In May 2006 I moved back to the UK after 3 years living and working in Melbourne.
The main reason for the move was career-motivated but I also wanted to move back because, contrary to popular opinion, I actually prefer life in the UK. Let me start by saying I am in no way anti-Australia or anti-Australian. My girlfriend is Australian, some of my best friends are Australian, I had some very good times when I was in Australia. Having said that, every day I am grateful for my move home and am 100% happy with my decision.
It really annoys me that every time someone speaks to me about Oz they say ‘Don’t you miss it?’ ‘Why’d you come back?’ ‘You’re mad for moving back to rainy old England’
The truth is that most people base their opinion of Australia on one of the following – a) the stunning views of Sydney harbour and the Opera House; b) pleasant memories of watching Crocodile Dundee and/or Neighbours on the telly whilst growing up or c) if they’re lucky, a year-out bumming around on Bondi or the beaches of Queensland. People are really comparing their life in the UK to a surfy, bush-tucker stereotype rather than reality – so its, say, Manchester versus the Gold Coast, Liverpool versus the Whitsundays. People equate sunshine to happiness and therefore the grass appears much greener on the other side (of the world).
Suburbia
Sure, some people go to Australia and live the stereotype for real but the reality for the majority is vastly different from the beachy ideal. Over 90% of the Australian population don’t live on the beaches of Queensland but in one of 5 cities (despite preconceptions, their population is actually far more urbanised than ours). Due to virtually everyone living in bungalows and the Aussie dream of owning a quarter acre plot, the housing is extremely low density. This means that the suburbs stretch and stretch. In Melbourne’s case, suburbia stretches 40 or 50 miles from the CBD in literally every direction.
Even when there isn’t any traffic on the roads, the outer suburbs are often over an hour’s drive from the city. You might claim to live in Melbourne but very rarely venture into the city. Most of these suburbs have nothing. Literally nothing. For entertainment there may be a pub in the suburb - But not the charming local that most Brits are accustomed to. Because there aren’t many – often one pub per suburb – they are huge. They often aren’t just a pub like we know, but a tacky pub / casino / betting shop monstrosity featuring row upon row of fruit machines, locally known as ‘Pokies’.
The only other ‘entertainment’ is often a nearby mall. These are usually generic enclosed shopping centres with foodcourts, situated just off the freeway and surrounded by massive tin-shed developments. Just like in the States, these places tend to become the focus for teenagers hanging out and skipping school. Because of their locations, they also help to fuel the car culture. People drive everywhere.
Trapped
People often say that Oz has the kind if laid back lifestyle they are after. The reason the lifestyle is ‘laidback’ is because very little actually happens in Australia. Perhaps compare life in Australia to being in a coma – sure enough its quite comfortable, but feck all happens.
The local music scene is ordinary at best (even requiring a local content quota on Australian radio). International acts often tag on gigs in Australia to the end of their world tours and bands only ever do proper world tours after they have really hit the big time. Really good up-and-coming acts rarely hit Aussie shores.
Big Day Out, the biggest music festival in Australia and New Zealand, is the antipathy of the what a proper festival is all about – free spirit, rebellion and having a kick ass time. The event is a one-day event finishing at the rather conservative time of midnight. Alcohol can only be consumed in specially designated areas. The event does draw some big names but typical of Australia it is safe, bland, boring.
When the bands do come, they come for a couple of weeks in January to play the Big Day Out franchise and a gig in each of the state capitals and then head home. In any other month of the year it is extremely difficult to see world class musicians down under.
The same goes for standup comedy. Granted, Melbourne has a comedy festival every April but outside of this, you will never get to see world class comics in Australia.
Between April and October the cultural calendar in Melbourne is empty apart from the AFL season. Winter in Melbourne is nowhere near as harsh as a UK winter but it does get cold, and wet, and windy. Because the seasons are back-to-front, there is no Halloween, Bonfire night, Christmas or New Year to brighten up the darker months.
Beyond the almost endless suburban sprawl, there is often nothing (bare the odd redneck town) for many, many hours drive. Melbourne and Sydney may look like next-door-neighbours on an atlas but they are roughly a 9-hour drive apart.
It is a strange thing that in this sparsely populated country which should feel more open, this geographic isolation actually makes you feel slightly trapped. If you get bored of Melbourne, its not that easy to just pop over to Sydney.
On a bigger scale, if you get bored of Australia or just want a holiday abroad even New Zealand is a four-hour flight away.
Melbourne and all the other Australian cities are nice enough in their own right. But you have to view them in context: both in terms of their location within Australia and Australia’s position in relation to the rest of the world.
Utopia?
