and welcome to the 405th. Good to see more aussies getting in on the action ( and a brissy boy at that ) Im also pretty new to the 405th, but in the time ive been on ive learned quite a bit, you'll find its a very helpful community. Pretty much everything you'll need to know to get started is in the stickies in the noob forum, as well as tutorials and other stuff.
Starting on a practice pep is a good idea, i did several armor pieces at 1st before i got the hang of it, and discovered some of the pitfalls of working too quickly
Also, another place you might want to look at is the Aus-Nz members thread. Its a list of Australian and New Zealand members of the 405th, why not say gday