Hi all,
This forum has been such a great help to me pre and post move and as I have read so many posts I thought I could tell you about my experience of life in Australia.
I am 26 and from the UK and my partner is an Australian citizen, he was born in Australia but lived most of his life in the UK. We came to a decision to move on Aus in April 2011 and we arrived in November 2011. I came out on a working holiday visa as we wanted to give it a bit of a try before we committed with a more permanent move. I had visited Aus twice before the first time for 3 months traveling and again for a two week holiday, both times I loved the place but that was through the eyes of a tourist rather than actually living there.
We arrived at the end of November having been on a 3 week holiday in Asia and at first we stayed in Queensland with family for just over a month. We had decided to try living in Sydney as my company from the UK had an office there where there was a chance of getting a job and many of the companies in my industry are based in Sydney. We both had very little knowledge of Sydney so basically decided that we wouldn't want to live too far out and looked into areas such as Randwick, Balmain and Neutral Bay. I trawled gumtree and agents websites for places to view, many of the adverts on gumtree I found to be lease breaks and the tenants were advertising for new people to take on the lease and would tell you to contact the agent.
We came down to Sydney for 5 days and the first place we viewed was a 2 bedroom flat in Balmain, we fell in love with the flat and the area straight away and it had amazing views of the city, we looked at a couple more but applied for that one as none of the others seemed to match it. Luckily we were accepted and 2 weeks later we moved in!
I love living in Balmain and as it is so close to the city, has amazing parks, shops, pubs and restaurants. For anyone coming to Balmain try out the East Village pub, Our Place on Darling and the Cottage! It feels like living in a village or small town and there is always lots going on, the other week there was free jazz in the park on a Sunday.
Back to the job hunt, I had applied for a few jobs with agencies but I hadn't heard much back, I guess a lot of it was to do with my WHV. I managed to get in touch with someone from my old company, had an interview and started work mid February. My employer could only take me on a 6 month contract due to WHV restrictions.
By about April we had decided that we would like to stay longer than the year so I started to look further into applying for a de facto partner visa (820/801). Before we left the UK we had decided that this might be an option so had started collecting evidence and shipped it over. The application itself took a lot of work to get everything together, I sent joint leases/tickets for joint holidays/photos over 4 years/form 80/4 Australian stat decs and many other things such as bills etc. We got everything together and sent it off in a folder to the processing centre in July. I got my acknowledgement about a week later and then I booked in for my medical. The medical was fairly straight forward and I just took a ticket number waited to be called where someone at the desk checked my forms, and then I was called to each different room for the different tests. I was slightly nervous as I had never had a medical before but there was nothing to worry about. The medical centre sent my results straight to immigration. A month later I received a package from immigration, I opened it up and inside was all of my evidence. I was thrilled as I thought I must have a case officer who had looked at my stuff but when I read the letter I had been granted permanent residency on the 801 visa. It was so quick and took just less than a month, I was shocked as I was expecting to wait for about a year for the temp visa but I was so happy!
We have spent a lot of time visiting lots of different areas, I enjoy going to the beach and although it is quite a drive Palm Beach is beautiful and I have just started learning to surf! I have visited Port Stephens, Windsor and Kiama. I haven't felt too homesick as I didn't live near my family at home but I find I am skyping and talking to them even more! Although I am still new here and I realise that it might just hit me one day. We had to head back to England once for a family emergency and its times like that you realise how far away you actually are, its not even the length of the flight its mostly the huge cost to get back.
I have made an amazing group of friends thanks to Poms in Oz, 6 of us had a meet up and clicked straight away, we spend a lot of time together and I think it helps that we all know what each other is going through and they have been a substitute family for me.
Anyway I hope I haven't nattered on for too long but if anyone has any questions about my visa process or anything else please ask.
Thanks again to Poms in Oz!