Far from the utopian image that is often portrayed, Australia is not free from social ills – there is widespread gambling addiction (including a quarter of the world’s ‘Pokies’), a high crime rate (violent crime is more prevalent than in any other OECD nation) and rampant drug abuse (including a much higher use of heroin than any European nation).
The casino is seen as the evening of choice for many. Almost every night on the shock-docs or evening news, stories are run on gangland or outback murders. The only time I have ever seen someone injecting heroin into their arm was not in a parked car by the side of a city park in Glasgow, but in Australia.
Despite our moaning, Australia have poorer healthcare and education systems than we do – most middle class Australians have gone private. Medicare, to be frank, is a bureaucratic mess. Student debt and university funding is also in poorer shape with fewer Australians being able to afford higher education. Excluding the outback (where you can literally get away with murder), Nannystateism is taken to a higher level in Oz than Mr Blair could ever imagine.
The Alternative
Whilst not perfect, I believe the UK is a better home for me at this particular point in my life. There is so much I want to achieve in my career, things I want to experience and interesting places I want to go that Australia just can’t offer. It might be a great place for retirees wanting the quiet life, but it wasn't for me.
Simple things that I completely took for granted when I grew up in England I really began to miss on the other side of world – Sunday dinners, rolling green countryside, long summer evenings, trips to Europe whenever I wanted, cider, the buzz of discovering a cool new band, decent, thought-provoking TV that wasn’t peppered with adverts, driving through cute little villages, exploring historic towns, watching snow fall, conkers. Most of all, I missed those days in January when its freezing cold but there’s pure blue sky and everything is crisp and it tingles slightly when you breath.
The best thing about England is that it isn’t bland. It isn’t beige. It isn’t flat and suburban and dull. There may be things that I hate, but there are far more things that I love. Sometimes it is miserable but more often than not it is glorious. It is the highs and the lows. The past and the future. Love it, hate it. It is life at 100 miles per hour…. And for now, it is my home.
In May 2006 I moved back to the UK after 3 years living and working in Melbourne.
The main reason for the move was career-motivated but I also wanted to move back because, contrary to popular opinion, I actually prefer life in the UK. Let me start by saying I am in no way anti-Australia or anti-Australian. My girlfriend is Australian, some of my best friends are Australian, I had some very good times when I was in Australia. Having said that, every day I am grateful for my move home and am 100% happy with my decision.
It really annoys me that every time someone speaks to me about Oz they say ‘Don’t you miss it?’ ‘Why’d you come back?’ ‘You’re mad for moving back to rainy old England’
The truth is that most people base their opinion of Australia on one of the following – a) the stunning views of Sydney harbour and the Opera House; b) pleasant memories of watching Crocodile Dundee and/or Neighbours on the telly whilst growing up or c) if they’re lucky, a year-out bumming around on Bondi or the beaches of Queensland. People are really comparing their life in the UK to a surfy, bush-tucker stereotype rather than reality – so its, say, Manchester versus the Gold Coast, Liverpool versus the Whitsundays. People equate sunshine to happiness and therefore the grass appears much greener on the other side (of the world).
Suburbia
Sure, some people go to Australia and live the stereotype for real but the reality for the majority is vastly different from the beachy ideal. Over 90% of the Australian population don’t live on the beaches of Queensland but in one of 5 cities (despite preconceptions, their population is actually far more urbanised than ours). Due to virtually everyone living in bungalows and the Aussie dream of owning a quarter acre plot, the housing is extremely low density. This means that the suburbs stretch and stretch. In Melbourne’s case, suburbia stretches 40 or 50 miles from the CBD in literally every direction.
Even when there isn’t any traffic on the roads, the outer suburbs are often over an hour’s drive from the city. You might claim to live in Melbourne but very rarely venture into the city. Most of these suburbs have nothing. Literally nothing. For entertainment there may be a pub in the suburb - But not the charming local that most Brits are accustomed to. Because there aren’t many – often one pub per suburb – they are huge. They often aren’t just a pub like we know, but a tacky pub / casino / betting shop monstrosity featuring row upon row of fruit machines, locally known as ‘Pokies’.
The only other ‘entertainment’ is often a nearby mall. These are usually generic enclosed shopping centres with foodcourts, situated just off the freeway and surrounded by massive tin-shed developments. Just like in the States, these places tend to become the focus for teenagers hanging out and skipping school. Because of their locations, they also help to fuel the car culture. People drive everywhere.
Trapped
People often say that Oz has the kind if laid back lifestyle they are after. The reason the lifestyle is ‘laidback’ is because very little actually happens in Australia. Perhaps compare life in Australia to being in a coma – sure enough its quite comfortable, but feck all happens.
