Colin Hewitt.com - About Me (page 1)

My father was in the British Army and was posted to a foreign country where I was born.
When I was 3 months old, we moved to England.

Then when I was about 4 years old we moved to Australia and eventually settled in Melbourne.

I got my first job when I was 17 years old as an apprentice moulder at an aircraft factory making aircraft parts.

In 1982, on a whim, I left Australia and went to Europe for 18 months. This was a good life experience for me and I learnt many things from trip. It truly was one of the best things I could ever have done. I am glad I did it when I did otherwise I doubt if I would ever have gone.

I worked for the Scottish Youth Hostels Association in Edinburgh for almost 12 months, first as a kitchen hand then as an Assistant Warden

I returned to Australia in December 1983 and eventually found work with the Youth Hostels Association.

I stayed there for about 18 months. First as a Relief Manager for country Victoria and then as a Manager at one of the Melbourne Hostels

The hours I worked were not particularly good for the relationship I was having with my then girlfriend. In order to maintain the relationship, I left and was out of work for approximately 2 months or so

I eventually got a job with BP Oil after several weeks of temp work with an employment agency

In 1992 I quit my job at BP and hit the road and moved to Darwin in the Northern Territory

I had no job, so I borrowed a rake, borrowed a shovel, borrowed a lawn mower and started a lawnmowing business

In 1993, my second year in Darwin, I entered my bike (a 1979 Triumph Bonneville) in 3 of the local bike shows and promptly got nowhere in the results - not that I expected a win. The following year I got the same result -nothing

So then I decided to spend a few dollars doing some work to it to make it look somewhat better than it was, and in 1997 I entered all 5 shows and won each one for the catogory I entered. My claim to fame now is that I've got the set

In December of 1997 I sold my lawn mowing business and moved back to Melbourne

The driving reason to sell up was because my father had terminal cancer and had only a few months left to live.
As it happened, he died 7 months later on July 31 1998

When I came back to Melbourne I got a job at a mushroom farm making spawn in the spawn lab and worked there for 10+ years.

I continued living with my mum because I didn't want to see her living on her own Too many people these days see old ladies living on their own as easy targets

I started to get into webpage making and have since made a few websites. I do it more for the sake of just doing it than anything else.

I met my wife Darlene In 2001, and on the 7th February 2004 we got married in the garden at my sisters house

I made a wedding website when we were married. It has some of our wedding pictures and ceremony details etc.
I have also made a downloadable .exe file of our wedding. Try it. I am sure you will enjoy it

In 2005, Darlene came to Australia to live and we moved into a 2 bedroom unit in Broadford that I had bought as an investment property a few years earlier.

Since 2003 we have been playing Santa and Mrs Claus at family Christmas gatherings

At first we were using the el-cheapo santa suits, but we figured if we were going to be doing this on a regular basis, we may as well look the business

In 2006 we had a 3 month holiday in the USA. We went to Darlenes home town in South Carolina and spent the bulk of our time there. We also went to Montana for about a week, visiting Glacier National Park. We also went to a Pow Wow in North Carolina and spent some time in Tennessee, visiting the Jack Daniel Distillery, Nashville, and Elvis Presleys Graceland Mansion.

Darlene is a Southern girl and she loves and misses her beloved South.
The choice was obvious, and so upon arrival back in Australia we prepared ourselves to make the move to the USA.

When Darlene went back to the USA she found and bought an acre of land which she developed so that when I got there we could start then buy a house and be ready to move in and start our new life there in Saluda, South Carolina.

Darlene left for the USA in March 2007 to start the USA Immigration process and I was hoping to join her shortly thereafter. It took a further 18 months before I was finally able to join her.

I finally arrived in the USA on October 3rd 2008, and we have since bought our little house - a 3 bedroom doublewide - and we have been slowly doing little improvements to the land.

I quite liked my job there, but I decided to pursue a dream to live in tropical Darwn