Van

Hi - we have been here now 9months - didn't think it would take as long to buy a house as it would giving birth ! So we have tried many auctions and suburbs in our research ( been outbid and gazumped many times..). Now considering lane cove ... Does anyone have any experiences with the school - it looks quite big - not sure if it will be a bit overwhelming for our two girls who were used to something smaller in the uk...and haven't really settled well where we are renting now . I like the leafiness Of the area and seems like it might be a quick bus into city ... But don't really know much else about the place . Any school experiences would be great to hear (7 and 8 yr old girls ). Thanks !

wow..I had better get used to the prices over here...wild prices for a cleaning per hour...up to 45 dollars per hour.. Paying 25AUD per hour still feels too much...I think I will be spending part of my weekend cleaning for a lot longer until I can get my head around that...I would have thought people would be crying out for the work for 15-20 dollars per hour? In UK there was something to be said for the massive influx of Europeans who were happy to be paid 10 per hour for cleaning and that was the going rate really without feeling like they were being taken advantage of...

Thanks all. Will give Coles online a go...as working 5 days a week I don't get a lot of time for supermarket shopping and was hoping to take the pain out of the week by just having it turn up on my doorstep on a sat morning. Sounds like there is a niche waiting to be filled here with a replica like online service similar to ocado, waitrose-online or even just a sainsburys.

I don't hear many people talking about using an online supermarket to do all their grocery shopping in sydney? In London I rarely went to a supermarket and definitely relied on online deliveries for the big shop, heavy items and getting everything I needed for an event - Ocado was invaluable for that. Do they even have that kind of service over in Sydney? What are people's recommendations and experiences like of using the online supermarket deliveries like? Is it reliable quality, cost, variety and quality ok? Thanks again!

Hi - finding my way around here in Sydney and have a few questions which I'm hoping a few may be able to help me with; 1) What is the reasonable cost of a cleaner? I used to pay anywhere between 8 and 11 pounds per hour in London. A friend of mine said she paid something like 45 dollars an hour and I had to ask her twice...as I thought I misheard. What is the going rate then as I think I may be cleaning my own place for a long time if its that expensive...? 2) Babysitters...again I used to pay anywhere between 7 and 10 pounds an hour..depending on the age of the baby sitter and whether they had my children during the day (and took them out) or whether it was an evening baby sit job and they were in bed. A gap year student cost around 8 and older carers more like 10 pounds. I have absolutely no idea what the going rate is over here in AUD. Is there such a thing as gap year students floating around over here? I wonder if there are reliable baby sitting agencies....not that we will be leaving our kids with the first person we find...but good to have an understanding of the basic rate...? 3) We will be hopefully be transporting furniture in the near future (if someone moving back to UK is letting theirs go?) and was wondering the average cost to hire a man and a van. In UK I think I paid around 15 or 20 pounds an hour. I think its more here (on average I double to get the conversion and then its more than this)...What would you say is the right kind of a cost for this service in Sydney (I think prices probably differ by city/state and Sydney may be more expensive than most). Thanks so much!

Hi, we have arrived recently in Sydney and opted not to ship much furniture. In the end we ended up giving most of it away for free in London..bookcases, chest of drawers, sofa etc. We figured it would be more cost effective to pick up nice second hand quality items over here. So I was wondering if there are families moving back to UK and needing to get rid of nice quality furniture - we would be interested in buying these if you are in the area. Looking for lounges, sofa bed, chest of drawers, bookcases, dining table and chairs, bedside tables. The only thing we did ship was our bed frames and have bought mattresses over here...so we are sorted for beds...but need most other things. (we are camping out in our own home at the moment Also looking for some nice quality rugs (a lot of wooden floors to break up here) and some tall standard lamps. I'm also checking garage sales but the pickings seem a bit thin at this time of year. If you have something that you are looking to offload (not really interested in IKEA this time around) then it would be great to hear from you. We are on the north-shore area so something in that vicinity or mosman, crows nest, frenchs forest way would be accessible for us. Thanks, Van

Having just arrived in Sydney after moving from the UK and experiencing a hellish move just prior to Christmas...I would recommend checking what the rate per cubic feet charge is if you go over your original quote. We have had to pay thru the nose for our items to be shipped. This is partly due to our naivety and partly because we were so stressed and busy that we didn't insist on some of the things that we should have. If you are unsure what your volume will be...and lets face it ..I'm sure most of us wouldn't be able to accurately predict what volume of articles they have to send (unless you are just taking boxes of smaller of articles and no bigger items)...then do insist on a home visit and get a quote from them in person. We didn't, although I did ask them a number of times and they kept asking for a list of items...which I gave roughly..but there is always another cupboard to open and you find more stuff...so it was never going to be accurate. As a result when they came and packed it up I was told it was more than double the original estimate. The additional volume was charged at an extortionate rate and by then they can pretty charge what they want as they have your things. It turned out that I could have got a container cheaper than the half container worth of items that we ended up sending. Anyway I don't want to mention them publicly as I am still waiting for our items to leave London and will be so glad when the stress of removals is over and our stuff arrives safely. Sorry for droning on...in a nutshell make sure you get a face to face home visit quote (if you are not going for an average size like a container) and secondly check the rate they charge when you go over your original cubic feet quote. Hope this helps.

Thanks Nicky. Perhaps that is where the confusion is creeping in on my part...as it was a private school in NSW that just told me that she would be year 2, however I could have sworn that I had read on some sites that she would enter year 3 in 2015. I think I will go back to the Private school, if we opt for that one, and question their cut-off dates so I can get a better understanding....doesn't make it easy when different schools have potentially different cut off dates for school age/years. Will check your link too. Cheers.

Apologies if there is a recent thread on this, I did a quick scan and could only find information that was 5 or 6 years old. We are moving to Australia at the end of the year, in time for start of school year in Jan 2015. I've just had a worrying piece of news from a school that I enquired with about school places..regarding school year entry. My eldest daughter is in year 3 (DOB- 18-5-07) now in UK, she has been at one of these selective schools in UK where they actually start the year 3 syllabus a bit early too - so has been doing Yr3 coursework since Easter of this yr. (ie final term of Yr 2). I was just told by a NSW school that she would enter into Year 2 in Jan 2015. Eeek. !! So the question is 3 fold: i) is this right - ie she goes into Year 2 in Jan 2015? ii) Does Year 2 curriculum in NSW roughly equate to Year 2 curriculum in England ? (maybe they name the years differently I was hoping and perhaps its not such a big repeat?). iii) Is there every a possibility of asking for your child to go into a Year ahead - to avoid her having to repeat a years worth of work and getting bored and sluggish with learning and loosing her 'drive'. Or is this perhaps to be avoided as she would be younger than the rest of the class and feel out of place. Advice and info really appreciated for a new user here. Thanks! Van. Ps great site..I have been a quiet watcher and reader of the threads for some time and this has helped plan our move immensely.