The local music scene is ordinary at best (even requiring a local content quota on Australian radio). International acts often tag on gigs in Australia to the end of their world tours and bands only ever do proper world tours after they have really hit the big time. Really good up-and-coming acts rarely hit Aussie shores.
Big Day Out, the biggest music festival in Australia and New Zealand, is the antipathy of the what a proper festival is all about – free spirit, rebellion and having a kick ass time. The event is a one-day event finishing at the rather conservative time of midnight. Alcohol can only be consumed in specially designated areas. The event does draw some big names but typical of Australia it is safe, bland, boring.
When the bands do come, they come for a couple of weeks in January to play the Big Day Out franchise and a gig in each of the state capitals and then head home. In any other month of the year it is extremely difficult to see world class musicians down under.
The same goes for standup comedy. Granted, Melbourne has a comedy festival every April but outside of this, you will never get to see world class comics in Australia.
Between April and October the cultural calendar in Melbourne is empty apart from the AFL season. Winter in Melbourne is nowhere near as harsh as a UK winter but it does get cold, and wet, and windy. Because the seasons are back-to-front, there is no Halloween, Bonfire night, Christmas or New Year to brighten up the darker months.
Beyond the almost endless suburban sprawl, there is often nothing (bare the odd redneck town) for many, many hours drive. Melbourne and Sydney may look like next-door-neighbours on an atlas but they are roughly a 9-hour drive apart.
It is a strange thing that in this sparsely populated country which should feel more open, this geographic isolation actually makes you feel slightly trapped. If you get bored of Melbourne, its not that easy to just pop over to Sydney.
On a bigger scale, if you get bored of Australia or just want a holiday abroad even New Zealand is a four-hour flight away.
Melbourne and all the other Australian cities are nice enough in their own right. But you have to view them in context: both in terms of their location within Australia and Australia’s position in relation to the rest of the world.
Utopia?
Far from the utopian image that is often portrayed, Australia is not free from social ills – there is widespread gambling addiction (including a quarter of the world’s ‘Pokies’), a high crime rate (violent crime is more prevalent than in any other OECD nation) and rampant drug abuse (including a much higher use of heroin than any European nation).
The casino is seen as the evening of choice for many. Almost every night on the shock-docs or evening news, stories are run on gangland or outback murders. The only time I have ever seen someone injecting heroin into their arm was not in a parked car by the side of a city park in Glasgow, but in Australia.
Despite our moaning, Australia have poorer healthcare and education systems than we do – most middle class Australians have gone private. Medicare, to be frank, is a bureaucratic mess. Student debt and university funding is also in poorer shape with fewer Australians being able to afford higher education. Excluding the outback (where you can literally get away with murder), Nannystateism is taken to a higher level in Oz than Mr Blair could ever imagine.
The Alternative
Whilst not perfect, I believe the UK is a better home for me at this particular point in my life. There is so much I want to achieve in my career, things I want to experience and interesting places I want to go that Australia just can’t offer. It might be a great place for retirees wanting the quiet life, but it wasn't for me.
Simple things that I completely took for granted when I grew up in England I really began to miss on the other side of world – Sunday dinners, rolling green countryside, long summer evenings, trips to Europe whenever I wanted, cider, the buzz of discovering a cool new band, decent, thought-provoking TV that wasn’t peppered with adverts, driving through cute little villages, exploring historic towns, watching snow fall, conkers. Most of all, I missed those days in January when its freezing cold but there’s pure blue sky and everything is crisp and it tingles slightly when you breath.
The best thing about England is that it isn’t bland. It isn’t beige. It isn’t flat and suburban and dull. There may be things that I hate, but there are far more things that I love. Sometimes it is miserable but more often than not it is glorious. It is the highs and the lows. The past and the future. Love it, hate it. It is life at 100 miles per hour…. And for now, it is my home.
Great post Paul which will give people something to think about. I agree that Australia shouldn't be thought of as the 'great escape' from the Uk. No where is perfect and good on you for following your heart.
Ali
__________________ I am toopositive to be doubtful, too optimistic to be fearful and too determined to be defeated!
Sometimes you need to go away to appreciate what it is that you have. I'm on the other side of your coin insofar as I am an Australian who has been living in the UK for five years and I'm itching to go back, for a number of reasons:
- Crap public transport means that I need to allow an hour to get to work, even though it's less than 3 miles away.
- I am forced to see a GP in the area where I live, not where I work. All of them only work 9-5 so going to the GP entails taking an afternoon off.
- English country villages are adorable, but being stuck in traffic on motorways running at full capacity in order to get to one takes the shine off the day.
