Emigrating to Australia 20 years later
by 
Leaving Australia
So we moved to Albany in the Great Southern region of Western Australia. The new property was larger than we had been used to and it offered a lot to do. We were less than 2 kilometers from the beach and we spent many mornings and evenings walking our two dogs up and down the various beaches, the fishing wasn't at all bad either.
But the house and land were pretty run down. Unfortunately the previous owner had taken the then easy route and contracted the land to a Blue gum plantation company. The first cut of blue gum had happened after 15 years or so and the trees were now in re growth and would be harvested again in about 6 years time.
Plantation companies take little interest in the land or plantation, apart from an annual application of fertiliser they do nothing. Roughly 40 acres were covered by the plantation. Sydney Golden wattle which is a terrible weed tree in the area, had invaded the plantation, making it impenetrable in areas. We set about trying to clear large areas of the weed tree. Back breaking work to say the least. We bought a large Ford 7000 tractor which helped a lot but it was still hard going.
Jackie found work again pretty easily, I found my self in a difficult position. I had been working in insurance in Perth and there were some opportunities to continue that in the great Southern region. But limited really was the word and we needed more income.
I made so many approaches for part time work, but as is common with small towns if they don't know you you don't get in. I needed part time work as the house renovations and the land was taking up a huge amount of my time.
We had never tried the small town experience before and to be honest that’s not what we were doing now, as we were about 30 minutes from Albany and about 25 from Denmark. We made a few valued friends in the local area and so far at least they remain so now. But locals are always suspicion of strangers in that environment. But anyway we didn't move to the country to make friends we moved for the life style.
Because the blue gum plantation covered most of the 60 acres, pasture was limited and in very poor condition, therefore the potential for stock (animals) was limited too. We had the usual chickens and adjisted a couple of horses on the property for a friend. We dabbled with the idea of rare breed sheep, cattle and alpacas etc. But never did get around to doing it.
What actually threw everything into turmoil was a sudden desire to take a holiday in the UK Jackie had built up the frequent flyer points on her credit card to the point were she could get a return flight to London. I also fancied a trip but would have to pay full fair. When you live on a the land it can be very hard to get away, understandably no one wants to commit to looking after your animals etc for a long period and largely for that reason we had never traveled far or for very long.
The only way we were going to do this trip was to go separately, spending a month apart was certainly an interesting scenario. When we looked back we realised that we hadn’t been apart for more than 3 days since we were married 19 years before. But we booked the flights and Jackie flew back to the UK in March 2006.
Jackie enjoyed her trip but really saw very little of the country, the weather in March was predictably poor and with all the best intentions her family took over and whisked her here and there between relatives etc.
She returned to Australia after a month and I left left for the UK in June, my visit was really good I had a fair amount of freedom, my family is not as large as Jackie’s or as close and they have other commitments. I saw all of them but it wasn’t a constant barrage, also the weather was extremely hot, 36 deg in London is no joke.
Being apart had not done our relationship a lot of good and we had many things to work out between us when I returned to Australia. As it turned out amongst other things we both felt a need to go back to the UK, for at least a short time. Our parents are in their 70’s now and having left them all of those years ago we feel the need to spend some time with them. Also our siblings have grown up and we would also like to spend some time with them. We can after all always return to Australia when we are ready. We made sure of that by getting our Australian citizenship before we left (should have done it years ago).
Fortunately in a way children have never featured on our horizon, I say fortunately because it has given us freedom in many things and the ability to return to the UK. I think if we had had children and they were past the baby stage that returning would be a problem, not least because of schools and friends etc. I also think growing up in Australia would have been great. and to have moved them away would be a great shame.
But anyway we made the decision to return to the UK. Western Australia was in the midst of a property boom in 2006-7 and even though our property was unusual and in a slow market it would be hard to sell, we found a buyer very quickly. We also were going to have to re home our beloved dog’s That is something we found so terribly hard. But we found good homes for them both, we do still miss them so much though.