emj1986

Thanks for all your comments guys. Latest update is that we are now moving out of our rental in Springbrook - the final straw came following a pretty horrendous hailstorm on Saturday afternoon. We got absolutely soaked through - problem is we were sat on the sofa at the time lol. House sprung about 4 leaks, luckily aside from the dogs bed, none of our stuff got ruined. They are charging us to break lease which I find shocking after all the issues we've had with the place but don't think we have a leg to stand on - seems very much on the side of the landlord out here. Ive got a few places shortlisted, my fave is on the Heritage Gardens Estate in Upper Coomera - now, ive done a lot of research into areas around here and Upper Coomera was always on my no list with regard to crime. You only have to do a google search to see the list of arson, stabbings, car crimes etc. But then ive read some reviews online saying that Heritage Gardens specifically is a really nice place to live? Anyone have any hands on experience of Upper Coomera? Really want to settle now, im not the biggest fan of moving house every few weeks, especially with the pets! Speaking of which, they have settled in great now Ceddy - Aria (our lab) has put weight and condition back on and is loving our trips to the beach and the dog parks! She is completely bemused by surf boards and terrified of the local wildlife, especially as the birds around here have taken to dive bombing her lol. It has taken until now for her to get back to near normal, so a couple of weeks - pretty good really. She's ok left on her own again now which is a relief and she hasn't been to the toilet in the house again since. She barks a little more than usual but think she is just getting used to all the new sounds and smells. Our pussycat, Chase, settled pretty much immediately. Used the litter tray from day one, eating and drinking normally, and enjoying having a bed to curl up on again. Happy campers all round!

Thanks Shirleyt - whereabouts have you settled?

