Subject: why do old objects in the universe appear far away

if the universe started as a point, i.e. everything was very close 
together in the early universe, then why do we believe that the further 
away an object appears the older it must be? surely, if everything was 
closer together at the beginning, and has been moving apart since, then 
the further back in time we look, the closer together things should 
appear. e.g. if the big bang happened 20 bn years ago, then a galaxy 20bn 
years old should appear to be on the doorstep, not at the other end of the 
universe. am i missing out on something? i have asked this question on 
several web sites and never received an answer.

Re: why do old objects in the universe appear far away