BestyBlue

Hi everyone, My parents are seriously thinking about flying out and joining us on a parents visa (I don't know which one, but they seem to have it all pretty much planned out). But, the only thing that seems to be worrying my step dad is his age. By the time they would probably be ready to move he will be between 73-75 and he is worried that he'll be too old to make such a move. Now he is a very fit person often found on the golf course and I think he'd be just fine, but I was wondering how old some of the parents on here were when they made the move and how well did you cope? I think he just needs a little reassurance as doing something like this was obviously never something they had considered until we decided to up sticks and leave the country with their beloved grandaughter. Thank you in advance and I look forward to your responses

We flew with them in June and found them to be absolutely fine. The food was good and plentiful, plus the seats I thought were nice and comfy. We also had 3 hours in Abu Dhabi. We just headed straight for our gate. Didn't particularly like the airport, very crowded, but once we were at the gate there was plenty of seating and it was fine. Would happily fly with them again

Hi GaryJames We have been living in Toowoomba since June 14. I was lucky as had a job before we arrived, however my husband is still looking. I think it very much depends on what trade you're in though. Also whether your job normally requires a degree..... My husband has been a planning and waste water engineer in the UK for many years, but he doesn't have a degree in engineering (worked up from the bottom), as a result now he can't even get his foot in the door to demonstrate his skills purely because he doesn't have that bit of paper. On a brighter note it is really lovely here, we settled very quickly and can't imagine being anywhere else. We are also very confident that a job will crop up for my husband very soon too. He has started getting his face out there and talking to people face to face. As a result he has started to get a few interviews

We have just received our bill which was for the last two months and it was just over $500

Best of luck Victoria67, I hope it all goes to plan for you. I was given glass half empty responses when I first came on here talking about how I wouldn't be successful in getting my visa as I wasn't experienced enough, however it was granted within 10 days of being submitted. I'm sure they just don't want you to get you hopes up only to be disappointed. Please keep us all updated, I'm keeping everything crossed for you. x

Thanks everyone, I feel I can start looking properly now, just didn't know where to start. Now all I need to decide is how long to go away for

Hi everyone, I'm planning a little break for me and my family for the beginning of October on the Sunshine Coast. On the first day we are going to take our daughter to Australia Zoo for her birthday, then we would like to go and spend a few days on the Sunshine Coast. Can you recommend any areas / hotels that you think are really nice? Obviously needs to be suitable for a nine year old Am getting a little excited about booking our first little trip away... :cool:

I was with him for 45 minutes. It wasn't just a quick pop in and out appointment.

I'm not sure I agree Pumpkin with your response, as not only do you need to understand SAD but you also need to understand the affects of over active and under active thyroids. I don't think this is a simple case of 'mental illness' as it has also affected the levels of medication that I am having to take for my thyroid in a positive way too. I think I'm lucky in the sense that I have only been affected mildly by SAD, but I absolutely have to disagree with it being because I'm happy following our move, as I wasn't unhappy in the UK. Just wanted to share my experience and show that it's ok to have SAD and not something to be embarrassed about

Hi everyone, I thought I would share with you my first experience of visiting an Australian GP today. For about 10 years I have struggled with thyroid troubles, firstly over active and now under active following treatment. This has been well controlled, however I've never felt 100%. I have struggled with lack of motivation and energy, particularly in winter. Which made me think that I was having seasonally affected thyroid trouble. However on the numerous occasions that I mentioned it to my Dr they fobbed me off and wouldn't even contemplate my thoughts. Since being out in Australia I have felt the healthiest I can ever remember feeling, so much energy! Plus I look healthy too, my sunken eyes have disappeared and I have colour in my cheeks. So today when I visited the Dr's I thought I would mention my thoughts to him whilst sorting my prescription. He instantly diagnosed me with SAD. But what's great is because we are in sunny Queensland he feels that my symptoms will only improve. I know many people are sceptical about SAD, but I just wanted to share my experience and also highlight how amazing I feel. :wink:

Welcome to QLD, sounds like you're having a similar experience to us so far :cool: Keep the updates coming. x