...well, ive been here 2 weeks now but wanted to wait until our pets arrived so I could share as much experience as possible! So, after a VERY long wait I finally arrived on the Gold Coast on September 8th! We are on 457 visas following my partner being offered a job over here last July and the company sponsoring us. He has been here since the end of February this year while I stayed in the UK to sell up. We got our visa's waaaay back in October of last year and a lot has happened in between - there were more than a few times we thought it was game over. First, after putting our house on the market in early November we had the worst winter ever and in addition to some serious leaks in the house, not a single person came to view until March! My mum got seriously ill over Christmas with pneumonia and just as she was starting to recover, my OH's dad got it too. We thought he would get over it as my mum had, but he wasn't so lucky and unfortunately passed away 2 days before my OH was due to fly out here in February. At that point we really had to take stock of what we were planning to do - after a lot of soul searching and positive support from our family we decided we would still go ahead. The OH rebooked his flight for later on in the month and we carried on as planned. Finally in June, we sold the house. Unfortunately the buyers employed the worlds most pedantic solicitor who had no empathy whatsoever to my situation and we didn't even exchange until the day before I was due to leave! We completed on the sale last Friday so that's that chapter of our lives officially closed and we are free to enjoy the start of the next chapter! I flew out with Singapore air - 23 hours travel time total with just over a 2 hour stop at Singapore. Everyone is different but I found the flight ok - managed to sleep pretty much the entire first leg so arrived in Brisbane refreshed and with my body clock pretty much reset. Ive not had any jet lag (lucky me!) and fell straight back into my usual routine of up at 5:30am and bed before 10pm, which suits the lifestyle here pretty well. My OH found us a rental in the insanely beautiful Springbrook National Park. 3 beds, 3 baths with just under an acre of land unfurnished for $450/wk. More than a few teething problems - first off the place clearly hadn't been cleaned despite this being a requirement for tenants on exit. The carpets are stained to the point where no amount of cleaning will save them. There was a gas cooker provided for us which leaks and we are still waiting for a replacement to arrive 2 weeks later and ive had to resentfully resort to microwave cooking. We were told there were heaters provided - there were none and it gets bloody cold up here in the mountains at night! Finally, after 2 weeks of being bitten to death by what I assumed were midges or mozzies, whilst sitting in the lounge last Thursday morning a flea decided to hop up on to my leg!! This was 2 days before our animals were due to arrive (who ironically had been meticulously kept free of every insect and parasite under the sun for the past year just to comply with ozzie quarantine rules!). This was the last straw for me and I played holy hell with the estate agent. Pest control came out the following morning, we have a gas heater and we have been promised a new electric cooker this week. You have to be really firm with the agents out here - know what your rights are and don't let them push you around or they will walk all over you. Other than that, it is a nice house - really big, the garden is great for the dog, gorgeous views....but once our 6 month lease is up I don't think we will be staying. We were struggling to secure a rental so literally just had to get what we could in the end. It is a good 20min from civilisation (there is only a very small convenience store here and a couple of tourist focused restaurants), we cant walk the dog anywhere locally as its illegal to do so (as its a national park), the farmer next door sets poison baits for the wild dogs regularly, which worries me if the cat or dog managed to get out one day, and because its so remote the chances of making friends are pretty limited. Oh, and ive had 2 huntsmen in the house and saw an eastern brown snake on the drive home the other day!! We had a $10k relocation fund from my partners employer which we kept for our flights and then to furnish the house. We got our furniture from SuperAmart, electricals from JB Hifi and homewares from KMart and Target and managed to get enough for the 2 of us within budget (we managed to get discounts everywhere as we were spending big bucks so its definitely worth asking) - we just bought enough for the 1 bedroom and no dining furniture. Cant see us having visitors for a while so pointless spending money on rooms which are going to be unused in the short term. We do the grocery shop at Coles and I can get to within £50 of what my shop used to be at Tesco but that's only by buying own brand stuff which I never used to do back in the UK - theres no question its a lot more expensive out here. I have seen signs for a few markets nearby though on a Sunday so will try them out over the next couple of weeks as im sure meat, fruit and veg etc will be cheaper. You cant buy booze at the supermarket in QLD so you have to go to the off licence which they call a bottle shop. I think ill be going tee total here or im risking bankruptcy! Everything I normally drink is anything up to double the price. So special occasions and treats only! Weve been to a couple of restaurants, some expensive, some reasonable, all pretty good, so if you take a proper look around you can find a decent place to eat out for not too much money. Its fairly obvious that the further away you stay from the tourist hotspots, the cheaper things get. Loving the lifestyle out here. Not been overally lucky with the weather and have had a fair bit of rain since ive been here but ive been for plenty of walks (I can recommend doing the twin falls circuit up here - pretty spectacular), paddle boarding, bought some fishing kayaks and took them out on hinze dam for the first time yesterday afternoon - its everything I wanted and more. Everyone is really friendly and helpful too which is refreshing. So far ive applied for 40+ jobs. Ive heard nothing. One asked for more info but ive heard nothing since, one rejected me within about 4 seconds of my application. I did get offered some casual work as a bikini waitress which was pretty good money but don't think the OH will be too supportive of that one lol. Now...to my pets! I have an 18 month old chocolate Labrador and an 8 year old moggy. I used Golden Arrow Shippers and I cannot sing their praises enough. Not only were they one of the cheapest but they kept me informed every step of the way and no question was too ridiculous for them. They gave me step by step instructions of what needed to be done and when and even my vet commented on how easy they made the process for everyone involved. Taking into account the initial expense over a year ago for the rabies vacs and blood tests, pet passports, then subsequent shipping costs, vet bills for insecticide treatments etc etc it cost in total just under £7k. The nearest quarantine facility for us was Eastern Creek in Sydney, so I then had to organise domestic transport to get them from there to here. I used Pet Carriers. I wasn't overly impressed with their customer service but they were the cheapest and my babies arrived safe and sound at the end of it all which is the main thing. Ideally we would have got a door to door service but as it was a Saturday, there was a massive surcharge for this which took the price to over $1200, so we decided to pick them up from the airport ourselves. The cost for the domestic shipping was just over $400. We collected them from the toll air express building which is separate to the main airport and pretty easy to find. They were out within 30min of the flight landing. Now, not to scare anyone but I want to be completely honest about my experience and everyones experience will be different but I have to say that when I saw the state of my dog I broke down. She had lost A LOT of weight and condition, she was moulting like crazy, covered in dandruff, dull coat and could barely manage a half assed tail wag - not the over excited jumping around like a banshee greeting we were both expecting. I can only assume this was a mix of travel stress, poor quality food and no human interaction in quarantine. My cat, on the other hand seemed to have come through it all unscathed. In case anyone was wondering, as I did, you can either keep their travel crates or the guys there will dispose of them for you. We kept the cats crate but would never have fitted the dogs in the car. We got them home and have given them non stop love and attention for the past 2 days. Ive been feeding them good quality beef and kangaroo steak in addition to their regular diets and can see their condition improving already which is a relief. They are both more or less settled in already. My only concern is that my once bomb proof confident dog now suffers from some pretty serious separation anxiety to the point where if both of us so much as leave the room she's yelping, which is going to cause a serious issue when I start work and she has to be left alone. Hopefully some back to basics training over the next few weeks will improve matters. Sorry if ive rambled!! Ive really valued the advice and support ive had on here over the past year and just wanted to give back :wink: If anyone out there is about to embark on their journey, im happy to help in any way I can - feel free to drop me a message. Its early days yet but im so glad we stuck it out and can see us being really happy out here, its pretty awesome :cool:

