Living Our Dream: Getting Paid to Travel

Welcome to the land of kangaroos.  Australia and parts of Papua New Guinea are the only countries that kangaroos are native.  Kangaroos outside of these two countries have been introduced by humans. So it is appropriate to think of Australia whenever you see a kangaroo logo or symbol. 

Our "Australian Adventure" begins with me and my husband Mike (us in the photos below on the Yorke Peninsula) moving three months ago to Australia, to state of South Australia.   He has accepted a job as a country doctor for at least a year. He is a family practice doctor with over 33 years of experience with most of this time being in Hamilton, Montana.  He will fill in for rural doctors who have requested leave for holiday or personal time.  How lucky for me, as I get to tag along and be responsible for planning our travels. Since he works for three weeks, which then is followed by a week off duty, and has an additional four paid weeks of vacation, I will have a total of 16 weeks to plan and coordinate our itineraries.  We have never had so much time off with a "full-time" job.  Nice!

My plane arrived October 1, 2015 at the Sydney airport at 0620.  The plane was one of the first to arrive and thus had no immigration line.  Unlike Mike who traveled the week before me, his plane had a 2.5 hour immigration line delay and he missed his connecting flight to Adelaide.  As a travel tip it is worth trying to book an early arrival time to avoid the lines in immigration.  Melbourne has weather issues that can divert planes to Sydney, so it worth considering booking connections through Sydney over Melbourne.

Australia is similar in size to the continental USA, but only has 23 million people. South Australia  has more land mass than Texas, yet the population is less than two million.  And we Montanans thought we had a sparse population of one million. Yippee!  In case you are in need of Tuesday Trivia material, they have five times more sheep than people.  These little sheep are off to market...

                                                                         

Another trivia tidbit (but not so trivial), is that surveys reveal Australians report being the happiest people of any country in the world. And with an abundant backyard playground beaches like this photo how could you not feel happy, or at least experience tranquility?
                                                                               

  
How “lovely” we get to live in such a country for a year.  We do enjoy experiential learning and are looking forward to putting to the test as many learning opportunities as our energy and endurance can allow.

Generally speaking fall and spring of the Southern Hemisphere are the best times to visit almost anywhere in Australia. The summer months of December, January and February are hot and weather temperatures frequently reach 100+ degrees. We had a pub owner tell us over a beer, "tourists don't check out the local weather before they make their plans and then complain because it is just to hot."  So in hopes off curtailing the whiny tourist syndrome, I pass this tidbit on to the future travelers of Australia. Also during the summer, the east coast, where the Great Barrier Reef is located, is humid,  ocean waters are murky and the risk of life threatening jellyfish stings are increased and a real danger. The best time to experience the Great Barrier Reef (1,616 miles long and is the single largest structure made by living organism on the planet that can be seen from space.) is June through August.

Luckily for us, since we don't like humid heat, South Australia has a dry summer heat. Also, along the ocean coasts there more often than not is a prevailing breeze, and the temperature can be 25 to 15 degrees cooler than locations just 20 plus miles inland.  The temperature change is amazing to experience.

My next post will begin to describe the lifestyle of Australians.  The below picture is a hint of my upcoming perspective...