Certainly for us in Toowoomba towards to the end of June is an amazing time to come, not sure if it is the same in the big cities though. Where will you be heading? Sadly we left our two beautiful pooches behind as shipping them both was crazy expensive. Molly our Parsons who is my avatar picture is nearly 6 and is now living it up in Cyprus with my step son and Lou Lou our beautiful stumpy legged Jack is now living with one of my old patients and appears to have made great friends with her 10 month old lab. Not sure which one has more energy... Leaving them behind has been the hardest part of our move so far. Absolutely devastating actually.... But, it was absolutely the right thing to do. Personally having now done the flight I'm not sure I would've been happy about putting them through it, but also we would've really struggled to find anywhere decent to live which I think would've affected how well we would've settled. In my heart I know that they are both blissfully happy, so that makes me happy. Mind you it doesn't fill the hole that's been left by them not being with us. But we knew all along that somewhere along the line a compromise would have to be made and unfortunately it was out beloved girls. I know that some people will probably judge us for rehoming them, but I know that it was the right thing for us and them. Best of luck bringing your lab over, I am very envious!! :-)

Hi Jules RT It seemed like a really good idea to bring furniture and electrics out with us, but we have nearly been here 3 weeks and our container still hasn't left the UK. So we are having to pretty much replace everything. With that said, electrical items are really cheap in comparison to the UK. For example our lovely 40" Samsung TV is in Myers (very much like John Lewis) and is nearly £200 cheaper. My guess is because we are much closer to China? If I was to do it again, I would start a fresh out in Oz. But, we have been lucky with the time of year that we've arrived so have managed to catch some awesome end of year sales. Can't wait for our photos and family stuff to arrive though, then our house will be a proper home As for the car, I really don't know. I was looking at bringing our my nearly new Fiesta, but was short by a month for my 12 month ownership. It looked pretty complicated and expensive. I now have a 10 year old Astra, cost $6500 and drives like a dream. I'm seeing so many kangaroo road kills on my way to work each day. Law of the sod would mean that one would've jumped in front of me the day after the Fiesta arrived.... haha So I guess it also depends on where you'll be living and what you're planning on shipping out :-) Hope that's helped a little. x

Yeah I agree. Has come as a lovely surprise though, as was dreading how much everything would cost. We even managed to buy a 3 seater and 2 seater sofa today, end of range so managed to get the both for $699. Awesome!!

So today we decided to try and get some stuff for the new house. With the end of year sales and finding a shop that was closing down, we bought the following for just under $2500! Dining table & 6 chairs, matching TV unit, coffee table, lamp table & side board type thing. Sofa bed, Big silver fridge freezer, Washing machine, 2 Duvet covers, 2 Quilts, 5 Pillows, Queen bed, Single bed, Queen bedding, Kitchen utensils, Iron, Laundry basket, Loads of hangers, Toaster, Kettle, Pegs, Electric Blanket (my favourite item right now Is it me, or does this seem really good value? All I heard constantly before we came out was how expensive it was here. We haven't bought the cheapest products, so it just goes to show that there are some real bargains out there. Don't be afraid to ask for discounts too. If some of these products didn't already have huge discounts on them I am quite sure we could've got some money knocked off, just to secure the sale. What's the worst they can say