With the revised quarantine rules, dog walking is no longer permitted unfortunately

Im heading to the GC in Sept too! OH has been living/working out there since Feb and coming back to check on me once in a while - took him back to Heathrow last night and hes hopefully going to be securing a rental for us this week as has been put up by his company in a serviced apartment in Surfers til now (poor guy!). Word of caution - allow yourself a good day just to fill in the applications, they take hours! We've been checking out crime maps when looking at rentals - http://www.police.qld.gov.au/forms/crimestatsdesktop.asp Hard to know how good an area is without actually being there but based on our internet research, Upper Coomera, parts of Helensvale and Pimpama (on paper) don't appear too great. But as I say that's just internet research and can never compare to speaking to people that actually live there. Be good to meet up one day for a coffee - nice to know there'll be a few people in the same boat as me :smile:

I looked at this as im due to fly out to Oz 1st week of September and my UK car insurance was due for renewal 2nd week of August and didn't want to renew for the sake of a few weeks. The temp car insurance prices are extortionate - you are better off buying a regular policy and then cancelling - the cancellation charges are only £50 and you get refunded on the remainder of your policy (or if you take out a monthly policy you just pay for the month plus the charge). Works out a lot cheaper!

Hi - ive just started the process myself and im using Golden Arrow Shippers. Im taking a dog and 2 cats with me to the Gold Coast but initially asked for them to quote them separately. For the dog alone (fully grown choc lab) it was £2492. Then you need to factor in vet visits for rabies vaccinations and blood testing, and a couple of weeks before insecticide treatments and further blood testing. Quarantine is $149/night and they need to do 10 days (there are also other costs associated) - that's assuming they don't, god forbid, fall ill whilst in there. Then if you aren't picking your pets up from quarantine then you need to budget for domestic shipping too. Ive had a couple of quotes for my 3 and the cheapest was $600 (To get them from Eastern Creek to Gold Coast). Not cheap by any stretch of the imagination! Hope that helps x

Hi Elven! Know how you feel. We had our visa's granted waaaay back in October 2013 after a pretty quick processing time and put the house straight on the market. My partner has been working on the Gold Coast since February and ive been stuck here alone wondering if it was really ever going to happen and not thinking about it a great deal to avoid disappointment. I finally accepted an offer on our house a couple of weeks ago, survey has been done, mortgage accepted and all going well we should have an exchange date next week. Im aiming for mid August to fly out and its all started to become seriously real - mum has been talking about farewell parties, ive been sorting through my life and putting it into keep, sell and bin categories, trying to time everything that needs to be done with military precision, looking at rentals for my OH to go and check out, budgeting for pet shipping, new car, rego, phone, pet stuff, insurances etc etc and im starting to get pretty terrified. Its amazing how much you can hate a country and everything it stands for until you are faced with leaving and suddenly, you see it in a different light. As bad as this country is, where I am in the Forest of Dean really is beautiful. Its quiet, serene, you can walk through the forest for hours and not see a single soul. I have a beautiful house, a nice car, great job, fantastic and very close family, good friends and though I am far from rich I want for nothing. When we move it will be like starting again from the bottom rung of the ladder and its a very sobering thought. But not many people get the opportunity to start fresh, do something different with their lives and move to the other side of the world. Exciting times ahead - wish you the best of luck with it all :wink:

Lets hope mine cope as well as that then - its worse than having kids!

I think London's figures are skewing the national average, speaking from experience. Has taken us 8 months and a £15k price drop to finally sell our 2 bed detached with 1/2 acre in the Forest of Dean - certainly wouldn't say there was a housing bubble fit for bursting here. Nothing is moving. Very regional.

How did they cope with the flight/quarantine? Did they settle in quite quickly once you got them there?

Mine seemed pretty up to date - had my quote beginning of last week and it had the new quarantine pricing in there etc. Don't recall if I saw the paper lined part over the vetbed but need to clarify a few things with them over the phone anyway before I put my deposit down.

