Marisawright

I think my OH looked at Campeltown quickly and thought that the property prices sounded fairly reasonable, but I think that my main consideration now will be to go to an area that has a school offering the IB as I do not want her to suffer at all with her education. I feel that way she will cover off all of her options.

Be cautious about the IB because my sister took the same route with her children, because they were thinking of moving to France. They decided to stay in the UK and when I talked to her recently, she was regretting the decision to put them through IB. I can't remember why but will talk to her.

Been here over 2 years yes.

 

As mentioned above , things can change down the track, but if I was to go back to the UK and not return in that 5year period, can I extend it?

 

 

Right now, yes I believe you could extend it. But bear in mind, that could change at any time. The rules used to be much harsher - when I arrived 30 years ago, if I left Australia for more than two years I'd lose my PR and wouldn't be allowed to re-apply, end of story. Who knows, there's nothing to stop them going back to that regime if they feel like it - and if they do, you're stuffed.

Looking back at your other threads, you were so thrilled to get your PR, what's changed? Could you make some changes to your life in Australia that would make things more bearable?

Is the area ok where wake up is?

That end of George Street, right down near Central Station, can be a bit dodgy late at night but otherwise you'll be fine.

Firstly, let me say thank you for all your response which are much appreciated. Now somewhere along the line my hubby mentioned permanent residency so this is a point I need to clarify: are we on a 247 or PR. Obviously that would make a huge difference on where we stand.

 

We will be living in Sydney which I believe is really expensive for housing. My husband had a quick recce in Campbelltown and said it seemed nice and a lot cheaper.

It's very possible your husband has mentioned permanent residence even if he's on a temporary visa: it's common for employers to say that they will sponsor for PR further down the track. However, that has to be treated VERY cautiously because it's not a "will" - it's just a "maybe".

It's exactly the same as when you get a temp job in the UK and the employer says it will become permanent eventually. The employer is under no obligation to fulfil that commitment - if business is bad or needs change, you're just a temp and therefore the first to go. These forums are full of people who were "promised" PR and found themselves forced to leave the country when their 457 finished.

Yes, Sydney is expensive. Campbelltown is much cheaper and if you like rural life, it may suit you - but it is a very long way from Sydney proper and as an ex-Sydneysider myself, I don't really consider it Sydney.

I agree with Jacaranda, one country isn't better than another, they're just different - and different people like different things. So some people love Australia whereas others hate it.

My biggest concern in your case is the fact that your oh is on a 457 visa - for a couple of reasons.

One, that's just a temporary visa - if you move out there and then he loses his job, you'll all have to leave the country. Having a temporary visa doesn't give him or you any special rights to apply for a permanent visa and stay - if you didn't qualify for a permanent visa applying from the UK, you won't qualify just because you're in Oz.

Two, on a 457 visa you get no benefits or allowances, and I believe you'll have to pay school fees and must have health insurance as well. It would be wise to find out how much the school fees would be. If your husband is on a good wage and you're confident you can afford those extra costs then it could be a great adventure for the family, but as you say you've got to be sure it's affordable. Good luck!

Hi this is my first post haven't got a clue if its right so here goes ,I'm moving to perth with the family and need a bit of advice on shipping over all the house stuff were coming over late November and need all the help I can get on sorting house rentals as well cheers in advance

Welcome Altheglaze. It's unlikely you'll be able to get a house rental organised before you leave. It probably wouldn't be practical anyway, because your furniture etc. will take at least a month to get there and probably longer, so you'd be sitting in an empty house with no crockery, cutlery etc (Australian houses are rented unfurnished).

What you'll need to do is organise holiday accommodation, airbnb or house sitting for the first month or so while you look for a rental.

As for shipping, start decluttering now as there's no point paying to transport junk! You may be surprised how much you've collected so don't assume, take a good hard look in all your storage areas.

I am travelling with my boyfriend so really it wouldn't matter much to me, I'm not worried about people in the area its more noise and how busy it is, wondering if it's better to stay somewhere a bit quieter. I am thinking of staying centrally for the first few nights to maybe a week and then heading to a beach resort, maybe Bondi or Coogee?

It's a matter of personal preference but I like Coogee better. Bondi is a bit too popular for its own good, whereas Coogee has just as many restaurants and cafes, the beach is just as good and it's a bit cheaper.

I guess it depends what you're planning to do in Sydney. If you're just going to sightsee then I can see the point of starting out in town to see that area then moving out to the beach - if you're planning to work, then I'd suggest making straight for Coogee or Randwick so you can get settled quicker. It's still close enough to the city to do all the sightseeing you need in your spare time.

I've noted down coogee as a place to live after you mentioned it Maria

It's gorgeous, like Bondi SHOULD be! Bronte is also lovely. Both can be expensive though - Randwick and Kingsford are a lot cheaper and still very easy to get to the beaches at Coogee, Bronte and Maroubra.

I do love Tassie and one aspect that I love is the cooler weather...... When I moved over my company offered me the choice of Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra or Brisbane. I chose Brisbane due to the weather and it's taken quite a few years to be over it....Now I love the winter and am a bit 'Meh' about the summer. I am hoping that I have got over my need for sunshine, but without experiencing long periods of crummy weather it is difficult to know. Frost seems as exotic as the pebble beach in Brighton.... But it really could be the rose tints......

My oh is very much the same as you and has been relishing the cooler weather ever since we arrived in the UK (though all the locals are moaning about what an awful summer it is!). However over the last week or so we've had several days of cold windy weather with lashing rain, and he is starting to get a bit worried about how he'll cope with the winter. He comes from the Adriatic and migrated to Oz as a small child, so he's never known really horrible weather.

He's starting to talk about staying in So'ton until spring rather than moving further north, in case he finds winter is more than he can handle!

@Vaszx, I've deleted your post with your email address on it, for your own safety! It's never a good idea to reveal your email address in an open forum, because it will get picked up by spammers and you'll get lots of spam emails. ThePomQueen will send you an email via the forum's messaging system.

Yeap

but I have no friends there

A lot of people say it's hard to make friends in the big cities of Australia, but smaller towns and the country are very friendly and you'll have no trouble getting to meet new friends IMO.

Are there any hostels on this one street or near by the alleys which you would avoid, im not bothered about the people looking for places to sleep, saying that.. im not really that bothered about prostitutes either but i guess if there is anywhere to avoid it would be this street?

I think you're focussing on the wrong thing. Even if you avoid hostels that are down the wrong alley, you still have to walk through the streets around it to get to places. MaryRose and Paul are right, King's Cross is really not that frightening most of the time - but they're both men so it's a bit different for them.

I used to work in an office in Potts Point - in Tusculum Street which is a lovely genteel looking street. But you should've seen the syringes littered down the alleyway at the side of the property. Knowing that, when I had to work late I used to practically run through Potts Point until I got to the bright lights of the Cross!

I'm still curious why you feel a city hostel is more desirable than a beach one?

I agree, get an agent. It's a nice idea to arrange it all with another family and it all seems nice and cosy because it's through PomsinOz, but at the end of the day, you still don't know that family from a bar of soap, and you won't be there to keep an eye on the house while you're away.

Get a small self-storage unit and put all your valuables and stuff you care about in it, then let the house furnished. Furnished lets are less common in Australia but they do exist and you will get a tenant. Even with an agent, there's nothing to stop you publicising its availability on this forum.

thank you all. the advice i have been given clearly is not good and they were registered. I shall ask my fiance to follow up with a complaint his end since it was a migration lawyer in Australia that provided us with this information. I would never knowingly do things outside the correct process or cut corners. I hope it has not come across as such. This has been really useful feedback from you all.

I don't think anyone is suggesting you're trying to be dishonest. The fact that you said migration lawyer was a bit of a red flag to some of us, because you don't have to be a lawyer to be a migration agent - and someone can be qualified and registered as a lawyer (not as a migration agent) and still know f*all about correct migration procedures!

I've been told by a lot of people to try to avoid Kings X if possible.. and to be honest, it does sound a bit much! ... I've heard a few people stay somewhere called Gleebe? I think it was.. is that correct? And if so could anyone advise what its like/is it close to places etc? I don't want to end up miles away from everything

Glebe is nice, but have you thought about beach suburbs? Coogee/Randwick area is great, lots of cafes to find work, easy to get to the city too. Bondi can be a bit rough and more of a trek to town, plus it's so popular you might have trouble getting in.

Kings Cross is not a quiet suburb. Lol.

 

My partner was propositioned by a prostitute the minute we left the station! It's a very seedy main street in my opinion.

 

Potts Point the next suburb much better.

That's not surprising since King's Cross is the red light district of Sydney. For women on their own, I wouldn't recommend Potts Point either - the activities at the Cross overflow down there a bit too much for my taste.