Hi everyone, We've been in Toowoomba QLD for just over two weeks, so thought it was time to give you our experiences so far. We flew with Etihad and found them to be excellent, our tickets for the three of us came to £1530 which we thought was a bargain. Because of the time of year the plane wasn't too busy, so we could stretch out and sleep a bit better. We even managed to watch the England game live, shame they lost.... The food on the plane was excellent and seemed never ending. Our daughters meals were also very good and she ate really well. I would highly recommend this airline! We arrived in Brisbane in the morning and caught a taxi to our hotel, we stayed at the Ibis for the night as I couldn't bare anymore travelling. It was the cheapest one we found that still looked reasonable, cost $79 room only. Just the job, based in Turbot Street, we were in the middle of everything pretty much. Tiredness was really kicking in come lunch time and I gave in and rested my head on the pillow, 30 seconds later there was a knock at the door and one of my friends from uni was standing there. Huge surprise, so lovely! She then came out to lunch with us at the Breakfast Creek Hotel. Awesome steak and chips!! Our first job was to visit the AHPRA offices to finalise my registration so that I could work. I was under the impression that all I had to do was present at the office with my passport and visa. Turns out that this is not enough proof of identity, so was requested to get a statement from the bank with our address on. So, off we went to ANZ.... We were there for over an hour just to get our bank account activated and to get a statement. They were rubbish, firstly they didn't activate our account properly, so our cards kept getting denied and secondly we left with no statement. We were so tired that we didn't notice. By this time, everywhere was closing and we didn't get AHPRA sorted. Word of advice, make sure you get your 100 point identification right.... We sorted this the following weekend The following day my new boss collected us from the hotel and drove us to Toowoomba to the furnished accommodation that they had booked for us for two weeks. Lovely little Queenslander cottage, has been great as it was one less thing for us to worry about. So far we have fallen head over heels in love with Toowoomba, what a lovely place to bring up our daughter. Everyone we have met so far has been so helpful and friendly. We've had some odd looks though as it is obviously the depths of winter and people are walking around in thick jumpers, coats and scarfs. Whereas we are clearly newly arrived pommies in our t-shirts and shorts.... I'm sure we won't be like this next winter. Haha I started work straight away, so haven't had a huge amount of time to explore, however I have spent a lot of time in Queens Park. It's so nice and clean, with great play equipment for the kids, even with solar powered games. Am looking forward to trying out the BBQ's there in the coming months. We have also been up to Picnic Point a few times. The view over the Range is mind blowing! We have done a little shopping whilst here too, to include buying a car, a sat nav and a pay as you go sim. For all three I required my passport, however needed a 100 point check for the car. We have used RACQ for our car insurance, purely because they were recommended by my boss. They were extremely helpful when we went into the office, but have no idea if we got the best deal. I'll worry about that next year when it comes to renewing the policy We have had a look in Coles and found it rather expensive, so have done the majority of our shopping in Aldi. We even bought a new 32" TV in there the other day for $222. Their offers in the central aisle are a million times better than the UK offers. Have also been surprised how cheap beef is, the steaks look amazing so I'll be sampling one this weekend. We found out this afternoon that our application for our rental was successful, so next week we'll be moving to Middle Ridge in Toowoomba. What's great is that the house falls within the catchment area of a great school for our daughter. We stuck to one of the smaller leasing agents and found them to be really helpful. Just need to start buying some furniture now as we currently only own a TV, some cutlery, saucepans, sharp knives and a dinner service. Not sure that these are going to aid my sleep too much... Secretly I'm looking forward to shopping this weekend That's all I can think of for the minute, here's a few photos we've taken since being here. The waterfalls at Picnic Point The view over the Range. Photos, really don't do this justice Queens Park Our new house

Really well thanks Blossom79, we've been here just over a week and I've completed my first week at work. My husband has been busy looking at schools for our daughter and we have decided on Middle Ridge State School, so are just trying to secure a house there. Not many appear to come available there so fingers crossed. Absolutely love Toowoomba, what an amazing place to bring up our daughter!

I think I've reached new records for the amount of wine I've consumed recently. I call it de-cluttering :wacko:

I know exactly how your feeling. We fly to Brisbane next week (18th) and my husband mentioned that when lying in bed last night he thought 'wow, I can't believe we're actually doing this, such a big move'. Luckily he confirmed he wasn't having second thoughts. Phew!! We are now too busy to be worrying about it too much though, so I think in a way it gets easier the closer to the date you get. I am obviously sad that we are leaving friends and family behind, but for me the most difficult part has been coming to terms to leaving our dogs behind. Lots of tears have taken place, but I know they will be fine. Best of luck with your move. Don't think about everyone else you're leaving behind, life will go on as normal for them. Think of your little family, call Australia home from the minute you land and enjoy every minute. Well that's what I'm going to attempt, not sure how easy it will be in reality.....

I don't believe you can get holiday insurance due to not having a return date, therefore your insurance should you need to claim could end up void. We have taken out basic cover with HIF, they had what looks like good cover for a reasonable price. Hope that's helped a little.

Such a lovely post to read. We fly to Brisbane in 2 weeks and cannot wait to get stuck in

Thanks for your help everyone, makes life a little easier

Hi all, We arrive in Brisbane on the 20th June and are planning on staying there for one night before departing for Toowoomba. Can anyone recommend somewhere nice to stay that is nice and central for us to do our jobs (collecting bank cards etc) before leaving the next day? Thanks

Hi everyone. We are due to arrive in Toowoomba on the 21st June (EXCITED!!), but was wondering if there is anyone out there that could recommend nice area's for us to explore to rent out first house. Luckily we have temp accommodation for the first two weeks, but I suspect that is going to fly by. We are wanting somewhere family friendly with good schools for our 8 year old daughter. Also if anyone can recommend anything at all that is going to make our transition as smooth as possible it will be hugely appreciated. Thank you :eek:

I'm keeping everything crossed for you all :-) I've just booked our flights for the 18th June. Oh my days!!!