HAVING flown 10,000 miles from home, Aussie ace Georgia Hendy is looking forward to making an impact in South Cumbria.

The Queensland teenager arrived in Lindal ahead of the North Lancs and Cumbria League season ready to make the journey worth it.

Hendy has come a long way from her hometown of Toowoomba – about an hour-and-a-half from Brisbane – to Furness, swapping a city of around 110,000 people for a village with less than one per cent of that population.

But she has not come for the change in demographics, rather to show her stuff on the cricket field for Lindal Moor, the South Lakes Maidens and the Cumbria Women’s team.

Doing so is something she has hoped to achieve for a long time, and the chance presented by Lindal and Cumbria Cricket Ltd was too good to turn down.

“As a young one, going over and playing in England was a huge thing,” said the 18-year-old, who played her club cricket for Sandgate-Redcliffe back home. “As soon as I started playing, I always wanted to come over and play. It has been a lifelong dream to come over to England and play.

“I want to improve as a player while I’m here, gain more confidence and get some experience under my wing.

“I’ll be playing for Cumbria, the men’s Lindal team, the Maidens and the under-19s Lindal side in the Twenty20 – it’s going to be busy, busy.

“The level seems to be very similar to at home, but it’s awesome that there are so many women who play here – and this is just a small area. I can’t wait to see the rest of it.

“I’ll give them a bit of Aussie culture, but for the younger girls as well I can give them a realisation of what they can do when they get older if they keep playing the sport and doing well – they could go to Australia and experience cricket over there.”

Hendy, who has played indoor cricket for Australia, has already settled in well at Lindal.

She has taken in training sessions and helped prepare the new pavilion before a ball was even bowled in the new season.

“They’re amazing,” she said of her new club-mates. “It’s such a family-oriented club. Everyone is so nice and everyone knows everyone – I was really surprised and it was really nice to come into, it’s a really welcoming environment.

“We’re very family-oriented at home as well, except they don’t have as much to do with the women’s team – they aren’t as closely linked with the men as they are here.”

The lack of cohesion between men’s and women’s teams in Queensland meant Hendy used to travel the 125km to Brisbane each week to play A-Grade with Sandgate-Redcliffe.

She added: “It’s different in some ways here, but not different in others.

“The towns are a good 150km away from each other at home – here there are one or two kilometres. That’s a bit different. There are hedges and greenness as well – we don’t have that at home!”