M1cha3la

We will make it happen :yes: thats a good choice, can we get a chocolate fountain too? We may be able to negotiate a better price on two fountains :laugh:

Well now I'm listening :laugh:

Congrats on the grant :jiggy:

Can you take it as hand luggage? When I flew mine to Mexico for the wedding I got a cute box the size of a hand luggage case that it folded up into. The dress fit really well and I had a big dress lol. I'll try find the link for it. edit, here is the link http://www.lifememoriesbox.co.uk/travel-wedding-dress-boxes-8-c.asp.

Well done Jac, that's great news. One step closer :jiggy:

Typical of me to go the wrong way :laugh: they had quite a few diggers down to the right, it looked like they are in the process of doing it up so we just went left. Never mind, we will definitely go back for a visit and another look round some point in the future. The farmer markets sound amazing, love things like that.

I do think and have said I am sure Adelaide has much more to offer. It was a shame as we really really wanted to love Adelaide, my DH prior to going was convinced Adelaide would suit us better. His company have an office there so if he could get a transfer it would of been where we ended up. But we just didn't get a vibe from the place as somewhere we would want to live. We would definitely go back for a visit though and have a better look around. In Glenelg we started in the square where you get off the tram, then when facing the pier we turned left and walked and walked (about 2.5km according to the path markers) and it was nothing but houses. Beautiful houses but just houses nonetheless so we gave up and headed back to the square and had a boozy lunch. Must of missed the yachts and that area which is a shame. We had a good walk around the city and through the main shopping area and had a lovely meal in the area where all the bars/restaurants are, the name alludes me. We also did a wine tour in the Baraossa valley which was pretty. That started off badly though as we got hounded by a homeless guy (or at least we thought he was homeless) while we were waiting at the bus station to be picked up by our tour guide. We did Victor Harbor and the island. Had hoped to catch a glimpse of the whales but the guy who runs the museum said they seem to of moved on earlier this year as they are normally around until October, which was a shame. We also did Waterfall Gully and Mt Lofty, but it was raining and we got soaked on the way up. Never helps things lol. I bet the view is gorgeous on a clear day, I was gutted after all that climbing. We will try it in summer next time lol. All in all we just feel like Perth suits us better. There is nothing wrong with Adelaide and my post was never meant to put it down, it's just down to personal preference and what we experienced there.

We have just flown with Emirates from Birmigham via Dubai and it cost just under £2000 return. I could of got it slightly cheaper but I was happy to pay for the convenience of a local airport and the flight times. I booked through STA, but only because my work colleagues daughter works for them and she needed the commission. I would normally book direct. To add, that price also included our internal flight from Perth to Adelaide with Quantas. So I was pretty happy with the price, though if I had booked it in January when we first looked it was only £1400, instead of waiting until May. I was kicking myself.

Good luck for your interview xx

Well I am not saying it influenced our decision, but, I couldn't bare the thought of not being near you @MovingtoTasmania :hug: So now we are coming to Perth how do you feel about a house share? :cute: We could be one big happy family :wub: Xx

Thanks :wubclub: Not all of Birmingham is that expensive lol, I think the Weatherspoons ect are cheaper. We like the wine bars though and it's usually £7 - £8 for 1 glass of wine or cocktail. Which is why prices in Perth were not a total shock to us. Its like anywhere I guess it can be made as cheap or expensive as you like. All that been said we usually drink at home anyway and only go out to B'ham once a month :laugh:

Yea, we went completely against the grain of what a reccie is meant to be really. We rented an apartment to do the shopping and day to day stuff too and that was a good call. We figured work is work and no matter where you are you still have to do the washing up and put the bins out ect, so we thought we would look at what the cities have to offer us outside of the day to day grudge, because that time is important to us too. As we don't have children yet suburbs based on schools don't matter too much yet. We both drive so can travel to shops and amenities ect. But mainly because we are not moving yet and a lot can change in a year with a place, i.e we fall in love with a suburb/area now that in a year has gone up in price and is out of our reach ect. We are planning on renting for a while when we get there so that's when we will buckle down and do the serious stuff. Its only the two of us though, we may of taken a different approach if we had kids. Good luck with your move :wubclub:

Thanks both :wubclub:

A few snaps from Adelaide

A few snaps from Perth

Thanks :wubclub: It was a crazy crazy week in Perth but we loved every minute of it. If we go down our local village pub a couple of drinks usually only cost around £8 too. We go into Birmingham every month though (not all bars in Birmingham cost that much, depends where you go lol), so the prices do not shock us much. I can totally see how people would find it expensive though. I feel like I have given Adelaide a bit of a hard time really, which is a shame as I am sure it has much more to offer than we found. It has a lot a history to it which you can see in the buildings and surrounds (I will pop some of the pictures up once my laptop wakes up lol). It just felt a bit too much like England to me. The weather didn't help :laugh: And as we like new and modern, Perth just suits us better. We are aiming to move within 12 months, we are just saving and saving and deciding how much is enough, which is the how long is a piece of string question. :laugh: When are you next heading over there? xx

Hey everyone, So we are back in the UK after our reccie (but not really a reccie) trip. We got back Sunday afternoon and I have been fighting a chest infection ever since, so bare with me I am drugged up to the eyeballs, hopefully my post is coherent :twitcy: As I am sure most of you will know, we did a week in Perth and a week in Adelaide. We flew with Emirates via Dubai, who were ok. Our internal flight was with Quantas who are absolutely brilliant. Perth; We arrived on at 1am on the Saturday morning. We got straight through immigration with no problems grabbed our bags and dived in a taxi in less than 20 mins (I appreciate the airport is quiet at that time of night lol). The taxi only cost $35 dollars which was a pleasant surprise as I had read to allow about $60. Due to the ridiculous time we landed, we booked in a hotel on Adelaide Terrace conveniently next to the car hire place. The rest of the week stayed in Victoria Park in an apartment which had amazing views of the city. As I have mentioned in previous posts this was not a full reccie as we just wanted to get general feelings for the place (work is work where ever you are) so we mainly did recreational things and we managed to cram a load in, yet I feel we have barely scratched the surface. There was so much more we had hoped to do and I had even hoped to catch up with a POM member to say hi, but we simply ran out of time. We visited: Perth City, Kings Park, City Beach, Burns Beach, Sorrento and Hilarys Boat Harbor, Yanchep, Caversham Wildlife Park, Claisebrook, Fremantle, Coogee Beach, Rockingham, Swan Valley (on a wine tour), Lesmurdie Falls, Mundaring Weir. I could talk and talk about how each place was amazing and what we loved about it, but to keep the post a reasonable length I will just summarise what we liked about Perth overall: We loved how there are little parks everywhere you go with picnic areas and BBQ's. The public transport when we used it was spotless and reliable. The city its self was spotless and had a great vibe to it. We loved how clean and modern it was. I love how it’s a city, but it’s not crowded or over bearing. We loved how with a 30 minute drive you could be somewhere like Lesmurdie Falls and have a complete different feel. Prices, I was genuinely surprised at the prices. I had worked myself up quite a bit prior to going about prices after reading on line about how expensive Perth is, but we did not find it to be expensive. Now don't get me wrong, it’s by no means cheap but I guess it’s just what you are used to. We found ourselves in a strange position as we wanted to try to look at prices in $'s as if we were living and spending $'s, but we inevitably ended up comparing back to £'s. As we were only on holiday I guess it’s no biggie this time, so some of the comparisons we found where; the cost for 2 drinks (glass of wine and a pint) was $19-$23. We pay about £15 a round in Birmingham where we drink. A meal out generally cost us $60. We pay that in £'s in the UK. We popped in a few furniture/electrical stores and nothing screamed overly expensive and the food shop we did for the week/supermarket prices did not scare us either. Cars seem dirt cheap. Houses are expensive, but that's the same in any city. We have been looking online at properties further out, which are more reasonably priced. Adelaide; We stayed in a great spot in Henley Beach with amazing views over the beach (we even got dolphins one evening!). However we arrived on the Sunday afternoon and it was just crazy busy. There also seemed to be a lot of boy racers around. It was lovely and sunny that afternoon, but the rest of the week was overcast and quite chilly (we had to buy coats). We had only hired a car for the last 3 days in Adelaide so we relied on public transport the first 3. The buses were reliable, but old and run down. The city just felt a bit old and tired to us, though there are some beautiful old buildings dotted round. We wandered around the botanical park, which was stunning but it has a very English feel to it. My DH fell in love with the big central market and we lost a whole morning in there while he longingly stared at all the items we could not buy, it’s the one thing he felt Perth was missing (or we didn’t find). We hopped on the Tram down to Glenelg and had a lovely afternoon there. It was probably our favorite spot in Adelaide. Once we had a car we drove down to Victor Harbor and up to Mount Lofty both of which are very pretty, the views where somewhat scuppered though as it was very misty/cloudy. Still beautiful places though. I felt like we struggled for things to do really in Adelaide and apart from the previously mentioned and a wine tour, there is nothing else of note that we did. I am sure/hope there is a ton of things to do in Adelaide and we just didn’t find them. We had specifically booked a late flight home on the Sunday to give the maximum amount of time to explore yet we could have happily gone earlier. Though while killing time we stumbled across a huge Westfield Shopping centre in Marion which was fab and had some brilliant stores. Prices in Adelaide where definitely cheaper in some areas, 2 drinks usually cost around $13. But meals came in at $60 again. Taxi from the airport cost $28 (I felt was expensive given how close it is to Henley Beach). Food shopping, we didn't notice a difference and there was only $10 difference in the overall bill. Ultimately, 1 week in each city was never going to be enough to get a full view and I am sure both have so much more to offer. But overall, Perth came out on top for us and for now is where we are planning on heading. So for now for us it’s time to knuckle down, save that last chunk of money and get over there. I must also admit there is a downside to doing a reccie, or there has been for me at least. I honestly didn’t want to come back to the UK. I could have happily just carried on there in Oz. Started job hunting a cracked on. Since we have got back (albeit that its less than a week), I feel like life is on hold until we get there and this next year of saving is just a waste of time/our lives. It’s not a healthy head space to be in and I am putting it down as a combination of jetlag and being ill. My DH had pre-empted that I would feel like this (something to do with me being impatient....) I am allowing myself this week to mope around but then will need a slap .:wub: Ok wow, this turned into a long post. I will stop waffling and post some pics (ps @Dom Churchill, sorry sweet I was not ignoring you when you asked what did we learn, I knew it would be a book so waited for this post. Hope you are ok :hug: )

