jimmyay1

I agree with this. We don't find it much dearer here at all, and our wages are better. you need to look for bargains they do exist.

That's what i used to do most bank hols! One of the joys of living in Oz is that even on public holidays you can drive out of the city and there's little traffic or congestion - big country, all the vehicles just gets spread out. i was panicking at christmas about getting away early to miss the jams leaving the city - still in uk mode about needing to leave at the crack of dawn to miss the mass getaways - i needn't have worried. we got up at a leisurely time and drove to sydney from melbourne with no trouble at all. We've had a wonderful Easter weekend zipping around the countryside. No queues or jams, no hectic overrun tourist places. Sure places are busy as its a hol but compared to the UK , its a dream really. Driving to Brighton and back for a day out on a bank holiday used to be a real expedition if not timed right.

Indeed. Hard to think of a more sports obsessed city than Melbourne, or one with better facilties anywhere in the world. What has London got, 2 Olympic sized swimming pools in the whole city i seem to remember! Crystal Palace Pool and the Olympic Park. Oh yes and Tooting Bec Lido. Melbourne's got at least 20.

Personally i have much less free time , leisure time, family time, whatever you want to call it , here than i did in the uk. usually at desk by 8am as are the rest of the office. rarely leave before 7 and am certainly not the last to leave ( well sometimes if its an 8 o clock evening which tends to happen once a week). the jobs good but short hours it aint. the upside is my commute is only 15 mins. partner works away half the week so we see each other at weekends. loving Oz, but was under no illusions before i came here that to make it work, i'd have to work hard. and that's what i'm doing. i do see a few slackers at work. but most seem fairly committed. work life balance is what you make it. if i had kids i would rarely see them in the week. i dont so it doesnt matter so much that i do long hours. but people saying they want to emigrate to oz for a more relaxed lifestyle, blah blah well all well and good if you have so much money that you can afford to live in a nice area and work part time. most people dont and cant do this so they have to put the slog in to get there. those that think they can just come and work in an aussie city and just drift along working few hours and magically have a great lifestyle and all that goes with it are living in a fantasy world.

indeed. i follow the weather fairly closely and it's correct that essentially London will be warmer than Melbourne on most days (not all) between mid May to mid September - about 4 months of the year. Even so, there will be a fair few days when Melbourne is warmer in the depths of winter than London in July - last winter's July daytime average high in Melb was 16 degrees, with lots of days reaching 18-19. There are plenty of English summer days which fail to reach 20 degrees. Certainly where my family is from in the North of England, average summer daytime highs are quite similar to Melbourne winter days at around 16-17 degrees with overnights of 8-11, even in summer. I think lots of immigrants to oz quickly forget how cool the UK can be even in summer. London has a pretty warm climate compared to the rest of the uk. by early September solar UV is starting to hit around 5 in Melbourne which is similar to an English summer's day even though it is only early spring.

i think a lot leave from Perth too, although that also seems to attract a hell of a lot of Brits for various reasons. i actually find Melbourne a bit like a home away from home with the old buildings, narrow characterful laneways and crappy weather at times. perhaps all that sun goes to people's heads in perth. have to say i loved perth when i visited for a holiday but if you're into city life and buzz it did strike me as very quiet, the CBD was like a ghost town at 5pm/ having said that it was 5 ago maybe its more happening now.

40 Melbourne Since Nov 2012 don't want to be in UK

these aren't too bad, at Brighton, towards Sandringham. I live nearby and the water is always crystal clear, and the beaches usually uncrowded.

poms are not a rarity so you won't exactly stand out. if you are in vic you will need to be into AFL though as there is not much else talked about during the season! i suppose it will depend on circumstance how well you bond with folk and whether you develop mates local or otherwise. aussies are friendly enough. having said that, i've been here nearly 18 months. i have still got no one locally whatsoever who i would call a friend or even, to say meet for a drink socially, other than my partner, who's away half each week with work. as i write this i wonder where all the time has gone and am amazed that i have had no social interaction with anyone here, locals or expat, outside of work since we arrived here in November 2012. At first this wasnt much of an issue but i am feeling more isolated as time goes by. It was something i never thought of when we moved, i imagined friendship networks would just kind of happen over time. but they havent so far. Do not underestimate starting from scratch here with all your lifelong mates on the other side of the world. it will be probably be hard if you are not used to making new friends, or have little time outside of work in which to do it.

Not sure what you mean by a one dimensional outlook on life with Aussies. We find Melbourne very diverse with all types of inividuals clearly pursuing different dreams. Is Brisbane really that different? I've not made it there yet.

Charles and Camilla came to Melbourne in November 2012 and opened the spring racing carnival and Melbourne Cup - i remember as it was the week i emigrated here and we watched them on TV. So it's not like Vic doesnt get Royal visits.