Im at the stage now where I need to be booking flights for myself and my pets next week. Which would be fine, except I got to the stage where I wasn't really planning on having to bring my cats. After a ton of research and reading up on the Gold Coast council rules about cats, I figured it wouldn't be fair to put them through the stress of the whole shipping and quarantine process to then be cooped up indoors for the rest of their lives when for 8 years, they have been outdoor cats. In fact, one of them only comes in at 2am for something to eat and is back out before I get up as he isn't really a people person! The other worry is that the same cat was feral when the rescue centre we had him from took him in - he goes stiff as a board with fear just during a trip to the vets, never mind on a trip to Australia. I have tried for weeks to rehome them with family, friends and like minded people but unless you are getting rid of kittens no one wants to know. So I guess im just looking for some reassurance from people who have brought their pets out that a) a nervous cat will survive the process and b) they will both adjust to being inside. Also a bit of a worry trying to organise a rental that will take 2 cats and a young Labrador!

Thank you all so much for putting my mind at rest! Been more worried about the animals than the move itself - ridiculous really! :smile:

Id love to be able to do it myself but there is so much paperwork involved along with various vaccinations, blood test etc etc - im an organised person but the stress of emigrating is enough in itself without worrying that a form has been filled in wrong or ive missed something out. More than happy to pay a few thousand not to worry that my babies will get turned away at the airport! x

For the money ill save its a no brainer then really - thanks guys you've put my mind at rest

Hi all, Going to be booking my little monsters out to Oz in the next couple of weeks and was wondering if anyone had any experience of Golden Arrow Pet Shippers? Based on how comprehensive a service the shippers offer (I don't want to be left to my own devices with anything!) I have narrowed it down to Pet Air and Golden Arrow. On face value they seem to offer a comparable service but Golden Arrow are CONSIDERABLY cheaper so im wondering if im missing something somewhere? Thanks, Emma

My choccie lab gets taste of the wild pacific stream http://staging.tasteofthewildpetfood.com/mobile/product-single.php/dogs/dry_food/pacific_stream_canine_formula/ its good stuff - natural ingredients, grain free - not like the crap vets try and fob you off with coz they're working on commission! It's not cheap but you don't need to feed as much as there are no nasty fillers in it. She has less wind (always a good thing!), lovely shiny coat and good muscle tone and is happy and healthy. She seems a lot more levelled out on it too with less nutty fits! Aside from that she gets the odd piece of banana, apple, carrot etc and has a dentastik a day for her teeth.

It is, thank you! Just trying to decide whether or not to take a drive down to Sydney to get them ourselves or ship them up - guessing with the dog as well would probably be around the £600-800 mark, which isn't as bad as I thought. Who was that quote with?

We are hoping to move to the Gold Coast late August early September depending on how long the sale of our house takes to go through - maybe ill see you there :smile:

Hi all, Im trying to put together a budget for shipping my choccie lab and 2 cats from the UK to Gold Coast. Ive got the costs for UK to Sydney and the criminally extortionate quarantine but cant find any recent info on costs to transport them from Sydney up to GC? Thanks, Emma

Just did a little more research and it says it can be transferred provided certain criteria is met. Guess he will have to check on the company status. If the company has sponsored previously will they have to go through the checks again or will they still be able to sponsor? Thanks EMJ

Thats good news any research I did said they had to re apply for the 457. this would make it easier would they still need to meet all requirements? I am sure they will as have sponsored lots of people in the past. They are currently going through the process with someone from Fiji so not sure if that makes a difference, Would it be the same requirements? Thanks again EMJ

They are checking into this next week I believe. Thanks for the reply.

Hi All, Was hoping to get some advice for a friend off here.. My friend moved over from the UK on a 457 Visa. The company he works for started up a new part of the business which he works in. They had a key person leave and are starting to get cold feet but want to do the right thing by my friend. He has an option to work for another company but there are some questions 1) This company has not sponsored in several years would they still be eligible or would they have to go through everything again? 2) I am sure they have stopped transferring Visas so a new one would have to be applied for right? how long would this take since he in in the country already on a 457 Visa? If anyone else has been through something similar and could post about it, it would be extremely helpful. The way he see's it at the moment is A) he continues to work for Company A and hopes it can work out although they have no contacts in the area he works in since this key person left. B) he tries to get another job with the other company who will potentially pay more and have a more established business. C) he goes back to the UK which he is not really ready for at the moment. Thanks EMJ