Diane

Adelaide! Definitely .... not that I've been to Perth though! What do you prefer, a city or a town? What does your son like doing? What do you like doing? Do you hanker after a world that is as you remember twenty years ago (if so Adelaide) or do you like modern and progressive (if so probably Perth!)? Honestly, without knowing you personally, no-one can really tell you what will suit you best. They can say what they like best, but who knows if your tastes are the same as theirs? We have been really happy with the schools and lifestyle here in Adelaide, but again, if we were in a different part of Adelaide perhaps we wouldn't feel the same - there are certainly places that many Brits flock to here that leave me cold - but they're different people to me and if I'd taken their advice on where to live I probably wouldn't like it so much!

Ditto to everyone else's comments - keep your options open but if you can, try and visit a few other places in Australia while you're here. I personally couldn't see myself living in the parts of Queensland I've visited (only Gold Coast and Brisbane admittedly) but find Adelaide a lot less "foreign" in lots of ways. We even have festivals here which sounds like something you'd enjoy - come visit in March and see what you think!! While you're this end of the world, you may as well check out the rest of it, just in case.... Good luck anyway

Hi Ross thanks - sorry, I thought those that DID have a daughter in it would probably know - it's the Australian Girls' Choir (they're the ones that sang in the Qantas ads a while ago): they've started up in Perth for the first time this year, I understand, and some of the senior girls from Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide are flying out on Tuesday to join the Performing Choir members in Perth for some public performances and the annual concert at the weekend. This is my daughter's last year with the choir - she's been a member for about 6 years and has had some great opportunities, including singing with Hugh Jackman in The Boy From Oz, plus made some great friends.

My son goes into Year 11 next year and turns 16 in May (here in SA) so I'm sure your son won't be the youngest in his year at all, although some of my son's friends who have done their whole time in Australian schools are maybe turning 17 next year. If your son started his education in the UK, he probably started younger than a lot of his peers so will still have had the same number of years at school in total at the end of his education.

My daughter is heading over to Perth on Tuesday to join the WA girls in the AGC in their annual concert - I wondered if any of you have daughters in the choir?

Southerner through and through! Which is why I live in the North East of Adelaide now: all the UK northerners who have always wanted to be southerners really, get to Adelaide and go and live as far south as they possibly can!!:wink::biglaugh:

Can I be your friend please? :wink:

I know someone who has recently arrived in Adelaide used https://www.airbnb.com.au/ and speaks highly of it... worth a try

That's what Hallett Cove and Port Noarlunga get called these days! Makes me laugh when so many migrants say "oh, don't go to the north, it's really rough there" and it's all the places originally settled by British migrants they are talking about - so they go south which is slowly turning into the "Elizabeth of the future"!!! Met someone on holiday who was complaining her kids went to Hallett Cove school and were picking up an English accent from all the pommy migrants there!!

What the hype doesn't mention is the job situation here in SA is not all that healthy at all at the moment - manufacturing is pretty much dead so anyone in that industry will struggle, construction has slowed right down and tradies are really struggling to find work, and in all sorts of other industries there are redundancies and non-renewal of contracts in abundance. IMHO the main reason for the hype is to gete some fresh money in which will hopefully boost the housing construction industry here a little in the short term, ut from a migrant's point of view, you get to the point where you need to earn a living here and believe me, that's not all that easy in the current financial climate. If you have a good job in the UK, don't let a bit of sunshine make you throw it all away for an empty promise!

Do they have senior colleges where you are? Here in Adelaide we have a couple of (private) senior colleges whose fees are on a par with some of the private schools, and it's another alternative to either staying at the school she's at or going to TAFE.

Adelaide is a sleepy little backwater that many people elsewhere in Australia have never visited, and look down on in many ways as being "beneath consideration"! It's not a bright lights, big city type of place: there are no theme parks, or major tourist draws and very few of the major Australian companies have their head offices here, so for some industries there is not a lot of scope for career development. If I was considering a holiday destination from anywhere else, Adelaide would not appear on my list! However.... it's a great place to live and bring up a family... we have world class wines and great cafes and restaurants, as well as a superb produce market in the city, cheap(ish) housing, fantastic schools (again, our private schools are a lot cheaper than elsewhere in Australia generally), three universities (which means there are things for young people to do in and around the city - although not necessarily outside of the centre), and easy accessibility of beaches, hills, lots of green parks, lots of family friendly places, huge choice of places to cycle and walk in, family friendly sandy beaches and places with a bit more surf if you don't mind a drive to them, and a wonderful mix of different nationalities which has led to a friendly and inclusive atmosphere, and food from every culture you can think of! We have festivals pretty much all year round, plenty of sporting events, a wide range of musical events, comedy, arts, and lots of green space both in and around the city. You need to choose where you live carefully though - some suburbs (some of which are very popular with British migrants these days) are just too far from the city centre for my taste - and the majority of stuff going on in and around Adelaide goes on in the centre, not on the edges, and if your children excel at sport, or any of the arts, you'll end up wanting them to be in a city club rather than a suburban one, so unless you like driving an hour home after a night out or sports practice etc, choose somewhere within sensible driving distance of the centre. Come and have a look for yourself - it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it suits a certain type of person - I think most people pretty much know if it's for them or not. A good recommendation in my view is that although many 'kids' leave their homes in Adelaide to head off and explore the outside world in their late teens and early twenties, in a large proportion of cases when they have families of their own, they move back to Adelaide as they want their children to enjoiy the same sort of upbringing they themselves had. Diane

In the park across the road from us here in (North East) Adelaide there is a fine for not clearing up after your dog, although I've never heard of anyone being caught: mind you, there are plenty of bags and bins supplied so there is rarely any uncleared up mess. I did go to a dog beach to the southwest of Adelaide once though and was shocked at how few people there cleared up after their pooches. Far be it from me to suggest that might be because that part of Adelaide is also known as "Little Britain" due to the number of poms that settle there, but if that IS the cause, it is very sad...

Ah, takes me back - was back in 1989 we went there. I remember our lovely waiter who had trouble with his 'r's describing the dish of the day to us - it was pan fried reef grouper with peas and rice.... Mmmmm could murder some conch salad right now!

Been there! Awesome pineapples.... and no locks on the hotel rooms coz you just didn't need them!

Ah yes, the CD - that "indestructable" music medium that you could play football with and it would still play perfectly! Right!! Can't remember my first one, but I still have my first vinyl single and that still plays - I bet my first CD has long been consigned to a garden bird scarer!

I think you may find if he hasn't lived for the previous few years in the UK, he will count as an International Student and have to pay extremely high fees to do this! Not sure what the requirement is - perhaps 3 years? If he's been at school here in Oz, you may find it's not as easy as all that! (I have a teenage daughter who fancied applying to a UK University until we found this out!)

Actually that's a pretty good idea - I used to regularly buy a copy of the International Express just to remind myself - not that I think that represents the true Britain in any way, but it was good to read about the worst things happening (in the Express's inimitable style)!

As someone whose kids have been through a couple of years of Australian primary and then almost the full course of Australian High School, I can assure you that the skills they learn at primary school here might be different but are equally vital in the long run. Yes, your son might need to do a bit of catching up academically with his UK peers if you go back, but I can bet you anything he will be ahead of them in social and presentation skills: it's one of the things that really struck us here, how confident and articulate the aussie teenagers are compared to UK teenagers (I know it's a generalisation, but I'm speaking from a majority of cases here) and although they do less years in High School here, they definitely catch up and possibly overtake by Year 12. We found Primary School very relaxed and less result driven than the UK, but High School is a very full-on experience - especially in Years 11 and 12 here. But as I'm sure you realise, working in a school yourself, primary school is not just about marks on a piece of paper - nor should it be - it's about nurturing the whole child, and I have to say I think Australian primary schools do generally excel at that - well, the one mine went to did anyway! I did feel in the UK that perhaps the government rules were fostering a disregard of what primary school education should do - and one of my best friends is a primary school teacher, drowning in paperwork and reports most of the time at the expense of the kids being able to have a true childhood. What I guess I am trying to say is not to use the academic angle to beat yourself up over what you have done (i.e moving halfway across the world) - young children at primary age are happy to learn from their parents, so I'm sure as an educated person yourself you would be able to supplement his learning at home in academic areas if you feel he is missing out at his Australian school.

