This will be my last posting. I thought I would entertain you with some thoughts about Oz.

The universal greeting is “How’re you going?” to which the correct response is “Good, mate, how’re you?” and not “How kind of you to enquire. In fact, I went after breakfast”.

All their coffees are called something different. The most common are the long black, which we would call an Americano, and the flat white, which has no British equivalent – basically a white coffee, but not all frothed up.

Yoghurt is pronounced yoe-gurt

Universal response to any request is “No worries”

Driving is pretty much the same as here, except that ‘no entry’ signs are followed by a sign saying ‘WRONG WAY – GO BACK’ which is rather nice.

Speed limits are enforced with fierce penalties and are strictly observed, so far as I could see. I was told that many cars are fitted with a speed governor, because keeping down to 110 km/hr on empty freeways is pretty difficult.

Courgettes are called zucchini

Distances are vast. You can drive two hours from Bateman’s Bay, NSW, to Canberra, in what is a fairly well-populated part of the country, and encounter just two small towns along the way. In WA, the largest State, there is a population of 1.4 million, of whom 1 million live in Perth/Fremantle. The remaining 400,000 live in an area half the size of all Europe; clearly there is a lot of space between the people.

Thongs are flip flops, not uncomfortable pants

The major cities seem full of young people – through immigration Australia has added nearly 50% of its population in the last two generations. This bodes well for its future, by which I mean there will be someone to pay the pensions of the oldies, which is important, I think..

Fire is a constant worry, especially in NSW and Victoria, the most populous States. The Australian terrain, and the plants and trees that live there, have evolved to depend on regular fires, usually started by lightning, for regeneration. Pretty well every summer homes are destroyed and lives lost through fires, which can advance at devastating speed. We saw camp site notices prohibiting fires in all circumstances, which kind of defeats the object of camping, I should have thought.

The Aussies are, in my experience anyway, open and friendly. They will always stop and have a chat – if they hear an English accent you can rely on hearing about their geographic connection/ancestry/trip to England or whatever.

Despite the harshness of the interior, the large number of species that can kill you (whilst this can be exaggerated, there are certainly a large number of creatures which can seriously spoil your day), and the possibility of having your house burned down every summer, Australia is a beautiful country, blessed with, for the most part, good weather. It is not surprising that so many people go to live there. If the opportunity arises, we will go back, certainly to Bateman’s Bay, which is a gorgeous area. If we don’t, we’ve got many happy memories to bore people with.

Finally, I had so many complaints because people could not access the photos I put on my Facebook page, I have opened a Flickr account. The photos can now be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobzinoz