What am I doing here?

It's always good for a trip to have a goal, however spurious. Obviously I'm primarily in Australia to do a job and learn about another journalistic culture. I also want to see as many members of my family as possible.

But additionally I have a few side-projects to keep me busy when I get bored of swimming, surfing, barbecues and being smug.

1. To see my cousin Angus's punk band, The Disables. Annoyingly they played Sydney a couple of days before I arrived here, but I'm hoping they'll tour again before the end of the year. Asio, the first track on their debut album, is particularly good.

2. To find out more about my late great-uncle George Blaikie, who was for many years a journalist in Sydney and is to the best of my knowledge the only member of my family with a Wikipedia entry. He wrote a number of best-selling books, the best-titled of which is Wild Women of Sydney.

3. To get a ticket for at least one of the days of the Ashes series this summer/winter. Think this is self-explanatory although not necessarily straightforward.

4. To fill in the embarrassing gaps in my knowledge about Australian Aborigines - at the moment it extends only to didgeridoos, Dreamtime and drink problems, and I'm very aware these are not-very-helpful stereotypes. I've flown into a storm of debate in the Australian press about a court decision to grant "native land rights" to the Noongar people over part of the city of Perth. And I've been surprised by how few Aborigines I've seen in Sydney: the first was drunk and begging on the north side of the Harbour Bridge, and the second, third and fourth were playing music on Circular Quay and posing for pictures with white and Asian tourists. I didn't feel very comfortable about either situation. In the finest journalistic tradition, I think the best way of finding out what it is like to be an Aborigine in 2006 is to meet and talk to some of them, and I'm going to try to do this without being too cheesy.

5. To visit as many as possible of the places in Sydney named after areas in London. Top of my list is Dulwich Hill in homage to East Dulwich, the idyllic south-east London suburb I like to call home. Other south London-inspired Sydney districts include Sydenham, Lewisham, Croydon, Greenwich and Woolwich. I've already walked down Oxford Street and got a train from Kings Cross, although I have yet to visit Paddington or Waterloo. Yes, it's slightly childish but it helps me feel at home. Pictures to follow.