sijax

Thanks Freckleface - helpful to have your local view. I'm hearing a lot about how pleasant Thirroul and Austinmer are, and reading a lot on this site about the Gong being rather run down (or is that all out of date now?). I'm trying to get a sense for Bulli High School - must have the worst website of them all, but that may be misleading!...

Thanks Bob, that's reassuring! We'll be in touch... (PS: you clearly mean 180 days, not 1980!)

A 457 visa submission does require a certificate of medical insurance simply to cover the initial journey and period from landing to Medicare enrollment. (NOTE: The advice of the agency supporting us is that you might get a cranky visa officer who actually wants to see cover starting from the date of visa application, since as soon as they issue it you could use it, even if not planning to travel for months yet.) So, finding brief cover for just this period is our challenge. Maybe the only way to solve this is to take out proper healthcare cover to cover a much longer period of living in Oz, but we were hoping to avoid that.

That's occurred to us, thanks, but that's a gamble, right? Should the worst case happen and we have an accident after clearing immigration but before we can register with Medicare, a UK travel insurance company would refuse to take the claim, not being a UK resident any longer...

Hi - in order to submit a 457 visa application we have been told that we need to show a certificate of health insurance simply to cover the period of the journey, until we can enroll on Medicare on arrival (from our advice, this is as simple as walking into a Medicate office and showing your passport). Travel insurance companies won't cover us, even though this is a simple, low risk, time-limited period because we will no longer have a UK address, and they need that should there be a claim. So who have folks been using to get this kind of cover? thanks!

Hi there We've just seen this: http://www.daff.gov.au/biosecurity/cat-dogs/step-by-step-guides/category-3-step-by-step-guide-for-dogs Hoping to move to Australia later this year bringing my pet dog. However i note that on the above step by step guide there is the following statement: "Dogs must have a current rabies vaccination record at the time of export that shows that an inactivated vaccine was given when the dog was at least 90 days of age." As rabies vaccines are not routine in the UK, my dog has never been vaccinated for this. Does this prevent her from coming with me even if I have her vaccinated, blood tested, chipped etc. from now? thnx!

Hi all, We're planning a potential move from the UK into the area, and have two girls of 12 and 16. We're interested in high schools we could get to from Thirroul. I'm seeing Keira, Bulli and Corrimal High Schools showing up local to Thirroul, and then there's the Performing Arts High School in Wollongong, which might appeal to our dancers. One of the things we're interested in is whether schools are using innovative new ways to teach, eg through project-based learning, use of technology, etc. What's the vibe out there? Thanks! Simon & Jackie