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Thursday 31 August 2006: Site Progress
This site has been on line for just under five months. The number of discrete IP addresses visiting the site in August excluding search engines was almost five times the level in May, our first full month.So we are getting some traction.
Thursday 24 August 2006: Diversity of Regional Experience, Sydney or the Bush
A story on the Regional Living Australia blog focuses on the diversity of the regional experience, looking at the difficulties we face in properly capturing and presenting this to you.
A second story, Sydney or the Bush - a few numbers, compares life style in a Sydney suburb with an equivalent regional centre. The bottom line is that the same life style in Sydney involves each family member in between ten and twenty hours extra travel time per week while also requiring an additional pre-tax income of $42,000 to meet added Sydney costs.
It is just one month - it feels longer - since we created the Regional Living Australia blog to support this site, and the experiment has proved well worthwhile. While traffic is still not high, it takes some time for people to find a blog, it is rising. We have been able to run material that would not be possible on the main site, while it has also aided content creation.
Thursday 17 August 2006: Country Week 2006, more on Australian Wine
Friday 11-Sunday 13 August saw the Annual Country Week Expo in Sydney, an annual event designed to help Sydney people understand the opportunities offered by Regional NSW for work, life and play. This year there was a competing event on at exactly the same days at a different venue attempting to attract Sydney skilled workers to Regional Queensland. This competition did not make a great deal of sense from our perspective, detracting from both events.
As mentioned before, the Regional Living Australia blog carried a story on 3 August outlining the early history of wine in Regional Australia. The growing spread and diversity of wine across Regional Australia is one of the joys of the regional experience. Since this first story, the Regional Australia blog has carried a story on McLaren Vale and the Fleurieu Peninsula, while the New England Australia blog carried stories on wine in the Hunter Valley, New England Tablelands and Hastings Valley.
Postscript: Later in August we saw the death of Len Evans, a man who played a major role in the development of the modern Australian love of wine. His life was celebrated in a story on the Regional Living Australia blog.
Thursday 10 August 2006: Foreign investment in Australian real estate, boarding schools, paddle steamers
We know that many overseas people are interested in investing in Australian real estate. Because this is a sensitive political area, the Australian Government has imposed some limitations. However, so long as you comply with the policy and the assessment procedures, investment is possible. For that reason, we have added a new page on Foreign Investment in Australian real estate.
The boarding school pages are some of the most visited pages on this site. For that reason, we have begun an upgrade of the boarding school section. This will take us a little time simply because we have to check every link as well as adding new material.
We have spoken before about paddle steamers.
At just over one million square kilometres, the Murray-Darling Basin contains about 14 per cent of the continental landmass, extends across four States, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Queensland and includes the entire area of the Australian Capital Territory. The Basin supports 11 per cent of Australia's population, is responsible for 41 per cent of the gross value of our agricultural production and is home to major manufacturing industries.
Paddle steamers were a critical transport element along this vast but often slow moving and tortuous river system. For that reason, we have taken material from the Regional Living blog and turned it into a new page, In search of the paddle steamer, in our life style section.
Thursday 3 August 2006: Blog entries
Talking to a friend end July about the work we were doing on Regional Living Australia site, she asked why we were featuring wool so prominently just at present. Too her and she thought most Australians, wool was of little interest.Our response is set out in the blog entry Why Wool? In essence, wool has left its imprint all over Regional Australia. We believe that this forms an integral element in the Regional Australia experience.
On 2 August, the Regional Australia blog looked at Geelong and the Victorian wool track, extending the analysis already done on New England. We will use the blog to post more entries on wool in Victoria before setting up a main page on the full site.
On 3 August, the Regional Australia blog looked at the history and role of wine in earlier Australia. Australians always drank more wine per head than other English speaking countries. But wine was always a minority drink until very recently.
Interestingly given the linkage between Australia and beer drinking, beer did not emerge as the major tipple until after the Gold Rushes.