Hi NGK. Welcome to the West Oz group.
I would love to have your setup but on a pension that's a pipe dream.
You have come to the right place to get started. I certainly can recommend doing three things.
1/. Visit as often as you can.
2/. Read as much as you can
3/. Save as much as you can.
This site is a gold mine of information. Put it to good use. But the best teacher I have found is practice and learning about your camera and it's functions.
Know your camera and then start on your photographs.
What I like is being able to throw away 100s of discarded digital images through the learning curve, where I certainly could not afford to do that with film.
Have fun and good shooting.
Howz