Slean Wolfhead

Just did a family trip from Sydney to Guangzhou on China Southern, my parents use it on the Paris to Guangzhou leg and we meet family in the middle. (Incidentally you can now get a 72 hour visitor VISA included for Guangzhou, well worth it to blow your mind and far easier then having to get a proper standard VISA through normal routes). Modern planes, A380 coming back, pretty much on time. Guangzhou airport is an awful lot better than it used to be, it used to be a very dreary, lonesome place for stopovers but like the rest of the country they've spent billions on getting it up to scratch and it's excellent. The only bad thing I'd day is that the economy seats were the most uncomfortable I've sat in since Ryanair, rock hard narrow seats but slightly tipped backwards, not like the bouncy seats you get on Emirates or Singapore. All the pressure goes on your tailbone and after about 5 hours I was numb and stiff, ended up sitting on the blanket with the air pillow stuffed behind me. On the return leg i'd taken a few Nurofen in preparation so it wasn't so bad, but i spent a lot of time walking round. The Chinese like hard seats and very hard mattresses, so maybe it suits how they're conditioned. Also, they codeshare with Air France so if you can get them on the European leg then the seats and food are better.

Nobody really knows what the algorithm is, but it's very complex with preferred dates and times, stopovers, long gaps between flights. Some routes are more valuable than others. The objective is to get a full plane and maximum revenue. Because the sales period is about 255 days, they come in a drip. Each ticket sold lessens the chance of them being left with a non-full plane, each few weeks without a sale may encourage them to drop the price. They base it on risk management to extract the maximum amount they can but by ensuring they've sold all seats. You don't see many half empty planes these days. On a popular route over a holiday period, if they've sold 95% of the tickets already then they may not need to drop the price again and might in fact stick an extra $1000 on to collect the desperate late booker (i think they break even after selling 92% or something). Best advice is to find a price you're happy with, book it, then never go back and check the price again. You may only save a few hundred dollars, but might end up paying substantially more. KL is a nice clean airport with a decent hotel and pool on site. You might be able to get a day room, have a swim and sunbathe, nice meal, then carry on at night.

Place is a minefield, something that looks quite simple on the outside just isn't when you start getting into detail. Wait til you get here and start driving round and they all look the same as well....takes at least a year to become familiar. If he's an ICT Support Engineer and a non-resident, there are more likely to be employment opportunities in the local/state Government (schools, offices, health, your typical local government fare) than the national/federal/commonwealth government (A lot of commonwealth ICT requires security clearances which you can usually only get as a citizen, unless you're a specialist contractor). The headquarters of the ICT branch for ACT Government is moving to a new headquarters in Gungahlin town centre in a few months, so i'd look in that direction first for employment, and there's no reason not to start applying for jobs if you see them. They can do Skype interviews, but obviously don't apply too early if you can't get there yet. I would try and have 6 months living expenses set aside, just in case. It's all about getting that first foot through the door, as a lot of people have found on this site. Houses in the far North are modern, energy efficient, very easy to live in but with small gardens, infrastructure is great, new leisure centre, new health centre, new shopping town which has the best supermarkets, huge investment up there etc. Gungahlin also has fibre National Broadband network which i guess might be important for an IT bod (like Virgin cable but without the copper bit from the street that slows you down, so fast enough for VoIP, internet TV and broadband all in one). There are lots of rentals available up there as new houses are finished by investor owners (buy to let owners)...these rental prices are less than they were a few years ago because there's lots of availability at the moment. An option would be to rent something up there, then have your own house built on a "house and land" package. You'd probably be eligible for a first home owners grant and it gives you the chance to get some capital growth while it's being built which would help offset the rent you'd be paying to somebody else. It's probably a rare good time to rent because of the availability keeping prices down, AND a good time to buy because builders are discounting packages because of the worry about future job cuts to ACT. Growth has been pretty stagnant for a few years, but the new areas are seeing the highest price rises (Crace, Forde suburbs - both Gungahlin). Crace rose 20% last year, whereas the Canberra average was about 2-3%, some places saw no growth. I use both North and South for work and living, and it's funny how many Canberran's from one side know absolutely nothing of what happens in the other half. One bloke i spoke to in the South said he hadn't been to the Northside in 20 years.....just had no reason to go there and didn't have a clue about what was up there. As immigrants with no pre-conceived ideas, you're in a good position to explore and get ahead. The middle and South is more mature and very nice, plus it's finished. You're unlikely to get much infill building down there, roads are wider, parks are fixed and protected, the population levels won't get much denser so traffic jams won't happen, lots of trees and vegetation. But it's also dated in places. Older houses (think 70's and early 80's rectangular bungalow designs) on bigger blocks, draughty, poor insulation, can't do much with them. Important to factor in heating and cooling costs for these older places because the build quality isn't always great. You can get some great renovated houses for a high price but there's a lot of poor quality junk mixed in with it, and there's asbestos paneling and roofs all over the place down there. If you get something down there it's unlikely to be a low maintenance option, whereas in a new house you shouldn't have to worry about anything for 5-10 years so important to factor in future costs.

