Travelling in Oz whilst waiting for visas to come through???
This possibly should have been titled living dangerously, or some might argue living stupidly :shock: , but right now this is just a thought and I really wanted to get the views from you guys as to whether this is feasible.
All opinions welcome!!
So firstly to explain, I guess we slightly miscalculated how long the visa would take to come through and we were previously hoping for first part of next year, but going on the timescale at present, it will be more like halfway through next year.
Unfortunatley (or maybe not) we've already set the wheels in motion by arranging to chuck in our jobs to go do 3 months skiing. When we get back we had hoped to have just changed suitcases (so to speak) and then go off to Oz but now as it's unlikely we'll have the visas by then, we need something to do whilst we wait (as neither of us can go back to work).
So, here it is: The only place we really want to go is to Oz. We'd love to spend a few months travelling round first whilst waiting for the visas to finalise. Is this even possible or are we dreaming??
Could we realistically pre-load our medicals/police checks and go off to Oz travelling. Wait until they request passports and then skip over to New Zealand, courier them to a parent in UK, have then courier to the embassy, and the same to get them back to us and then arrive back in Oz to get visas validated?
How risky is this? From what I can tell, most people don't seem to get asked to produce anything else, and we would have the money to get a flight back if we had to, but we'd want to go knowing that the odds were in our favour that's it more likely we wouldn't need to return.
Last time you and I spoke, the plan was a beach in Thailand! There is now at least one ski-resort in the Snowy Mountains in Oz, but I don't know whether there is a glacier, so it might be on a par with Aviemore. And you might have to wait for winter.... :D Must be stuff on the web about it, however.
My mother has now got her Contributory Parent visa. The requirement to be outside Oz at the time of the application as well as outside Oz again at the time of the Grant is exactly the same as for your visa (skilled 136?)
Mum was not prepared to hang about in the UK indefinitely for her CP visa. So I made simultaneous applications for the CP visa and for another subclass 676 tourist visa for Mum. I asked for 8 months on the tourist-visa, which was granted, and worked out OK in the end, but with hindsight I'd have asked for a year because that doesn't cost extra!
If you go down this route, you probably wouldn't have too many problems, but they DO dislike moving targets (especially when the people are in Oz.)
I would defo frontload everything before you go, because you would be going straight back to Oz after the Grant anyway. I would also think about providing them with an AFP clearance nearer the time (Oz Fed Police) voluntarily so that they can satisfy themselves that you haven't committed any sins in Oz.
PLUS - and please do not under-estimate the importance of this - change the Authorised Recipient for communication between you and DIMA to someone in Oz who will stay rooted to the spot! DIMA will not chase around looking for you unless they decide to shove you in Immigration Detention, chum. Norton antivirus is notorious for treating e-mails from DIMA as Spam, too, and dumping it straight in the bin. I trust you will have a laptop with you, and a mobile phone that will work in Oz?
I suggest that unless you have friends whom you can absolutely trust not to be dozy if DIMA want anything, contact Phil Olsen who posts on here. I'm sure you & he could come to an arrangement (for a small fee) whereby Phil would act as your postbox with DIMA whilst you travel around, and he'd even send you the right form to fill in, I expect. Ideally the AR should be someone who knows the drills with DIMA, which Phil does since he is a Registered Migration Agent.
PS. YOu do not have to courier passports around. If you get on a plane for NZ, the visa can be granted as soon as it takes off, virtuallly. It can then be evidenced (pasted into your passports) in NZ/Fiji/Bali/KL - wherever you happen to be at the time. All you have to do is be in the country in which you have told DIMA you want the visa to be evidenced in and they'll do that at their nearest Mission.
That was me who said about going to Aus Via a beach in Thailand amongst other destinations. Seems I'm not the only only one with the Idea of leaving England without being granted our visa.
Having sold up in the UK we decided why not move to Oz anyway as we have a year long holiday visa and wait out our time here !
We chose an Australian Migration Lawyer (thanks to Gill) who is acting on our behalf for our Contributory Parent visa.
Applied in June - arrived here mid August - and now waiting eagerly for the approval to come through (~ presume the middle of next year)! We shall probably hop over to NZ as well to validate.
That's a good tip, didn't realise I could do it "officially" as it were. I was just going to have my post re-directed to my parents and let them open the post.
Thanks, this definitely gives me some more options. Think i'll drop old Phil and email when things are looking more definite.
That's a good tip, didn't realise I could do it "officially" as it were. I was just going to have my post re-directed to my parents and let them open the post.
Thanks, this definitely gives me some more options. Think i'll drop old Phil and email when things are looking more definite.
Hi Watersports
Trust the Mums, chum! They've got the visa game licked.
If you really believe that you won't get your visas till the middle of next year, you could afford to defer the meds and police checks till nearer the time.
There is no reason why you can't obtain a UK police check from Oz. We did with my Mum. I'm in the UK but Mum was in Oz with my sister out there when we decided to get Mum's OK police check done in advance to get it out of the way. I rang Hampshire Cops, explained the situation and got transferred to a most helpful man who e-mailed the form to my sister within an hour. His advice was to let them deal direct with Mum by airmail both ways. That all worked brilliantly.
Equally, there is no reason why the Meds can't be done in Australia if you happen to be there at the time. Health Services Australia do the meds for applicants able to make onshore applications, and there is no reason why they shouldn't do yours too.
But if you want to go to Oz for more than 90 days, do not mess about with ETAs. Instead, use a different tourist visa, loosely called an e-676. It saves both hassle and unnecessary airfares. Please see here:
We've actually already done our police checks, and I'll probably just get the medicals done in Jan before we start our travels as i want to limit the hassle whilst we're away.
Tough to try and guess when the visas might come through - I'm kind of estimating that it's taking 2 months to do one month of applications, but maybe they'll speed up over Christmas so that they can get outside in the sunshine!
