Claretjon

The public high schools in Geelong are Belmont High, Oberon High, Grovedale secondary and I think there is one Newcomb and also Geelong High. Belmont high has a decent reputation but i couldn't tell you about the others I'm afraid.

It depends whereabouts in the cbd you need to be. Parking at the Queen Vic market is reasonable as is the crown casino. Other than those you'll need to go with an early bird car park. The trams are fine, as is the city loop and are a lot easier than driving into and out out of Melbourne at peak hours.

Hi, I might be wrong but I don't think Singapore fly direct from Manchester anymore. When we looked, there was a change in Munich. However, both Etihad and Emirates fly direct from Manchester to the Middle East though. We're biting the bullet and flying straight through although we change flights in Dubai and have a short stop in Singapore, presumably to refuel. The benefit is that the flight gets broken into 3 eight hour chunks, which is preferable to just having the 1 stop.

Hi, yep it was no problem. Once you have the booking reference, you can log on emirates website and choose / change your seats.

We booked with them recently. The prices we got from them were cheaper than booking direct with the airline but I appreciate this isn't the case every time. We're flying with Emirates and have 40kg allowance each. We paid by bank transfer and received the e-ticket very promptly. Very happy with the service from them

Alpha cars are cheap and friendly enough but be careful when you pick the car up. It was dark when we collected ours so we couldn't check it thoroughly. Had a good look in the morning and one of the tyres was completely bald. I suppose you get what you pay for though.

Hi, we're flying from Manchester - Dubai - Melbourne (with a short layover in Singapore on the Dubai to Melbourne leg). The Oh wants to buy some perfume but looking on the Australian customs website, it states that for bringing liquids / perfumes into the country, you have to buy these at the last airport you visited before landing in oz. As the flight from Dubai to Melbourne is on the one flight number and the same plane, could we buy the duty free at Dubai or would we have to get it at Changi? We've only got a short layover at Changhi so not sure if we'll have enough time. We flew via Abu Dhabi in April 2012 and were able to buy perfume at Manchester, does anybody know if the regulations have changed since then? Thanks very much

We're moving over at the beginning of February and ideally want to move to Highton, as we love the area. Prices seem to be levelling out and as Alan says you're not far from the ring road and can also be down to Ocean Grove in 30 minutes, as well as Melbourne in 50 minutes so you've got the best of both worlds. Good luck!

If you really want to live round the Geelong area and will be flying to Adelaide, its worth checking if anybody flies from Avalon airport to Adelaide, which will save you the drive to Tullamarine.

Both IYM and Letton Percival have good feedback on here. We've just arranged cover with Letton Percival at a 1.4% rate and Ian at Letton's was very helpful. Thumbs up so far!

My understanding is that as long as the debt remains a civil matter and not a criminal matter (I.e loans were obtained fraudulently) then there is no reciprocal agreement between the UK and aus and the debt cannot be pursued through the courts in Australia. Hope this helps

The buses from Highton and Belmont into Geelong stop at South Geelong station on their way into Geelong. Depending whereabouts in Highton or Belmont you live, you're probably looking at 15-20 minutes journey. I've got rellies in Geelong, most of whom have done the commute. They seemed to cope with it for a few years but now all work in Geelong. If you're used to 40 minutes into Manchester I would think you'll be fine. If you've any questions on Geelong, send me a pm and I'll do my best to help

Yep, its an hour from Geelong into Southern Cross station, which is only a short walk to the cbd (think Piccadilly to Primark in Manchester). We were over in April and caught the train from Marshall to Melbourne and the journey is fine and the trains are certainly no worse than Northern Rail

Depending whereabouts in Geelong you live, you could get on at either south geelong or Marshall, which are before geelong station so you'd stand a better chance of getting a seat travelling into Melbourne. I would imagine the trains between 5 and 6 will be busy back to Geelong but on the bright side they do seem far more reliable than they were at the beginning of the year.

We're having our worldly goods shipped in a few weeks and have just received the booking confirmation etc. One question though, we've been told not to ship jewellery, which I can understand for expensive items but does anybody know if this also applies for costume jewellery?