Yeah I can't believe that you used to have to get all of them in one go - it must have been scary. I found agk and flight planning the hardest - though once fltpln clicked it was sort of easy and just came down to an time/accuracy thing. I'm going to keep building experience here and see how things go. The time and money is the real obstacle for me...AUD is a little silly really!
What is their air law like? Having done the Oz ATPL would have made things a little easier yeah..? And flying over there - is it totally different? It certainly looks to be about 4 times the cost!!