Yes it's funny, since we bought our place in January which has quite a nice deck and lawn, we havent eaten outside once! First of all it was too hot (in Jan) and then there were too many mosquitos (in Feb) or it was too windy, and now it's dark at dinnertime and feels a bit odd sitting out! I think i'm becoming fussy.....like the Aussies who will only go to the beach if a precise combination of temperature, humidity and timing is right.....maybe we get spoilt living here!

You can be outside as much as you want,outside of work (if you work in an indoor office) and high summer. Generally we find that between mid Dec and mid Feb we limit outdoor exposure especially during hot spells and the middle of the day. i can't tell you how great it is to be March and to be able to walk around in 28 degrees rather than a hot, windy 40 with a scorching sun. thankfully those days are rare, really. however the sun does affect your exposure in the high summer if you are being careful. you would be nuts to sit on a beach at 2pm. Anyway life is what you make it. if you work long hours like many new migrants do to establish yourself you'll have some nice weekends away and stuff but you'll be in work mode most of the week and unlikely to go out much. I find myself working 8am to 8pm most days and it's dark most of the year when i get home! just time for tv and bed!

We kept our property on in London after moving down here 15 months ago. The tenant has been fine, and we have an agent also looking after it, though the tenant knows they can get in touch if they need anything. It's a state of mind being worried about tenant issues really. The bigger worry is when in years time you need to spend money on the property , will it be easy to do it with exchange rates etc. Also , might you move back ? In a way its good to keep your hand in the market in the uk if you still have substantial ties there or you are also at the mercy of echange rates. However, its a matter of choice really. Also in the longer term with you being an overseas resident there may be tax implications to worry about. We saved a deposit and have been lucky enough to be able to buy in Melbourne without selling up in London . However would not rule out selling up in the UK in future, it just depends. The longer i am here, the less i can imagine going to live back in the UK (and much as i love London,probably not back there to live - think ive done that now), lots of factors to consider.

I'm from the Bradford distict originally and went to school in the city. As soon as me and all my mates reached 18 we could not wait to leave and after uni unlike my dad's generation due to lack of local job opportunities we all migrated south to London and overseas. Most of our contemporaries who had any kind of ambition about them also left during the 90s. There was, and is simply no real opportunities for professional people in the city a great shame unlike 30 or more years ago. It has been on the slide for a long time with local out-migration, and has just backfilled with third world immigrants from the poorer parts of poor countries, doing minimum wage jobs and who as a community have steadily become more conservative, small minded, inward looking and attitudey as the decades have worn on (perhaps even more so than the places they've come from). It's now one of the most deprived and least dynamic economic areas in western europe, a massive and shocking decline with the social fabric utterly transformed for the worse. Even in the 80s there was a little joy about the place. Not any more.

I've only had a few good NYE's , usually when i have hosted a party for friends at home. going out is a bit of a nightmare on NYE I have found and the restaurants and taxis and crowds not worth the cost or annoyance. was on my own yesterday again this NYE as partner away working, so just stayed in last night, had a couple of beers, watched the fireworks at midnight then went to bed.

the guy's a self important nob. right to a family life? lucky his Indian wife fell pregnant when it looked like he might get deported to aus and now of course he is allowed to stay in the UK. he loves the UK so much but has lived there for years but him and his wife never thought to get citizenship? 100% chance his lawyers advised him of this course of action, it's de rigour these days. the UK is digging its own grave and is a laughing stock with its immigration rules and loopholes but at the same time the UK are welcome to him!

I am sure in time you will be able to , don't lose heart. Australia is just a little bit behind on this issue, it will come, there are many countries now where you can get married and adopt children if you like, and if you go to the ACT and get married , and live in NSW, then you could adopt children too. i feel sad reading your post. i don't want kids myself but it is gutting and makes me angry how this affects people who do but can't under current laws when they would often make a lot better parents than some straight people.

I'm enjoying the fact that it will be warm at Christmas but it does feel different to the UK (although days like today in Melbourne do make you wonder sometimes where you are living). I really love the fact that Aussies like Christmas but that Christmas here don't have the full on obsessional stuff, blanket wall to wall in your faceness of Christmas as an event in the UK. It's more of a great build up to the summer holidays, with Christmas just happening to mark the start of it here in Australia. Certainly won't be putting a tree up, we didnt do it for years in the UK before we came and never bother now. I do think they tend to look a bit ridiculous in Australia,anyway. there's on in our office festooned with fake snow and holly leaves and other symbols of northern hemisphere winters, in the bright light of the Australian summer. Looks totally daft and out of place, like someone has put it there as a joke! I might get around to putting a few bits of tinsel up a couple of days before Christmas. No big deal!

