AaronS

My daughter feeding the lories.

Good lord we have the birds! Cockies hang out on our railing about a metre from the back door. They are picky too. Don't like bread at all. They prefer to be hand fed by my kids....their favorite is chicken biskets. Lories hang out on our window sills insisting on being fed. Not to mention the damn bush turkey that hangs around. We also have a goanna, multiple water dragons and a 2.5 metre carpet python that make our back garden home. Love it all!

Good on you! We are right there with you. Entering our fourth year looking forward to citizenship. Was a rocky road at first but have firmed up and we love it here. The two year mark seems to be the milestone to making it work.

Manly for the win. If you want a little less expensive go Dee Why...but you get what you pay for.

I'll be blunt. 100K a year here and you will struggle on a 457. If you have any kind of comfortable life where you are now forget it at that salary here. Not meaning to discourage but you will feel poor.

Just dropping by as I do on occasion now. Looking back on our big move I've gone from extremely depressed about it to completely loving being here. Wife and I are doing very well on the job fronts...both of us have received very nice promotions this year. Traveling quite a bit. Kids are fully integrated into school now and have a solid group of friends. Basically everything has come up roses for us at this point. Looking at citizenship at the end of this year. Hard to believe we are going on four years here now. Time just kind of zipped on by. Hope everyone here is doing well and making good progress at what ever stage of the immigration journey you may be on.

Hey all. Just sayin' hello and giving an update. Life is treating us well. Finally got the Nissan Patrol I've been after (settled on the Xtrail last year....meh). Got a beast of a Patrol. 4.8L petrol...yes, I realize fuel economy will be rubbish...I'm OK with it. Time to explore some real dirt tracks! Anybody have any suggestions for around the Sydney area?

thanks all. It's a 186 visa....finally got around to looking at the document. 1 and a half years to apply for citizenship now!

Hey all....been a bit since I came by. As some of you know we were sponsored by my wife's employer for PR in Nov. Application officially went in first week of Jan and we were notified this morning that we are know permanent residents! Took about 7 weeks for the visa to be processed. Honestly I haven't even looked at what visa it is but I do know it's a bridging visa so we don't have to leave the country and it's effective immediately. It is a huge relief to have that come through.....guess it's time to look for a home now.

Starting in Sydney and going through broken hill to get to Port Augusta...then head north. Adelaide is pretty far out of the way.

Just booked an RV for a two week trip to the centre and back. Leaving from Sydney. Anyone done this before or have any tips? Headed out Broken Hill way to Port Augusta and up the Stuart. Then back through Red Cliffs. Leaving in two weeks.

Yes, it's all good now....even with having a meter long water dragon living next to the pool.

Paperwork is going out from her employer this week. HR questioned the fact that the company was paying for the visa and was promptly told to fall in line by the VP over the Asia and Oceania region. Yea!

I'm probably the king of flip flopping and then flopping again. Sold everything and moved here.....got depressed....six months later moved back to the US and bought a house.....hated it there....sold the house and moved back to Oz. Been back for 10 months now and love it. You have to give it time. A job will help get you into a social life...or some kind of groups. You absolutely have to do one of those to start getting people into your life. We'll never go back to the US at this point. Australia is home now.

Going on our first real camping trip this weekend. Headed to Dunn's Swamp. Looking forward to it. Anybody been there before and have any tips on the place?