Hi Matt,
About 3 years ago I bought an Align T-Rex 450 helicopter. They are seriously difficult to fly and as David mentioned you need somewhere safe to fly them. Seach on YouTube for "align trex" for some amazing videos.
A good Australian retailler is wattsuprc (
www.wattsuprc.com.au). Apparently they are the Australian distributor for align helicopters.
R/C Helicopter simulators are very realistic and are great for learning to fly without the fear of crashing or injury. I have RealFlight G5.5 (
http://www.realflight.com/) which includes a USB controller. I spent 6 months just learning stable flight and some basic maneuvers.
More recently I have spent all my "hobby" time with astronomy. It seems like I spend too much time at work and not enough time on hobbies...
Cheers,
Mark