I have kept my property in the UK since i moved down to Oz. Its in London and has gone up in value. i also have this dilemma. Capital gains tax would suck so may need to sell it within 3 years. I'm not keen to return to the UK at all but i like the security of having a property there as you never know what might happen. fortunately we have a good local agent and the tenants are really nice and i work in the property industry myself and know tradies in london, so it being thousands of miles away doesnt freak me out in the slightest. all i need to do is make sure the agent does their job property . The tenant also knows to email me with anything if not getting any joy out of the agent. It's a good relationship. The big downside is that if i'd cashed in i would be looking at buying a bigger property here than i currently am. but you can't have everything. will probably keep the UK property as an investment, long term, and hopefully find a way around CGT when the time comes to sell i suppose.

This . You get over it. I did miss some uk tv to begin with but it's really not the end of the world. I even have free access to all BBC programmes as broadcast whenever i want it through a special computer application. However i never bother to watch it even though i could if i wanted. i watched a few UK news and current affairs programmes via it a couple of times and some of the UK tv series when i first moved down here but it all seemed so far away and irrelevant and not that bothered to be honest. as boganbear says there are other things to do than tv.

wow, i can't believe some people's parents and families are so harsh. Have to admit though i was worried at the reaction mine would have, but they were pretty positive and were quite excited for me. my dad said to me he didnt blame me and slightly wished he had done the same when he was younger and lived abroad at least for a while. i used to live a few hundred miles away from them anyway but did visit pretty religiously every month or two and we remained close. Actually the distance is often a state of mind i find. it would be lovely to see them but they are still the same old selves when we speak on the phone or skype. I just wish they could have moved over too, but this is what you have to face when you migrate. you leave family thousands of miles away. i think about family every day and what they are doing but i don't let it get me down. it would be crazy to forget people i love so much. i think it's rotten that some people';s relatives guilt trip like this, i really do. parents should be supporting their adult children in major life decisions unless there's very good reason ( not selfish ones) not to .

coming up to my second Christmas in Oz. Actually really looking forward to it. Last year, i'd only been here a couple of months and everything was brand new. we had no furniture and it was quite odd being in the heat. as summer now finally seems to be on the way in Melbourne, its delighful to think that we're heading into Christmas in the warmth - seems like a luxury to have heat at this time of year. if i was in the UK i would be cold and wrapped up for a long winter to come. i can do without it! would rather be on the beach! Christmas down under has also allowed me to abandon all previous traditions of Christmas and do it my own way. Last year we drank Aussie Champers and ate mousakka for Chistmas dinner! Who knows what we'll try this year....

I just came back from Kakadu National Park - it's an awesomely beautiful, harsh, flyblown, magical, scary part of the world. it feels like the first spot on earth that was created and parts of it feel incredibly alien, anywhere which can make you feel such contradictory emotions must be quite special. I loved it and it was amazing and we had it to ourselves as it was low season so no tourists really - but i also kind of disliked it at the same time! i'm not sure what i expected it to be, it kind of reveals itself to you the longer you are there. distances are huge. i wanted to see more but when you leave the main highway you are off roading and the off road parts are really not great, very bumpy and corrugated - in a hired city type 4x4 it was a bit nerve wracking so we didnt dare do too much for fear of wrecking the vehicle. all the locals have completely tooled up 4x4s for this purpose and its one part of Oz you can see there's a justification for it. i would love to go back properly kitted up and really explore. basic Toorak Tractors just don't really cut it up there. It really is a huge wilderness with an abundance of natural beauty, and hazards. it's all very exciting and there is amazing animal and plant life but it's not really somewhere that you go walking off on your own without telling someone where you're going, or having a plan and the distances between places is large. for Brits used to thinking of driving to places outside of cities as having a break in "the countryside", places such as Kakadu just don't fit that neat description and i think as a recent migrant i am still getting used to the sheer scale of this country!

at the moment,i do less exercise in Australia than i did in the UK and have in the normal week to week , i have a less outdoorsy lifestyle in the sense of running around physical activity. my daily commute now involves a car drive rather than a cycle ride as was the case in London ( and at first here until i moved offices ) and i have put on over about 8kg as i am also a greedy sod. the good intentions i came with to become a super fit adonis havent been followed through in my daily routine, i should make more of an effort really . the food here is too good not to be tempted, i find aussie food of all descriptions irresistable, it's a bit of a problem! i managed to give up smoking after moving down under which has been a real achievement in maintaining health and you are right the fresh clean air does work wonders for the spirit and mood. l australia is an amazingly beautiful country and the oppportunities are all there for the taking if you organise yourself properly and can find a routine where it works. the opportunities and facilities for outdoor activities and sports are better than anywhere else in the world. Just done be too hard on yourself if your expecations of a new fitter you don't work out in reality! it doesnt happen by magic!! :-) Best of luck!