BeauVinyl

10 hours ago, Lavers said:

Do you not get Oshc subsidised?

Hi @Lavers we get a minimum amount of subsidence from OSHC but it's not that, it's the availability that's tricky. We hope that there'll be more spaces available after Xmas as at my kids primary both year 6 and 7 move up so that the schools around here fall into line with the rest of Australia and that the starting year for Secondary is now Year 7 and not year 7 being the last year in primary. This will help. How are you these days? 

11 hours ago, Drumbeat said:

We were staying in Hahndorf last weekend while visiting SA from Perth, it was much busier than I remembered.

We are thinking of relocating to Adelaide but the areas we like in the Hills are ridiculously expensive . Were you able to negotiate a reasonable rate for staying in the AirBnB for an extended stay?

@Drumbeat yes, we had a discount of over £800 as we had booked the AirBnB for 10 weeks but luckily the owner is really good and I've helped her organise having solar panels on the roof so she's been good with us leaving.

Hi @Pompey gt

Glad to hear you are out of quarantine and have a rental, congratulations on that as I know how hard it is to get one and glad to hear the boys are enjoying school. We picked up the keys to our rental property today and move in tomorrow. We've been lucky that the owner of the AirBnB has let us finish the contract here early as we still had 6 weeks left in the AirBnB but we had to get what we could round here as the rental is in an ideal spot for all of us. We are moving from Blackwood into Hawthorndene and are situated close to the Blackwood station so that my wife can get a 20 min train into the CBD for work. This will also help as my son is in Blackwood secondary in January and he and his friends will all get the train there (only one stop along the line). Not all has gone too smoothly though, what is crippling us is OSHC and that the after school is full 2-3 days of the week meaning only on of us can work at the moment. We hope this will change in January when years 6 and 7 move up to secondary and there will be spaces for my daughter. I'm hoping that I've found a way round this as I do have a job starting on the 11th October and hope that if we can get the kids after school sorted then I'll be able to bring in a second income and we'll be good up until the MASSIVE Christmas holidays (7 weeks, I think) then we'll have to 'wing it' through those.

Last week my wife and I drove up to the hills and loved it up there, went up Mt. Lofty and walked the botanic gardens, but where we really loved was Hahndorf, it's lovely street and great shops, expensive as it's a tourist place but really nice. I also think we liked it because we do miss a bot of Europe here ad Hahndorf gave us that so if you are near there then good on you because it's a lovely region of Adelaide.

Glad to hear all's well as well, keep us updated.

Beau

2 minutes ago, Paul1Perth said:

I've not met anyone from these forums. Chatting to someone online isn't meeting to me, I'm still old school.

You find a lot of people join forums to have a moan too. The ones who like it don't bother a lot of the time.

yeah, true about meeting up with people. Thanks.

8 minutes ago, rammygirl said:

The Hills are a great place.  Do however check bushfire ratings where you are considering as it can vary street to street and affects insurance as well as safety. With summer on the way you should make a bushfire plan, there is plenty of info on the web and sometimes local meetings. As new residents to the hills you need to be aware.

I am in Hahndorf township in a medium bushfire zone, we keep an eye on alerts and have a go bag packed with important documents and essentials just in case we have to evacuate. Last season some of our neighbours with children moved to a hotel in the city for a couple of nights when a big fire got close.

Having said all that I am watching a koala this morning in the big gum at the front of our house.

Thanks for this @rammygirl, we are aware of the insurance and the bush fire protocol around here. Regarding your Koala, I'm watching a Cookaborough chirping/screaming at a cat. Beautiful.

12 minutes ago, Pompey gt said:

Morning BeauVinyl and everyone 

 

Hopefully your move into Air b n b accommodation has gone smoothly .

 

Having read you posts your experience has almost been a mirror image of ours!
 

After much stress and worry we finally arrived in Adelaide on 24 August and we are currently half way through our medi hotel stay .

 

Our biggest stresses living up to the move were the flights and also the PCR tests. We were actually due to arrive in Adelaide in December 2020 but China Airlines cancelled our flights ( and are not currently flying to Oz). As soon as these flights were cancelled we then booked direct with Singapore Airlines for August 2021 and to be fair SA have been pretty good with us . When the flight cap reduction was announced in July we feared the worst on our flights being cancelled but as we got closer to our departure date we felt more confident ( even though I know some families are having their flights cancelled 2 weeks before departure date!).

 

As for the PCR tests these were super stressful.The day before departure we went up to London Heathrow to have rapid pcr tests . The results were supposed to take 3 hours  but ended up closer to 6 hours!  Whilst we were waiting for the results the reality dawned that we did not have a Plan B if any of us had a positive test result  after having sold our house and given up 2 good jobs ……….it was with immense relief and a few tears that we finally got our negative results.

 

The flights themselves were fine although we were glad we had done our research on all the forms that had needed to be completed before our departure ( Australian Travel Declaration etc )  6.5 hours transit at Singapore was not that much fun with 2 boys with very little usable facilities in the airport ……but a small sacrifice to get into Oz.

 

Arriving at Adelaide we had briefed the kids on all the staff being in hazmat clothing and loads of police …..and a police escort to the medi hotel ! But to be fair everyone we have experienced so far has been super friendly as part of the process.

