Monday 13 June 2011

The Queensland Experience is (almost) Over

History
The Bludger must have been born under a wandering star. Born in Britain and dragged crying to Australia at an early age. Adelaide became home after a stint in mid north South Australia.
Since gaining independence the Bludger has lived in London, Adelaide, Melbourne (briefly), Zanzibar (also briefly, until the authorities stamped his passport "no more entries"), Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane. Which only leaves the cities of Perth, Hobart and Darwin to be considered home for a complete set of Australian capitals.
The Bludger for a long time has considered that Perth may be his next home. Perth has many characteristics about it that remind him of Adelaide and make it a favored destination. It has a Mediterranean style climate, the ocean is to the west which makes for awesome sunsets over the ocean, it is also west of the Great Dividing Range so it is almost totally ignored by the rest of Australia, it has a laid back culture, a beach orientated culture. WA also has great wine regions and a culture of fresh food  in lovely Cafe's and restaurants. In short a home from home.
So it has come as a great surprise to the Bludger to find that he is about to leave Brisbane and head to Darwin to make that his new home.

What's happening?
Technically I shouldn't be surprised. I have been in discussion with my new business partner (David) for many months. Darwin has been on the agenda. It's just been such hard work and a long time to get there.
To that end I decided to sell my house in Brisbane and rent for a while. This would give me some flexibility if the Darwin venture came up. To that end the house has been on the market for months with no real interest shown by anyone.
Eventually a contract was signed, with so many escape clauses for the Buyer that I didn't expect it to reach settlement. In fact they used the clauses to beat me down in price and then stuffed around for weeks unable to get finance approved. I had reached the stage where I had given up and was about to tell the buyer, quite impolitely, where to put the contract.
It so happened that David then called me and said that he had a 12 month contract for some work in Darwin and that I should get packing. At this stage I was expecting another delay on the sale contract but in a rare case of coincidence the buyer's solicitor called me the next day and told me that the Buyer had Financial approval and that the contract was now unconditional. My house was sold, although settlement is not until mid July.
So I resigned from work at the first opportunity.

What is my new job?
Initially the work in hand is to provide proactive support to a GP Super Clinic for it's IT hardware and software. It's only a few hours per week.
That will provide a small income to keep me going. Meanwhile I need to build an IT Consultancy practice. A lot of cold calling a lot of building contacts a lot of marketing and no doubt a lot of disappointment. But hopefully one day I will be able to look back at a thriving business and say I did that.
Worst case scenario! I go back to being a PAYG earner, having had an opportunity to explore parts of the Northern Territory and nearby Asia.
It's exciting times, I am going out on a limb financially, career wise and no doubt emotionally also.

Next Steps
I am currently packing my goods and chattels disposing of those that I don't want, selling that which I can and generally trying to reduce the amount of "stuff" to relocate. I still have 4 weeks of work ahead of me and that is going to be manic. I still have to get to Darwin and then find some accommodation. Oh and as soon as I am there I basically head off to Cambodia for 4 weeks.

The Bludger is definitely not bludging at the moment.

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