We are taking everything. We have found it far cheaper pricing up shipping, compared to replacing everything we own to the same standard. Once we got to big furniture/container level we figured just ship everything, we can always throw it out the other end if we don't need it. Re-buying the silly nic nak stuff that you just don't think about but built up over the years can prove expensive in one hit.

Eeeek how exciting :jiggy: Keep us updated :wubclub:

Noo, no miss-understanding as Pumpkin said its a minefield of a subject and one I normally keep my nose out of.. Rachel's situation must of been the stuff of nightmares and I can not imagine what she went through. Not knocking her in the slightest, which is why I would remove my posts incase it came across that way. :hug:

As with anything in life, we can only try it out. My post was not aimed at Rachel's situation, I did not think the thread was about Rachel, I thought she had her own thread surrounding her specific situation. So apologies I will remove my posts as it was not aimed at her and in her case I believe she has done the best she can and what any of us would do without doubt.

Extremely heartbreaking, and a good example of where the system sucks/does not work. But to me in that situation why should the dependent partner/parent have more right to keep/take the children than the visa holder? As I said I have not read the entire thread and am not commenting at anyone or any case in particular. Its never easy when a relationship breaks down and I imagine it becomes even harder when you are abroad. But even so my somewhat naive view is that a decision made together to live abroad (if children are involved) should be seen out in full even if you are not together.

I have not read the entire thread, but from what I have read on here and other places, I do feel for the partner (mother or farther) who wants to stay in the foreign country. Before I get flamed, I guess I see it as the fact that it is usually a mutual agreement to move abroad and start a new life. That is a decision that requires commitment and is not to be taken lightly. So should the family unit break down, why does it then become ok for one of said unit to run back home and take the children with them? You make the decision as a family to move abroad, if you split up you should still do what is best for the family, even if that means living in a country you don't want to be in, for worst case 18 years.. To me it almost seems as if its a conditional relationship, i.e. I will only keep the kids in said country if we are together.. Maybe its because I don't have kids, or have not been in the situation myself, but I do not see why it is ok for someone to revoke on a decision that affects more than just them (i.e. move abroad) and think its ok... Of course that said, I hope it works out for the best for anyone in that situation. Until you are in it I guess you can not fully understand it.

Eeeek we could have a xmas one:jiggy: .. I must admit the Midlands works better for us, but it was not location that has stopped us. Its just gone crazy this last few weeks for us, 2 last minute wedding invitations, a degree ceremony and I am having to do all of the house decorating as DH is still struggling with his back from the accident so its taking longer/eating up more weekends than I hoped before we can go to market. So sorry John :hug: Will 100% clear the diary for the next one.

Crikey, not good at all hun, bless ya. Glad you are starting to feel better, but take it easy. It can take a while to get over things like that so make sure you look after yourself. And yes go to the doctors sooner next time :wub: