Southchick

I live on Lake Macquarie at Warners Bay after living In both Sydney and Melbourne so happy to answer questions! I work in the Newcastle community so visit most places... I too have two young children and love it here.... the lake, the ocean, the bush, not too far from Sydney or amazing places further north for camping trips. Melbourne was very similar to England in my opinion but it really depends on what lifestyle you wish for your family. We love the beach so are blessed here... it's a twenty minute drive to my work and love love the climate. Melbourne was very cold and grey in winter! Here we are mid winter and sat in a t shirt taking in the beauty of the lake!

Hi everyone, Hoping you may be able to advise. My daughter was born here and I am now applying for her first passport for our upcoming holiday. I believe I have to first apply for a certificate of citizenship for her (form 119) so ive printed that out. 1.Just wondered who may certify my documents as we have moved interstate and havent known anyone a year (one of the requirements on form)? 2. Only evidence of identity I have for her is her birth certificate and medicare card... she doesnt have any photo id obvs... Should this be ok? Many thanks in advance for any advice, its an expensive form so want to get it right!

Hi Dave, Ive pmd you my number so please call or text with any questions I may help with. My son at a fab Kindy I am really happy with it so Ill message you. Enjoy your sunday in Oz!

You're welcome. Cant really comment on it too much down here yet as weve only been here a month today, but the majority of people seem friendly and helpful.. which is great as on the coast i loved how friendly everyone was to us. Its certainly not an unfriendly place, people do seem to keep to themselves a bit more but as i say that may be a completely wrong judgement after such a short time. I havent made any friends yet but ive just joined the gym and health club so hopefully soon! Only down side for me so far has been the amount of rain! We are here for a year atleast and if we like it we will stay longer... so far my favourite spot has been Newcastle @Rallyman, and who knows the next job may take us there.. its good to hear there is work for skilled people as the debbie downers had told us work was really scarce. We literally flew down for a weekend aand found a rental too, and we have a fab house for the rent we pay. I think if you have time to find a great suburb Melbourne sounds like it has loads to offer. We are really far.out in the suburbs which it taking getting used to as we have always lived near the ocean, but its another experience and a great opportunity to save some money and do different things in the countryside which is very pretty.

I cant recommend Veronika at sortoutmyvisa.com enough. She has helped our family and two of our friends emigrate and its just her, so is very personable and frank. She replied within a day to any of my queries and made the process so much easier... worth every penny!

Goodness sorry i wrote a reply not seeing that the thread continued

Hi the Potters, We are in Melbourne Suburbs, having moved from the Central Coast as my husband got a permanent positon here. The wages here for a skilled labourer are high, and we are comfortably living on one wage at the moment as we have a baby that I am staying at home to look after. My husband works in pre cast concrete but he has carpenters working with him as labourers and they are earning really good money, with hours Mon to Fri. We were really worried about finding work when we moved out here in jan but we have been lucky and never been short.. he joined agencies initially and then got offered this permanent contract. We have had such a rollercoaster since deciding to emigrate over three years ago, but we have been here ten months now and overall we love it for so many reasons. Being away from family i would say is the hardest thing and no one can prepare you for the reality of that.. it is tough. Everyones experiences are different and i am happy to answer any specific questions you have. The weather very similar to English summer here so far although we have only been in melbourne a month, very different climate to other parts of Oz. You will find lots of positives and negatives on here, opinions and realities. I have always found this site so helpful though, sometimes you have to sift through the two.. but everyone will help you as we have all been through it!

On a completely random note do you know where you can buy the best fruit and veg that isnt coles/ woolies? :-)

Hi! We have just moved to Cranbourne East and have a 4 year old son and a 6 month old, and a fab park on our estate. We just moved to Australia in jan too so we are fresh to all the ups and downs! Happy to help although we are very new to the area so anything you find please share! Best of luck to you

Thank you! We have a house in Cranbourne East now- the Mayfield estate and its still being built but weve got a great spot to find our where we want to be as he is working in Pakenham. Id love to be somewhere near the countryside so we will see, finding a kindy for my son provi ng the challenge at the mo. Ive enrolled him at a great little place for now, all the ones we visited were soooo busy so ive found him somewhere with a smaller class size but still looking.. purely because i would like somewhere where there are other children his age not going to school this coming year as i keeping him back to start the year after... i seem to be in the minority so far as all the other children starting next year. Thank you for your reply! Still finding our feet .. and getting used to the change in weather! Clyde north looks lovely, just driven past there to take my son to a great little park we found in Cardinia.

Hi! Congratulations if you are pregnant already, apologies that abit unclear.. adding the baby to the visa relatively simple especially if you are using an agent. You can still get your SMP in Australia as well as a buffer so that would be something to think about, thats what i did and migrated 6 months pregnant. Moving with a young baby is hard! But in some ways easier in the long term as it gets you out to meet people and keeps you busy and focussed. Its more the financial side and practicalities but if you are a strong team you will work it out. You also have a year to validate your visas after grant so you will have options. I found having a baby here a wonderful experience as everyone has been so supportive and the hospitals were brilliant. We wanted to have our second baby and our visas came first so we thought lets just go for it. Although having your family around with a newborn can be a great help that is something serious to consider. Doing it on your own is exhausting... but never a dull momeent! Im so tired this morning the coles man delivered 12kg of apples to my door that i must have ordered doing the online shop at 3am!!!

That sounds about right to me... ours was just around 2000 paid in installments.... worth every penny if they know their stuff and it's a stressful enough process as it is. Good luck!

Petals do you know much about Clyde? Only that it keeps popping up in my searches. And only a 20 min commute for my husband. Somerville and frankston look fab but the commute saying 40 mins, one of the resons we moving is for the shorter commute as he currently doing an hr and ten mins each way atlease.. but i know we will have to compromise to get all the things we are looking for. I definately am over this moving malarkey so im going to try my best to get it right. Any recommendations on a holiday rental spot to base ourselves until we secure a rental? Thats the way we are going to do it... pack up here and drive down to find a place where our things can follow. Really appreciate any opinions

Wow @Petals that's great thank you so much for the info i will check this out

Brilliant thank you!