blobby1000

Surely the full stop on your keyboard is worn out by now!

Thanks very much. About a month before we left to come home I suddenly became a bit more constructively reflective rather than angry and, thankfully, mostly, that's how I still feel! I don't miss much of Australia....I miss the coffee a lot, I miss the lack of rain (not the heat), I miss the beach, I miss the easy work and I miss the money.....actually that's a lot of stuff! But the hardest thing we have found is the ending of the adventure. There were a lot of negatives but we were 'out there' ducking and diving and now we are back in our safe little box and that feels a little suffocating sometimes. Sometimes we have to stop and remind ourselves....actually we didn't like it did we! And we need to remember that without being bitter and negative but also not to remember it through rose tinted glasses and regret leaving... As I said before...basically, it does your head in!!!!

well good luck to you and I hope you get there. With an attitude like you have I am Sure there is a good chance it would work out well for you so I hope you get there.

Thank you pom queen its been an entertaining thread!

Pablo are you in Australia or the UK currently......sorry in a rush and no time to go back reading stuff to check... Either way.....what DO you expect from Australia and why are you going.....if you don't mind me asking

Well this has been a very enjoyable thread with plenty of dramas and deletings etc....I will be back soon to give you another update! in answer to some questions: i never thought of criticising Australia with a foreign accent to be akin to someone criticising your family from outside, but I think that's an excellent analogy and, for the first time, I can understand why it would annoy people. But I suppose that's my point, it's really hard living somewhere where you cannot moan! I mean, In England I can say what I think and I found it so stifling to not be in that position. I could make the most harmless remark and they don't argue or debate, they just smile and say "whinging pom" that was the Australian answer to any gripe I might have.....and NO I didn't moan to the Aussies much at all! in answer to why I went I must admit that naive is a polite word for me. "Idiot" would be more apt. Im afraid I, and my wife, had the blinkers firmly on and totally ignored any nagging thoughts about any negatives there could possibly be in Australia. In addition, life was pretty tough in the UK at the time we left. we had a massive mortgage, I was a newly qualified nurse on a pretty low wage, I was working 5 days of the week and mrs Blobby was doing the other 2. We had no time together as a family, we were skint, and I did countless amounts of overtime just to make ends meet. The thought of high Aussie wages and sunshine was appealing. It's also well documented that we were mis-sold the deal by our agents and the people I worked for in Australia. I won't go I to all that again, but basically I believed a lot of stuff which turned out to just be sales talk and good old fashioned bullish!t. But we lasted 26 months, and did so much stuff when we were there, which is not bad! I moaned a lot but we gave it a good go. its not easy coming back though, moving abroad certainly changes you forever and I do miss certain things. I miss the sense of adventure, and the fact that every day something surprises me.....like when I turned on the radio at 9am and heard the word w£nker.... Or when I was asked by a senior nurse to go "check on the po@f in room 19"..... it was an interesting time!

How do you mean? Surely when you left everything you knew behind in the UK you must have thought you were going somewhere truly amazing didn't you? I thought we were all like that, otherwise why would anyone ever go!

This is a wonderful posts and eloquently describes what I have been trying to say for years. Australia is not so bad but it's exhausting moving somewhere where you don't feel permitted to be honest and say what you think about a country. Living in Australia is a bit like popping round your Grandma's house and holding in a fart all afternoon.

No not really. We had totally unrealistic expectations of Australia. We also underestimated the real feeling of living somewhere where you don't feel you belong. I got tired of always treading on egg shells around Aussies and permanently being obligated to tell them what a truly wonderful country they have and how honoured I am to live there.

Well i certainly don't agree with this. For us, once we arrived, and the initial excitement settled down, we realised that the UK was actually pretty good for us. Just because you leave the UK because there is something wrong does not necessarily mean that Australia will be better.

You can get the Temperory Visa bit of the super back after the permanent visa has expired. My understanding is that if you can argue that you will not return to Australia then you can aslo get the Permanent bit of the super back as well.

Oh by the way, you know you can claim your super back don't you? if you were on temp visa you can claim I back once you leave. If you were on permanent residency you can claim it after the visa has expired which is generally five years from when it was granted,

My wife had a 24 month contract, we paid the whole lot off after we got back to the UK and kept the phone. They can chase you if they want to but it has to be financially viable for them. in terms of the child benefit, I told them we were leaving Australia, I told them we had left And then I told them again we had let (because they kept paying us). I wrote to them and kept proof of posting and also emailed so I have proof I told them, they did stop paying us about a month after we left the country. You will need to do a tax return once you are back in the UK....you can do this through etax online. Keep your Australia bank account because your debate will go straight in there and any tax you owe will deducted.

I have not heard of Clyde North but I have heard of Cranbourne (Crimeborn!) it's not the nicest of areas. I reckon you should do what you can to get a car and then Spend the next year pottering around looking for nicer places to live. Berwick is much much nicer....not entirely sure it's nicer than where we live in the UK but it's a good spot, near to Mornington Penninsula so you can head out to the beach easy and near to the Dandenongs and not a ridiculous way from the city, Also quite a decent ex-pat community and it's a friendly little town. We got through the first year by looking for places to live in the second year! i was most upset leaving three particular friends. now we have returned, one has moved up North, one is moving a couple of hours away with his new partner and the other one (much as I love him) is doing my head in. You got it spot on, you wouldn't have said those things had you not been leaving (but I think it was great to experience those extreme emotions, amazing life experience and a great way to get to know yourself, something we would never have down without going to Australia!) i would just say, hang on in there, give it a 2 years because I think people that return really soon may well wonder what might haven been had they stayed out a little longer. All the best!