I remember my old boss saying that when he did his National Service in the Scottish Highlands, he didn't have a single cough, cold or chest infection. It was very very cold, very deep snow with 9ft drifts and they spent all day outside clearing it. But it was very dry. He moved back down to damp wet England and was back to the coughing and spluttering immediately. I used to get about 5 colds a year, constantly getting on and off trains and buses to buildings, warm to cold to warm, germs everywhere. In Canberra I haven't had a day's illness in 3 years, it gets a bit nippy in winter but it's very dry. I can't remember the feeling of getting a cold.

Social Worker's a bit of a misnomer, have to categorise it more i think because it's very varied. They take on social workers/caseworkers straight from daycare working here at a junior level, no qualifications that would get you a UK social worker job. But it's a good route in. Degree equivalent doing what the UK would call Social Work full-time pays between about 75k and 100k in ACT, 100K+ for management. Not much agency work yet.

http://www.canberrafurnished.com.au/ You could try these people for furnished accommodation. Prices are high on here, but tell them your requirements and they may have something suitable at a decent price if you're staying a month or two. It does make a difference having a washing machine and a few mod cons when you touch down, especially with kids in tow and lots to do. Inner North, Braddon and the city is expensive, but assuming you get a car then somewhere a little further up the road like Lyneham or Dickson is no bother and a bit cheaper.

Took me 6 months to get a job here, from a standing start. I'd say you have another 3 months of trying before things slow down as they wait for next years budget allocation (after 1st July) As those who stay will tell you, it's all about getting your foot in the door over here because it's a bit of a weird, frustrating insular place until one day it begins to slot together...

That should be door to door, but it's an estimate. They can't control what customs do or if your container gets pulled for an inspection. This should only add on a few days though really. Ours took 18 weeks in a shared. That's a long time, and it turned out that we'd left the UK before our container although we'd sent it off 4 weeks early to avoid that. This was with Allied Pickfords, who have a Sydney and Canberra branch so the same company can see it through from start to finish. It was the UK end that held onto it, never did get an explanation, but generally a sole container will go on a schedule, a shared container has to wait until it's full so is variable. 18 weeks was taking the piss though. What we found was that the shipping companies are a lot more attentive before they've secured your business, so it's worth doing the research and testing out the salesperson fully before you agree to anything; once they hand it to the administration side it's a whole different bunch of people you deal with.

You can have hours of fun with that lot. They speak English very well because they're reading from scripts and are well-practiced, but their comprehension of English is dreadful and they get themselves into an awful mess if you ask them a question of your own.

Banks can do this, they're making no profit on the account so it's bad for business. There's nothing to say they have to provide a place for you to keep money. Barclays have become pretty dreadful though, I had similar problems with them. I actually applied for a 0% credit card as per their advert, to keep them happy, and they sent me one at about 7% interest instead. I closed all my accounts and moved elsewhere in the end, they didn't want me to be in credit because they earned nothing off me.

I'd buy a TV over here unless yours is pretty much new. TV's are not expensive here, so sell your own in the UK, use the money towards a new one. Your UK TV should still work in some format, but just have a search of the threads on here and see some of the questions and issues. We brought ours, it was OK for a few years but i'd avoid the hassle if i had to do it again. Plus it's good to switch on a TV once you get here and not have to wait a few months, helps you get settled in and integrated with local channels and news etc. There's a NAB thread on this forum, have a read of that. You can open and deposit money into it, but the account isn't activated til you arrive in a branch over here and get your cards issued. NAB in Canberra were excellent, well-practiced and they're also one of the better ones for online banking too. Regarding leasing, (and it's a little different now that so many rentals are available http://www.allhomes.com.au ), you can pretty much move in as soon as you've signed the lease and paid the rental bond. We did that with no furniture because short-term accommodation was so expensive a few years ago. You can go to a camping shop and grab an airbed, camp chairs, cheap kettle, couple of saucepans...then they'll come in use for camping holidays later on. Gumtree is also pretty good for Canberra, lots of people moving in and out all the time.