- Malls may not be the most pleasant place to shop, but my high street is half full of boarded up shops because of the huge Tesco nearby which is always jam-packed but I have to use it because it is the only viable place to shop.
- Long summer evenings are great but going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark can be quite depressing.
- Certainly where I live in Manchester it's impossible to live somewhere peaceful and clean unless I have a wheelbarrow full of money. Instead it's mini-motorbikes and fireworks being set off for 3 months of the year
- Heavy traffic all week long means it takes me an hour to get across Manchester anyway, so why not live further out and still take an hour to get somewhere?
- It's great having Europe on your doorstep but it's an effort and an expense to get to Asia and the Pacific - I can't wait to get to Fiji!
- On the few weekends of the year when it's viable to go to the beach it's impossible to find a quiet one and when you get there parking is a nightmare
I think wherever you go there are always bad points to everything, but it's all about being in the place that's right for you at your point in life. We spend a lot of time at home so we're quite happy having an hour on the train to work each way in exchange for being able to have an acre of bushland in the Dandenongs with breathtaking views and a huge deck to read the Sunday paper in the sunshine.
On a side note, and this is probably one thing that is on a lot of people's minds, how did you go with getting back onto the UK property ladder when you returned?
Just out of interest, Paul.. I wondered if you had children? I agree with your post entirely. It was well balanced and certainly gave me something to think about on my way to work.
In order to make the move to Oz in the first place, I spent several months convincing myself that the U.K. was going down the pan. It just made the transition that much easier and, of course, the honeymoon period in Australia does linger, even after reality kicks in!
Having lived on four different continents and in more countries than I can count quickly, Melbourne living takes some beating for me. However, my eldest daughter chose to remain in U.K. and, even after visiting for the first time at Christmas, she was as keen as ever to get back to Newcastle where she is at Uni. It was very hard to leave her behind but I also don't think there is much happening for young adults in particular.
I'm also glad that we travelled extensively throughout Great Britain and Europe, Middle and Far East, Africa and America before we came here because I can't see us doing that again in a hurry as Australia seems to be a little world of it's own!
Maybe I'm mellowing in my old age or just losing my wanderlust but I wouldn't return to the U.K. even if someone paid to relocate us and put us exactly back as we were when we left (we had a good life, by anybody's standards!). We have exchanged our U.K. life for something much more simple, humble and anonymous here and, for now at least, that's exactly how I want to keep it! :)
Paul.
Very interesting piece - We (me, husband and two kids) moved here in December 2006 and are in surburbia outside of Brisbane - never dreamed I would live in surburbia - it would have been my worst nightmare in previous years! I can identify with your sentiments and, at the moment, we are thinking fondly of Ireland - where we left a fairly good life but we have said we will give ourselves 2 years and then if it is not what we had hoped then return to Ireland. We originally spent a year in Oz in our early 20's -travelling the country in a group of 7 - which was fantastic -the beauty of youth and feeling invincible and having a lot of freedom to visit all the beautiful places in Oz - but that was not reality. I think money must help (as anywhere) if you have the money to stay clear of the surburban sprawl and buy a property by the sea and fly to the Whitsundays for a weekend - ahhh - dream....
Yep - do miss conkers, the seasons, long summer evenings, BBC, Channel 4, decent radio stations, walking on a long empty beach all wrapped up - but Oz has fantastic qualities -I think it's the familiarity and sense of security I miss most of all and it's very easy for me to cling on to that.
Heather
Thanks for posting such an honest and thought provoking piece .. You had the bravery to show the other side of the coin . All too often , all we ever read about are the good points . The not so good are always conveniently forgotten . It is true ,the perfect country does not exist , there are good and bad in all .At the end of the day , home is where the heart is . It may have raging inflation , rotten weather etc . but it's still home ..
Thanks for posting such an honest and thought provoking piece .. You had the bravery to show the other side of the coin . All too often , all we ever read about are the good points . The not so good are always conveniently forgotten . It is true ,the perfect country does not exist , there are good and bad in all .At the end of the day , home is where the heart is . It may have raging inflation , rotten weather etc . but it's still home ..
Good Post as well Dave, I always thought before arriving that Oz was perfect but it is far from it, although we now live here we slowly keep coming across things that either upset me or make me mad, but then saying that several things about the Uk either made me sad or mad.
We have made a family decision to give this new life two years, at least at the end of it if we have not settled at least we can say we gave it a go, and offered our children an insight of life in Oz, and several oppotuneties my parents where never able to offer me.
Thats the philosophy that we adopted . However we have been here 19 yrs now , and I am still torn between the UK and Aus . I'm not sure if Aussie will ever feel like home . It's a bit sad really .
