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Originally Posted by gail.crease
First I'd just like to say thank you to the person who set up this website and to everyone's contributions. It's been more informative than any other website we've found. It has helped us to decide on Melbourne to settle in.
We have our health checks booked for tomorrow and my case officer said if everything is ok our visa will be approved early in the New Year. :D We plan on doing a rekkie to Melbourne at Easter time and move later in the year.
I've researched everything I can on Melbourne and I've not come across anything negative about it. I'm sure there must be. Can anyone who lives there tell me if there are any bad points. It would be really helpful to know before we arrive so won't be disappointed with anything.
One of our reasons for moving to Oz (amongst lots of others) is so my husband doesn't have to commute. We have a 3 year old and a new baby that he doesn't get to see much. He spends 4 hours a day commuting to London so a 20 minute journey to work in the sunshine would be heaven for him :D . We also want to live near water so we've decided on the Bayside area. I know it's really expensive but we plan to keep our house in the UK and rent over there. It's more important to us to live in the best place we can to live our Oz dream than be in a place we don't like to afford a house. Based on what I've read on the housing market and high stamp duty in Melbourne we think we're better off keeping our house here for the short term. Anyone know of any negative points on Bayside (apart from the high cost of houses)? Are there any other good suburbs with either beaches or lakes that are easy to commute to the CBD?
Last question....how do the locals like the Brits? I've read negative things about other areas but not much about Melbourne. Are we accepted? Is it easy to make aussie friends? The reason I ask is we've lived abroad before (Bermuda and Switzerland) and we've found in each case that in general the local people, although pleasant, prefer to keep to themselves and not mix with foreigners socially. This time we want to feel like we belong and not just a visitor.
Has anyone used a relocation company? Would appreciate a recommendation for one.
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Hi
Good luck on your move, we are also going to Melbourne.
Have you looked at Geelong and the areas along the coast that way. About 1 hour to the city from there and all looks great. We are going to stay with relatives when we go so will have a base from which to search around til we find what we like. Please come back on here and let us all know how you get on?
Warren & Lesley