Why not set yourself some small targets? I realise you feel leaving it longer would disadvantage your son, but really, it's not like he's in the final years of school - kids are very resilient and the Australian school system may be different and have different focusses (focii?) but it's very much a swings and roundabouts thing so you'd probably find he'd be behind in some things but ahead in others if you went back. How about deciding in your head that you will give it a full year here, then reconsider your position? Once you get to the end of that year, sit down and have the discussion again, and perhaps book a holiday back to the UK to see if you still feel the same? I know it's easy for those of us that have been here a long time, but it is really very very common to feel the worse homesickness here in the first eighteen months, and once you've got past that it does get easier and easier on an almost daily basis! Just keep taking one day at a time, you sound like you're doing all the right things, but don't expect to feel settled after such a short length of time - emigrating really is like some sort of bereavement and if a close family member died, you wouldn't expect to have got over that as quickly as eight months. You are mourning your previous life, you have to go through the mourning process, but if you can stick it out, you will come out the other side eventually.

Just want to add that we've been here over eight years now, and my OH still isn't 100% happy. All his friends before we left UK were people he'd known since school days, and I don't think men make friends as easily as women generally anyway. He's got acquaintances, but not real friends here, even though his brother lives here now too. And we both miss a lot of things about the English sense of humour, and watch/listen to a lot of BBC stuff still. For us it's just a matter of recognising that it's not absolutely perfect for us, but for the kids it's the best future we can give them - they've had great educational opportunities here, made some good friends, and taking them back to the UK now would be just about impossible. Sometimes as parents you have to sacrifice some of your own happiness for that of your kids, and that's the way we look at it. Don't know if that will help at all, but it's what's worked for us, as well as it can anyway!

So, so sooooo true! I have little patience with people who move to Aldinga or Moana and then say they live in "Adelaide", even though they'd probably never find themselves "nipping into the City for an hour to grab something from Central Market" because it's a pretty damn long way - and if they went out to a show/concert/sporting match in the evening in the city, it would cost them a small fortune in cab fares to get home!! People with teenagers seem to be very surprised when they move somewhere miles away from the centre and then find their teens get bored outside of the summer, beach months - those are the ones that most often call Adelaide "boring" and "quiet" with nothing to do! I have a single friend living about 15/20 minutes drive (or 10 mins on the O-Bahn) from the city and she's hardly ever home in the evenings, because she's always out listening to some live music somewhere, at a comedy show, out for something to eat, or doing some arts or sporting stuff somewhere. So Adelaide does have plenty to do, but it's pretty centralised around the CBD. People with kids should also bear in mind that school choices get more and more limited the further out you go too. Anything more than 30 minutes drive from the CBD in my opinion is not "living in Adelaide"! It's living in South Australia!

We went into the city for a concert my daughter was in on Saturday afternoon - street parking about 5 minutes walk from North Terrace/Rundle Mall (main shopping precinct) cost $1.60 for three hours. It's more expensive during the week. Cheapest weekday parking is at the multi storey over the Central Market, if you're just going in for shopping, but if you need to be in the city all day you are best off parking somewhere slightly out of town and catching public transport in - we can drive to somewhere like Paradise for instance on the NE side of town and catch the O-Bahn in from there. I don't think I've ever paid to park at Paradise (but that is for recreation not for work - not sure about commuting parking costs). If we go into the city in the evening, we usually manage to find free street parking somewhere - sometimes you have to circle round a bit to find a space, or walk a little way from where you park, but as long as you allow a bit of time to find a space it's usually possible, once you know your way around! The street parking time limitations, and metered spaces, often only go up to about 6pm so after that time you are fine.

I think most people probably mention stuff like the climate, accessibility of everything, and family-friendliness of the state. It's more of a big-town than a city, mentality wise, so I guess they just want to see you've done a bit of research and know what you're coming to. I am sure you have already looked at rentals on http://www.realestate.com.au and http://www.domain.com.au to get an idea of costs. As far as public transport goes, as long as you don't base yourself somewhere way out in the suburbs, I think it's pretty good - and cheap! There is a good public transport site http://www.adelaidemetro.com.au which enables you to enter start and end points in for a journey and it gives options and times. The only thing to bear in mind is that most public transport is pretty city-centric - so if you are heading into/out of the centre, it's fine, but to get from one suburb to another suburb might take some time as you'd have to go via the city, if that makes sense! HTH

Hi Dan, try posting your question on the sister site, Pomsinadelaide - there are plenty of nurses on there I think and you may get more responses there. Good luck :-)