But how did they know I was not the best person for the job if they never returned my calls, let alone actually met me or saw me work? Based on 2 years experience of working with Australian nurses, I would argue that I was at least worth a return phone call. And your argument of preferring local talent...without actually speaking to a foreigner about an application....is just plain and simple racism.

The broker is probably trying to rip you off try another one and see how much that comes out at

I have heard of long distance relationships petals, but I don't think any new relationship could handle 10,000 miles!! i was planning to go travelling in 2005. I met a girl, totally changed all my plans almost instantly, We are now married, with two Kids and two dogs. We moved to Australia together as a family in 2010 and did loads of travelling in the two years we were there. unless you are 44 years old, Australia will always be available, your girl won't be if you leave!

Yeah, in Victoria if you dont have a big deposit (I think 25%) you have to pay a compulsary mortgage insurance fee (its thousands of dollars) in case you default. I think this policy applies across Australia but Im not sure.....its not applicable if you have a decent deposit but would have cost us around $20k (they add it to the mortgage but thats hardly the point)

Hi, glad you are settling in. I must warn you (although I only have experience of Victoria) the quaility of rental accommodation is NEVER that great! I must urge you to listen to the people that have done the commute before you decide where you will live. I appreciate that you drove 4 hours in the UK but do you really want to do that again in Australia? Looking back, one of our (many) mistakes was moving from Melbourne to the beach 90 mins away and commuting back to Melbourne....it took 2 and a half hours each way some days....it cost a fortune too and I was too knackered (or just too busy driving) to ever actually go the the beach!!!! Like someone said, you work every day, you go to the beach at weekends.. we would have been better off staying in Melbourne and visited the beach at weekends (but I guess its the beach lifestyle many of us want, and its hard to get jobs in the seaside towns so long commutes can become inevitable)

There is a form you need to complete which means you dont have to pay the 25% on the rental income... Its a non-residents form... Then you have to only pay tax on any profit (minus mortgage, repairs, insurance, agents fees etc) Your letting agent will know, if you dont have one you can call the inland revenue (they are actually incredibly helpful) Im sorry I cant remember the name of the form but all ex-pats end up paying 25% on all collected rent if they dont fill in this form.

Yes Kew is very pricey, I wonder which suburb you are in now, would be interested to know. We had a fortnight in Vermont. It's one of the most sought after locations in Melbourne but I couldnt see why, just house and houses and no train to get anywhere. However, I do wonder why you have to get a taxi to get a newspaper? Surely you are on a bus route? How far away can your nearest shop be in the Eastern Suburbs? I can suggest a few things you may like to do at the weekends, or during the week if you can find a bus...even if it takes you to the train station, then you can get anywhere you like. The Dandenongs are absolutely stunning, you do need a car but maybe could go at weekends. Warrendyte is a lovely little village type place with a river running throught it, loads of lovely coffee shops. St Andrews market on a Saturday morning is fantastic, up in the trees with the Kookaboras (cant spell it) Hurstbridge is a nice little town too There is a really nice big park between Greensborough and Warrendyte....I cant remember what its called....Wester something or other, kangaroos running around, its huge, lovely walks. Get into the city and go up the Eureka tower to get a feel for where you are, or walk along the Yarra, or head to the Botanic Gardens. There is the Yarra trail that you can walk along that goes through the Eastern suburbs into the city Bruswick street is a great place to stroll along, people spotting, coffee drinking Take the kids to Collingwood Farm Park (Its not called that, but thats what it is!) Get down to the Great Ocean Road, we lived in Toruay for a while, get down the Kiosk on Fishermans Beach, and say Hi from us to the friendly owners Josh and Tom, drive on to Lorne, the most beautiful seaside town imagineable The Grampians are stunning (our favourite place of all) I know you may not feel like it, but there are a lot of things you can aim to do.... I reckon (for families/couples) prior to leaving the UK EVERYONE should have a deal with their families: Give it two years but if one of you is unhappy and wants to go home after 2 years then you go home. No questions asked. For me, this was the big problem. I never thought my wife wanted to go home, so I felt I was in Melbourne forever, it made me feel really desperate at times. In the end when I really told her how I felt, I discovered she felt the same way (thats why I say talk to your husband!) But Im so pleased we lasted 26 months and had some amazing experiences which we will never forget.

60 hours a week?! Who let you do that?! No thats a load of old rubbish. Prisoners need health care too and Australian prisons are desperate for staff (well they were in Victoria) I did bank nursing and agency nursing in Australian prisons with no experience of that, it was good fun. And you dont actually need any experience to practice in Australia, but any you have will benefit you in terms of confidence. If you wanted to change things in the UK I cant wait to hear what you think of nursing in Australia! BUT GO FOR IT!!

I know you're being kind. Dont take this personally. But if I had eaten an Australian sausage on the beach every time I had felt miserable I would be 35 stone.

One bit of advice. Talk to your husband. Very important. He may feel the same way as you do. What you have done is very hard. (Where are you living by the way, I think I missed that....altough I could just go back and read it again!) I had a moment, 6 weeks in, when I was climbing up an escalator and I had a very quick moment when I thought "I could just jump off here!"........(I didn't and I wouldn't!!!!) But its an emotional rollercoaster. Talk to your husband (dont jump off any escalators!) My wife was 8 months before she got a job (due to delayed nursing registration). It was easy for me (Im not saying I loved it) but I was out working full time, meeting people at work at least, speaking to people. She was stuck in a suburb, with our 3 and 1 year old boys (lovely boys, but its nice to have an adult to speak to occasionally yes?), no car, didnt know anyone.....it didnt fell like a dream for her! Talk to your husband!!!!

Yes that would have certainly helped but I think it was something more than that.....life really (or life as we had come to know it after 36 years)