blobby1000

Oh and me and my wife are both nurses here....you have nothing to worry about. The standard is so poor you will look like Forence Nightingale!!!

Yes its tough times. And it gets worse...... The final goodbyes were the worst time imaginable!

So after what will be 2 years here we will be arriving back in the UK on December 21st. In November we will be shipping our stuff back and heading off on a 6 week holiday to Fremantle, Perth, Kalbarri, Denham, Coral Bay, Cervantes, Alice Springs, Uluru, Brisbane, Springbrook National Park, Byron Bay, Bellingen, Sydney, Bali and Kaula Lumper before arriving home to start again in Cornwall!! Its not worked out for us and I have (and will continue to have) plenty to offer on the subject, but in an odd sort of way we dont regret coming, it has taught us so much about life and about ourselves.....its been an experience!!!

And this is precisely what we should be using this website to do.. To tell people in the UK who are waiting to come here what it is like to leave your house in the Uk and rent in this country...... But they prefer to just label us moaners. Its actually just the way it is here.....

But thats almost half a million pounds! You could get a nice house in the UK for that!!

I Presume you also presently reside in the United Kingdom??

We have been here, we have tried it, its impossible. I understand why those in the UK find it easier to label people like me negative whingers because nobody wants their dream p!ssed all over, but believe me, we had a dream too. We didnt come all this way to fukkk it up. But the truth is, you had to be here 10 years ago to get the dream house on the beach, mortgage free.

Another typical blinkered response from someone that does not live here yet. Why do you lot in the UK refuse to listen to those of us that actually LIVE here....

You are missing the point. Its not the cold, its the sh!t housing thats the issue

Oh and incidently we pay $1950 a month for this cold cesspit!!

In fact we did research the climate but we did not research the appalling standard of rental properties, poor insulation, no double glazing and no central heating. We knew it got cold, the seasons in Victoria were qhat attracted us to this state. However the houses are just not built for the temperatures. This year we took a house with a wood heater which broke the first week of winter and the landlord has refused to fix! I dont think anyone can research for these issues!!!!!! You have to be here to understand that!!

You dont live here do you!! It does of course depend which state you are in, but, here in Victoria, we have never been so cold in our lives, huddled by the electric fire (no central heating and the landlord refuses to fix the wood heater) and our bills are $1400 a quarter for just electricity.

In addition: If you rent you will not only get an enormous house but it will likely have a leaking roof, be freezing cold in the winter and nothing will ever get fixed by the landlord. If you are buying then your deposit from the UK will be swallowed by the 1.5 rate of exchange and you will need to spend at least $500,000 to get anything pleasant.

Yes it does. You can do whatever you want in life. We are not here by force. If we want to go home we can. Nothing wrong with wanting your Mum around when you have her grandchild! I do realise why we dont much like many of the English out here if your attitude is what it takes to make it work.

We didnt much like it when we first got here and we dont much like it 2 years later so we are leaving. Its like going out on a date. If you dont like the person much to start with, you would not wait 10 years to leave. GO HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good luck!!

Yes they were excellent and good price. No complaints at all.

I can see some similarities between your situation Laura and ours, only in reverse. We have become fed up with Australia after 2 years and are heading home, but not to where we came from (Gloucestershire) where I could proabably walk back into my old job but to Cornwall where we have no house and no job and no friends yet! My point is that sometimes you have to take a risk to get the rewards and I would never discourage anyone from coming here at all, if it does not work out its easy enough to go home: you will have probably spent a lot of money but thats the only real downside, its a great experience to have, we feel confident in the fact we really want to live in the UK and that never something we realised until we left. We will continue looking for our dream and Im a firm believer you can make anything work if you want it enough. I have got fed up with my 3 hour total daily commute, but have just been offered a full time job 40 mins away (which seemed impossible a month ago). We have made up our minds now but the work is there if you are patient and committed to finding it, I am sure. Just one extra piece of advice about Mental Health nursing here. I cannot really generalise from working where I have but I am led to believe the rest of Australia is similar or worse (from people on here and people I have met). I came out after having 2 years experience on a great ward in the UK where I would say I was a good nurse but there were always better nurses around, with more expertise and experience (there were worse nurses than me as well) but there were always people around to ask things and to learn from. The moment I stepped on to the ward here I was clearly one of the most competent nurses. Certainly the best nurse not in management. This may sound like a boast, but it is not at all. Its an indication of the por standards they have here and if you walk around like you know what you are doing before you know where you are (4 weeks in my case) you will be asked to be in charge of the bloody place! And its right that you are in a way because all the other nurses are rubbish! But I was never ready for that sort of challenge yet. Its easy to get grandiose and think "Im making it in Australia, look Im a charge nurse already!" but their desperation to promote is more about their lack of options. There is not one person to look up to, nobody has taught me a single thing in 2 years, I have had not one minute of supervision.....and remember its really hard to run a successful shift when most of the nurses are crap! Having said all that, when Im not in charge of the ward (its decided on a shift by shift basis) its the easiest, least stressful money I have ever made in my life!

A total money grab, you are right.....

Traffic jams in the UK? Have you ever been to Melbourne!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi, I am also an RMN and I work in Melbourne. I will share my experience with you! We came out on a 457 but once we got residency IO started looking for work elsewhere. I now have 4 years acute experience in the UK and here and good references but nobody even replied to my applications. I even got turned down for a job in a little rehab place, I didnt even get given an interview for that one in spite of having far more expereience than needed. Back in November 2011 I applied to join the bank of a hospital that I know is desperate for nurses because I know people that work there. They have agency staff in charge of the ward at times! They did not reply. I then applied again in March....in June they invited me for an interview! It was for a bank job...they interviewd me for an hour! Then they spent 6 weeks trying to get references for me (in spite of the fact I had provided references with my CV!). I am now waiting for contracts and sometime this year I might do a shift.....and this is at a place that are depserate for staff!! I dont know anything about Adelaide (except its a lovely place) I appled to work there but changed my mind and we came to Melbourne. I can only comment on my own experience but Mental Health Nursing here takes some getting used to. You may come straight over and get a job but that had not been my experience in Victoria, the jobs are there, but the disorganisation is so incredibale that it takes months to get started.

And seriously 76 in a 70........... They need to cut down on the tailgaters, the undertaking and the aggression.

So true. Its totally corrupt. Glad you got out of it with your life though.

But again Mr Ropey, you dont live here.....so you are bound to not be as moany as me!! My point is this: In the UK I drove for 18 years, I had one speeding fine. Over here I have been driving for 20 months and I have had 4 speeding fines. I have not suddenly turned into a maniac. My wife calls me a "trundler" I am apparently the dullest driver on earth according to her. I have 2 kids, I drive very carefully. However, when the state have speed limits of 40kph, 50 kph, 60kph, 70kph, 80kph, 90kph, 100kph and 110kph regardless of the number of lanes, and dependent on what time of day it is, and the speed limits change weekly........and on any typical 5 mile stretch of road the limits go....60, 50, 70, 80, 50, oh look its 2.30pm so now its 40, then 50 etc etc its bloody hard to keep track and not creep 3MPH over....... Its very very difficult NOT to get caught speeding. In NSW they warn you when they have camaras because they want you to slow down. In Victoria they hide behind trees....all they want is money

I was converting the amount I was doing over into MPH, its nothing to do with percentages. I did this because I presume the fact that the people on here disagree with me means that they live in the UK cos believe me when you get here you will be fined just like everyone else