By 2019 we'd been in Australia together for about a year — long enough to have jobs and a routine, not long enough for any of it to feel ordinary yet. So when we got the chance to get away, we took it: Brisbane, our first real trip as a couple in our new country.
It doesn't sound like much on paper. A river city, a long weekend, two people who didn't have a lot of money to spend. But it was the trip that flipped a switch. We'd come all this way to build a life in Australia — and we'd barely seen any of it. Brisbane was where we decided that was going to change.
Falling for a country, one trip at a time
There's a difference between living somewhere and exploring it. For our first year, Australia had mostly been work, rent, and figuring out how things worked. Brisbane was the first time we looked at the country as travellers — as a place to discover, not just survive in.
We didn't move across the world to stay in one suburb. Brisbane was the trip that reminded us of that.
The beginning of a long list
Brisbane became the first pin on a map that's a lot fuller now. It taught us that the best thing about being a couple far from home is that you get to discover a whole new country together, from scratch, with no one's expectations but your own.
Everything since — Cairns, the Kimberley, the long drives, the lookouts — started with that first modest trip up to Brisbane. Sometimes the most important journeys are the unremarkable ones that simply got you started.
