Arrival!

I arrived into Sydney International airport late Wednesday evening after a very long and gruelling flight. As planned, I was met at the arrival gate by my good friend Paul Fennessy Fenno.

Within 1/2 an hour of arrival, I was safely ensconsed in a friend's flat in Balmain. Now one would think that after such a long flight, all I would want to do would be to go to bed for half a day and wake up refreshed the next afternoon. But as you might suspect, this was not to happen. I already had managed to sort out plans for that evening - which involved going to the premier of Mickey Blue Eyes where Liz and Hugh were holding centre stage. I had already seen the film in London, but we did not make it in time to see it once again. We did, however, make it just in time for the after premier party and some schmoozing. It was really great because I met up with my old bosses from Universal in London, Deb and Xav, and also some friends from Australia's Universal offices John Scott, Rosalie Scott, David Collins and Yvette Collins (organisers of the party).

When the drinks finally finished, we all got in a Limo, did the nightclub scene, and finished off back at Deb and Xav's hotel for some early morning munchies. I eventually got back to the flat in Balmain at around 04.00hrs, very tired.

The next few weeks in Sydney were spent orientating myself with the local geography, finding work and finding more permanent accomodation.

Finding new accomodation proved a little easier than I had first anticipated. Fortunately, Paul's best friend, Damian, had a good friend who lived in Paddington. Paddington is just off of Oxford Street, a very nice and well-to-do area. (London's equivalent would probably be Kings Rd). Damian suggested that I might try this friend, Chris, as he remembered this he had a spare room. So we called Chris and arranged to meet. To cut a long story short, I moved into Chris's house with him and Jesse (his dog) and then started to make plans to find work.

Many thanks for allowing me to stay Chris!

I joined up with a couple of agencies, and it was not long before I got a job working on the floor of a printing factory stacking pallets with newspapers. This lasted but a few days. Unhappy that I hadn't found my niche in Sydney, I sought alternate employment.

My next job, packing pallets of garden pots, wasn't any better than the newspaper pallet packing job. But for want of a bit of continuity in my life, I decided to stick at this job for a couple of weeks. I left this position as opportunity knocked to continue my travels.

To view this chapter's photos, please click the camera below.