About to arrive

[Lolley's]

We are a family of 4 from Birmingham who will be joining you all on 29th December. We will be landing at Perth but are then travelling down to Albany. Does anyone know it, or is there anyone there already? We will be renting a house to begin with but we are interested in building our own, does anyone have any experience of this? Hubby is a chef and has plans to open a restaurant so any business advice would also be beneficial.
Feeling very stressed at the moment with xmas, last minute packing and tear stained goodbyes, I hope we won't be dissapointed.

Rebecca & Tony
Birmingham

[Fraser]

Hi Lolley's...

Albany is truly God's country... It is about an hour by plane form Perth, or a good 4 and a half hour drive ... via Bunbury (which is also pretty nice). A very tree-orientated part of Australia with decent rainfall and beautiful scenery, it is truly a glorious part of the world. (FYI, there is another Albany, ...in Queensland.)

The hilltops are lined with majestic windfarms (some don't like it...I think it's beautiful watching the blades spin in the wind).

Forestry and tourism are major earners..so a good place for a restaurant in summer...not so sure about winter though.

Firestry is Blue-Gum and Radiata pine..mostly harvested at about 12 years old and chipped (woodchip is a big export from port of Albany). Great Southern Plantations is the big forestry firm in the area I think...

Building your own home in Australia is easy...and is pretty normal... You buy a block of land...and then have three choices:

1. Physically do it yourself

2. hire an architect to design it and then hire a builder to build it... or

3. get a builder to build you a 'spec. home'... he will show you the plans of the type sof houses he builds...you choose the one you fancy, ..he builds it!

Banks are well-used to funding house-builds...so no dramas there either.

[There are no massive Wimpey estates of identical little boxes here in Oz..]


8)

[clare and pete]

hey there...
Were from around b'ham and weve been here just under 2 weeks. were living in sydney at the momment b4 we move to coffs harbour. sorry i dont know much about albany but they do say its a nice part of australia.
good on you for making the move, it takes alot of guts to escape the uk and move the other side of the world. i lived in QLD, (my family emigrated when i was 12) and lived here for 12 yrs before going home for good. ive always missed australia and so myself and partner are back. i settled into school really well when i was a nipper, i found my accent drew alot of attention and made some really good aussie mates.
i hope everyting goes well for you. dont forget to visit syney some day...ive always said to visitors, you cant come to aus without seeing sydney, ive seen the opera house lots, but its still quite amazing after all this time. try and have a stress free xmas (its hard i know) but b4 you know it you will be living the laid back life style that australia has to offer.Clare :lol: