Journey and Destination

£625 of excess baggage charges, two cut fingers, an aching back and several hasty repacks of my hand luggage later, I'm finally here!

There were a few tears as I left York. Firstly, walking round my flat for the last time, and secondly, American English came on the ipod just as I drove over the bridge on the ringroad and I saw the Minster for the last time. Driving tear-blinded isn't good. I kept seeing reminders of Oz on the way over - a car numberplate AU51 BEN, Jet's Are You Going To Be My Girl? playing in the services and Bachelor Girl being the last song to play as I arrived at my parents'.

The mad rules regarding single pieces of hand luggage on planes are still in force - no get-outs for laptops or anything else. So I had to quickly unpack and repack my backpack to fit everything in - fortunately I just managed to get the PC in there. Without blood all over it. It's a pretty heavy laptop too, unfortunately, hence the bad back.

Some rather blank looks from the check-in lady at Manchester - I think each of us was expecting the other to say something. "I'm emigrating, so I've got excess baggage." "You're allowed 20 kgs, and you've got 61." "Yes?" "That's 41 kg overweight." "Yes..." "You're going to have to pay excess baggage charges." "Yes!" I had to go through this again at Heathrow (to avoid paying £1700 of charges!) but with a slightly less dim attendant and with more knowledge of how my side of the conversation was supposed to work.

The 12hr leg from Heathrow was possibly the best flight I've ever had - I've been so knackered these last few weeks that I slept for 7 hours solid after they served the first meal. I then watched the first half of the World Trade Centre film (got a bit too disgusted to carry on at the point where Jesus made an appearance) and Lucky Number Slevin (good but not great).

Second leg from Singapore to Melbourne was less comfortable, but was only 7 hours, so was OKish. Stuck the Ipod on and read for most of it.

Then I was met at the airport by one of my new colleagues, Peter. Who has a beard. I point this out for my audience only - it's not the first thing I notice when I meet people. He drove me to my new flat, which is not really very central (about 3 miles out of the city centre) but is reasonably well located near St Kilda itself - appears I was pretty rubbish at estimating the distance when I was here last year! Unfortunately, Wagamama's, purveyors of the delicious ice cream, has closed.

Getting over the jetlag has not been a triumph this time. I fell asleep on Monday morning for 3 hours, then again a bit in the evening, and woke at 4am, unable to return to sleep. Tuesday was reasonably similar - slept pretty much straight through from 1pm till 6pm (despite really needing to go and get a mobile phone and a bank account) then from 11pm to 2.30am, and nothing thereafter. Still sleepy now, after a day at work!