Becsidaisy

Moving to Cairns in 9 weeks! Any tips from anyone local! Moving with my husband, son (2 and a half) and daughter (3 months).

So I'm a massive numpty. We made the decision to move to Cairns last August after a year of deliberation to be closer to my husband's family. During our research into emigrating I found this thread but didn't notice that 1) it was from 2009 and 2) there were over 1000 pages! So took the '3-4 months' from the front page as our expected processing time. My goodness the shock at the 10-14 months! We also didn't realise the price hike for 2015 :-s Thinking we had loads of time to get to Cairns for my husband to start work in October we took our time with the application. Having renewed Nick's passport and received our son's citizenship by decent certificate we aimed to get my application in by the end of January. Then we got the horrible news at the start of Jan that my beloved father-in-law had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and it extremely unlike to live out the year (or even to Easter in the worse case!). Nothing like news like that to focus the brain on visa forms! So my application went in on Jan 21st and the money was taken on Jan 30th and now I'm taring my hair out at hearing nothing more! Everyone who got their application in by Dec 31st seems to have heard from their CO but we've heard nothing. We've requested exspediation on compassionate grounds complete with medical reports detailing Dad's condition but have no idea if that's enough (the website only seems to say what won't be considered for exspediation. Incidentally, the London website is so unhelpful! I used the FAQs on the Berlin one while doing the form, so many more, clearer details given). I'm getting so stressed though and feel like such an idiot (though my six month bump and the pregnancy hormones don't help with that!). I guess this whole thing is stressful anyway without the addition emotional strain I'm under. Anyway, just needed to spurge. I find that a lot of my friends are so sad about us leaving that they don't want to talk about it! Nice to talk to people in the same situation :-)

We are heading out to Cairns next week for three reasons, for the little one to meet his Aussie Grandparents, to go to my sister-in-law's wedding and to do our final reccie to decide whether we're going to aim for a move to Cairns Sept 2015. We've gone for a much longer journey time (42hours door to door) to save ourselves £1000 so looking for any advice as to traveling with and entertaining such a little one. He's a pretty chilled out boy normally so we're hoping we all arrive with our sanity intacted. Also any tips for helping him with jetlag would be appreciated.child

Paluma is worth a visit, just north of Townsville, beautiful rainforest with lots of waterfall. At the other end of the trip you find Mossman Gorge which is near Port Douglas, also stunning. The road inbetween is pretty dull though! My husband was at JCU in Townsville and his parents are near Port so he's driven it a lot.

Hey all, My husband and I have just made the decision, after six month deliberation, to move to Cairns . It's all pretty exciting. Our situation is that I'm a complete Pom but Nick, though born in Devon, emigrated to Cairns when his was 10. He moved back at 23 to marry me (very sweet, I know) and now, after seven years and a baby (Jeremy, 10 months, also very sweet), it's time to go back. Nick's a dual citizen so Jeremy can claim citizenship by decent. I just need a spousal visa which is pricey but seems straight forward. So the count down begins! Obviously lots of research needs doing and we're very aware that although Nick has lived in Cairns previously, he hasn't for 9 years now (he spent his last two years in Oz at the JCU Townville campus) and a lot can change in that time. We're in Cairns in August for my sister-in-law's wedding so will some reacquainting then. I do have a couple of burning questions though, any responses will be gratefully received. Firstly, how did you tell you friends and family you were moving? We're facing a mix of elation from those living in Oz and real sadness for those to be left behind. We haven't told any of them yet as we're going to see how we feel in August just to doubly make sure it's the right thing for us (we're sitting at 90% currently). We don't want to upset anyone/raise any hopes if it's not going to happen. Secondly, we've got about 18 months to sort through all our stuff and answer the big question, to ship or not to ship? What's the general consensus? We might buy some Aussie plugs while we're out there and have re-wiring party as a leaving thing (oh yes, we know how to have a good time). Lastly, but probably the most complex, house buying. Will we need to live in Australia for a bit first to build up a credit rating or can we just dive on in? Is there any possibility of buying before we arrive? We have my in-laws (one of which is a carpenter-builder) who can check out properties for us. Or is that just far too complicated to even consider? Great to be a part of this community! I've already picked up so many useful bits.