want to spend it all in Sydney.


It was always the plan to set out on the road again after the Lufbrats had visited at Christmas but with my relationship with Christy developing it was a difficult thing for me to do. I even started looking in to what I would have to do to to get an Australian resident's visa (in fact the day that I eventually arrived back in England I went along to Australia House on The Strand to get things moving). 


Anyway, the lease on our unit was up and the owners even tried to get us out early but we stood our ground. When we did leave the unit, the agent deducted money from our bond as they claimed that the unit wasn't clean enough and the owner's had had to pay to get it cleaned again but when I visited for a final inspection with the agent the owner was in there with a gang of labourers ripping the place apart to renovate it. Obviously they didn't have it cleaned and I got my money back. Hels and Kate had already moved out and on, Oz and Beth went up to Newcastle, NSW and Andy Brown (he stayed a little longer that the other Lufbrats) and I decamped to Christy's flat. 


We'd made plans to travel northwards through Australia and then on through Asia. Oz was going to head home after India but I invested some of my Dept of Rec and Racing cash on a ticket for the Trans-Mongolian Express with the aim of getting back to England overland.

Goodbye Aussie birds

Goodbye Christy's Flat

On the 4th of Jan 1992 Andy and I jumped on an overnight bus to Coffs Harbour and I said a tearful goodbye to Christy (her tears not mine - cos she's a soft chick and I'm a reet hard northerner !!) not knowing whether or not I'd ever see or hear from her again......

On the road again

P.S. Sydney did leave some sort of impression on Oz, or at least a car did, as he managed to get knocked down crossing the road in North Sydney and ended up in the Royal North Shore Hospital. The only lasting damage seemed to be to his teeth and he spent the next 6 months prodding and poking them with toothpicks. Oz was in and out of the hospital before I got to visit him there but I've made up for it by spending far too much time there in recent years....but that's another story or five.