Who is this migration lawyer? Is he a properly registered agent? There are far too many shonks out there and your proposal sounds dodgy, so I would suggest getting a second opinion from a MARA registered migration agent like GoMatilda. You could waste an awful lot of money, and let yourself in for a lot of frustration, if you go about this the wrong way.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]30988[/ATTACH]Right suitcases... I found this one. It's made by Samsonite so it should be a good one. Seems to have good reviews but just not sure about the material since some people have said the hard ones can crack but others say the soft ones can rip so can't really win. I've never yet had a suitcase ruined by baggage handlers but you never know

I've always had soft ones and have never had on rip in 40 years of travelling - but then again, I've never owned a hard one so I can't see if they're more likely to crack. Whichever one you feel happy with I think! That one looks like good value but it looks really enormous.

Well at least I bought a carry on.. Although it keeps putting the pic upside down

 

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Now, I would've bought a backpack for my carry-on, not a holdall. Much better for wandering around the airport for hours after you've checked in your luggage - and you can also use it as a daypack or weekender pack once you're there.

I'm going to try and bring the bare minimum, one suit, few shirts, shorts, jeans, t shirt etc then buy everything else when I arrive.

 

I'm going to hold off buying an iPad / Laptop until i'm out there as electronics seem a lot cheaper in Aus than the UK.......

Yes, they are. I put off buying a new laptop before I left Oz (my old one had died) - I'm bitterly regretting it now because the cost of a new one in the UK is ridiculous.

I have never been so confused in my whole life :laugh:

I think we've established that you can't have a backpack because your back won't cope with it, so that's one less option to confuse you. Hip belts and good design help, but a bad back is a bad back.

Also if you're little like me, you won't be able to get a big, fully-packed backpack off your back without help.

The only reason you're hesitating about a suitcase is that you had one that the wheels broke on - get over it! I've travelled all over the world with wheelie suitcases, including bumping over cobbles in Italy for miles, and that has never happened to me - you were just unlucky.

The next question is which one to get. Of course you're going to get lots of conflicting advice about which one is best, but really a suitcase is a suitcase and as long as it's big enough, it's probably OK. It's pretty obvious that buying a quality one on sale is going to be better value than a cheap one at full price. If you want reassurance, Amazon.co.uk has lots and lots of reviews on their site - sure, some of the good ones are fakes, but look at the negative ones and you'll soon rule out the bags that are not worth buying.

Sorry, but I don't see the point of throwing things out or leaving them behind? What advantage does that give you, if you're on a WHV?

Sure, it means you don't have to lug a heavy suitcase to the airport, or from the airport to the hostel when you arrive. But let's face it, how long is that journey really?

Now compare that with how long it's going to take you to slog around charity shops trying to replace what you didn't bring. Cairns may have a good one, but you won't find nearly as many as in the UK, and in the big cities, the best stuff gets snapped up very fast.

After that, how are you going to carry your new-found purchases for the rest of the year? You left stuff behind so you could take a smaller case - so now you're going to have to buy a bigger case to fit all the replacement stuff in, so how does that help?

I can see the point of backpackers travelling light if they're going to be on the move all the time - and if they have to rely on laundromats then it's probably just as cheap to buy tat in charity shops and Supre and throw it away. However if you're going to be stopping in one place and working, you're going to need reasonable clothes to work in, and you're going to meet and make friends with people who are not backpackers, and you'll need some decent clothes to go to the pub with them.

What do people think to this? Will 68L be big enough? It's reduced from £60 so it'll be a bargain. I'm just worried about the hard shell, I've had one before and it cracked so I'm unsure really.

 

That is another reason I avoid hard shell cases

Nice idea but unless they're desperately short of applicants, it's unlikely they'll take you on before you arrive.

Can I just hand you my bank card and you can get me a case, insurance and whatever else I need :laugh: It's definitely hard to tell from a photo. I googled Tripp lite suitcases and most of the reviews were good

They do seem good but is there a reason you're going for a hard shell suitcase? They are usually more expensive in my experience, they're often heavier, and because they're rigid, you can't squeeze in extra bits and pieces so you'll have less room. If you're not carrying lots of breakable stuff (which you won't be - don't take toiletries), then you don't need the protection of a hard case.

The one you show is only 62 litres. That seems too small to me.

I just had a look on Amazon and am about to eat my words about holdalls. I found several by Eastpak which get great reviews. They look like they have two small feet at the front, so they shouldn't be so inclined to fall over (which was my only problem with the one I had).

Here's just one example:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eastpak-Suitcases-EK662_36G--Multicolour-liters/dp/B00HQYEVJO