Homeless and unemployed

In 1770, Captain James Cook, aboard the Endeavour, extended a scientific voyage to the South Pacific, charted the east coast of Australia and claimed it for the British Crown.


And what did the Brits decide to do with this vast land, abounding in nature's gifts and girt by sea. This land with a unique set of flora and fauna found nowhere else on this planet. A land whose climate, it would surely be admitted by the most patriotic Englishmen, is more suited to human habitation.


They made it a penal colony, of course.


They then spent the next 80 scraping the bottom of the Brittish barrel, and hearding up the societal sediment onto ships bound for Oz.


Little did they suspect that 200+ years later the decendants of those convicts would have their revenge (and not just by beating the English at every sport they ever invented). It seems to have become a right-of-passage for every Australian, at some stage between the ages of 20 and 30, to voyage to the ol' dart, spend a few weeks\months\years there whinging constantly about the weather\food\beaches\etc, then fly back to Oz with pasty-white skin and as many pounds as they can carry (pounds being used here to measure both currency and weight).

And so it is that M-A and I take our place in the queue.
We have left our home, jobs and almost everyone who cares about us behind, and departed for London, England (via a few weeks in sunny California). Here we go. . .