You can book that channel on a monthly basis and cancel if you don't want to continue, so no minimum term. The Foxtel package itself is a 1 yr contract initially, but the sport coverage would be very good for Americans, a lot of Aussies play over there so more basketball coverage than you got in the UK. Local rugby is worth watching, quick and a very high standard if you go to the Brumbies. Lots of expats go, even those who didn't follow the more risk-averse Northern hemisphere style game.

Wait til you get in a car and observe the driving....

He doesn't want anything that good.... BeinSports, previously Setanta, show Scottish football including live matches via Foxtel (Sky). It's subscription though, $20 a month. NFL is part of the Fox Sports package, lots of American sport on there and all the EPL matches overnight are live. It's a bit weird watching the Sunday NFL game on a Monday morning though...at this time of year we're 16 hours ahead of the East Coast USA.

He can do the same in England, though the Emergency departments are pretty good in the UK, it's elective surgery they're trying to pass off as too much to handle which is sort of the Aussie problem as well. Interesting thing about private sector Emergency Departments.....they don't compare well to NHS ones, probably because the profit is in surgery. My mum had an Aussie mate who broke his leg in the UK, they operated, treated him for 6 weeks before he could go home...never even asked for his home address or travel insurance, he didn't even have to pay for an Xray...guy couldn't believe how well he was treated compared to Australia's model. It's the same as everywhere else in the world, either save money for medical emergencies or get yourself private insurance if you don't want to wait, life is a lottery.

I guess it's useful if you need to Skype somebody over here.... :wink:

He has a Samsung (and a Bravia it seems), but hasn't said the model number or age. Some of the initial HDTV Samsungs only had non-HD tuners, so even though they could display HD, they couldn't internally decode HD Free-To-Air channels, just SD. Depending on the region and state, Australia is switching off SD so the number of channels available on an old TV may be variable anyway. Then you have the issue of tuning a Euro TV into Australia by masquerading as a different country. You do this to get the sound channel, the picture should be fine anyway so long as it can decode HD. Clear the stored UK channels, and let the TV Autoscan for new...you shouldn't need to manually tune anything even on an old Samsung. If it can't Autoscan and find channels, what the aerial like on the roof? The best answer is to go to Dick Smith's and get an Australian HD Digital Tuner for $30 and plug it in...just use your TV as a monitor until you can afford a new TV. At that price it's a no brainer.

This goes to the root of how people define standards of living and quality of life. Can it be reduced to having an iPad or a big telly? I think a lot of people in the UK do that, it's a consumerist thing rather than a measure of happiness.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/australias-beleaguered-abbott-endures-one-final-nightmare-beforechristmas-9907180.html Devastating report on Abbott, but it was all predicted.

There's a note on the UK website that Australian passport photo's are not compatible, so can you choose the UK size?

Where did you get your photo's taken ?

Mainly, ensuites have a toilet, sink and either a shower or bath. You don't want to bugger about in the middle of the night. House bathrooms are normally separate from the toilet, so if you have guests, kids or a big household, rooms are not blocked off when usage is high. I don't get the hygiene argument that they should be kept separate either. If they are separate, and assumedly you have the toilet door closed....the first think you do is open the door with dirty fingers before you can find somewhere to wash your hands. Leaving it for the next person... I also thought the Aussies might just prefer to pee in the bath, but that's another thing.

I would always buy car rental excess insurance independently, it's far cheaper. I think my last one was $40 for 7 days cover (also via Tripcover) compared to about $150 via the rental firm. What this means is that if you suffer damage, you still have to pay the car rental company a few thousand dollars from your credit card but then you claim that figure back off your own rental excess insurance....it's not an automatic waiver. It's also possible to get this cover included on your Australian travel insurance...you can normally choose the level of excess cover required then pay extra accordingly. Some credit cards also cover your rental excess (American Express) but it's less common on Aussie cards. Guess it depends on how often you'll be hiring cars.

We sent ours a month before we left, then we spent a month in Thailand...so 8 weeks. It turned up 9 weeks after we got to Australia and was becoming a problem. The issue is, shippers often cannot guarantee "when" your container will go, especially if you're sharing one. They do try and brush over this because they want your business. We checked the dockets and even though ours had been collected by Pickfords 4 weeks before we left, it was still sitting in the UK when we flew out. So do it early...the permanent address isn't a problem. You just advise the Australian end when you've found an address.

Let them carry out the check, it's highly unlikely they'll have kept records for a caution (is that a conviction?) I had a friend who was super honest on a US visa form and self-declared something similar. They asked for more details from the UK police and they had no knowledge of anything, let alone details. Caused a 6 month delay though, nobody knew what to do as he'd owned up to something that nobody could prove he'd done !