 

7 days through  the medi hotel process and it has been OK so far . Whilst there are no choices on the food it has generally been fine and the hotel puts in some treats occasionally to lift the spirits.We have also got the boys playing indoor cricket!

 

Assuming our Covid tests remain negative then we are due to be in a couple of Air b n bs for the next 4 weeks . Looking at the rental market there is not a great choice at present but we are hoping that we will get lucky once we leave the medi hotel . Our boys ( aged 7 and 12 ) are due to start school in the Hills area and Stirling /Aldgate would be our preferred place to live but very little rental stock at present .

We feel blessed and very lucky to have arrived in Adelaide in the current pandemic with the flight caps and will try our hardest to make this a positive experience . We know no one in Adelaide but with 2 kids we are hoping to make the effort to integrate . Both our boys are into their sport ( any recommendations for junior soccer teams will be welcome!) and we will try to fathom out the rules for AFL …..

 We are not regular forum posters but we have found reassurance and comfort from other posts ! Indeed we are very happy to help others who are going through the same emigration process.

 

Take care all

 

 

Hi @Pompey gt and welcome to the Medicare hotel experience, which hotel are you in? We were in the Playford and it was great, the only issue was we ate far too much and I'm now on a crash diet  

You're travel experience sounds a lot like ours but thankfully you've done that now and can look forward to the future here. We have an AirBnB in Blackwood but are looking to get out of here in the next few weeks. Regarding the rental market, there isn't much about but we have found that the cheaper rents ($450 - $55 a week) go quickly the more expensive rents ($650 - $750) don't go at all, for example, we are looking at a decent rental today and if I'm honest we really want it as it'll be a great location for us all but it's a cheap one. 2-3 months ago I was told that there were 50-60 people looking at one premises but because the borders to Victoria and NSW are closed the rental market has fallen flat so we feel a little more confident we can rent. I've been in Aus for a little under 3 weeks and have seen 5-6 places for rent that we'd like. The most frustrating thing was when we were in the Medihotel we couldn't go and see the rental, so we were stuck. We were offered rentals but couldn't physically see them, it was SO frustrating. 

What are your plans once you are out, have you jobs etc.... My wife is a nurse and will commence employment on the 20th September, having an income is a BIG boost for rentals as all the landlords want is money and proof of it (income) once you have this you'll have a decent chance of getting something.

We've not been to Stirling / Aldgate but do plan to visit. We've been told Mount Barker is ace and Hahndorf is also a beautiful place to visit and live (friends relatives have just moved there, they love it). One thing we've noticed here is how close everything is and how easy it is to get places. We've decided to make Blackwood and Hawthorndene our 'patch' and want to spend as much time here making friends in the community so we are in the hills but the beach (Brighton), where my kids LOVE, is only 15 mins away in the car and that, to me, is bananas. NEVER would I be able to live 15 mins from a beach, in the hills in the UK. The lifestyle here is incredible and I've noticed that from being 4 days out of quarantine.

If you fancy meeting up when you are 'released' then let me know and I'll help you out with what we've found out anyway we can. We don't know anyone here but I've joined the Hawthorndene parents facebook page and told them all our situation and I've received a lot of welcoming feedback, I feel we'll 'make friends' at the primary school gate so look forward to that.

Any other questions then let me know and I'll try and answer them for you.

Regards,

Beau

 

Hi Curly, I hope all is well. I'm in Adelaide and would like to play 5-a-side, if there's a space then I'd be interested.

Beau

4 minutes ago, Captain Ron said:

We booked for 6th January with Quantas (as back up) , for 5 of us, £4600 - we chose the flexi option i think it is called where its fully refunded.  The other option was i think £1000 cheaper BUT any new changes thereafter were £75 per person plus £500/£600 to cancel so we just went with the more expensive option so if our November flight goes ahead we can be fully refunded with Quantas.  (They do give you the info on their website with the two different booking options)

Yes, you will be confirmed on your Singapore flight but you can check the actuals seats booked of ALL passengers, here is the link - https://www.expertflyer.com/

PS - we also registered with DFAT but also only for the 4th quarter so we had to make a call on the January flight before they all go!! 

Regarding our Singapore flights, we downloaded the Singapore Airlines app and signed into it. I checked the flight statue 6/7 times a day and found the app pretty good.

3 minutes ago, Captain Ron said:

We are booked with Singapore to MEL for 4th November and we also booked with Quantas for January flying into Perth just incase we cannot take the November flight.  You cannot book more than one flight with Singapore so we took the Qantas option because once it starts opening up towards the end of the year I think the next flight we would get is probably well after March/April next year!

Have you checked the seats on your flight for the 8th? We had a look and currently only 9 seats confirmed.. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing though, Lol!!

Hi @Captain Ron regarding Quantas, their CEO has come out today and put pressure on the government regarding national and international flights, saying that they are looking to run 75% of flights from the beginning of December as this was mentioned in the Aus parliament a few months ago before I got here so that's positive for everyone. 

@Craig Colas  @Ben P Regarding our flight, we had a small issue with the flight around 6 weeks before we left, Singapore Airways changed our Singapore to Adelaide flight meaning we couldn't make the connection from London. We flew with the Flight Center agency and they were fantastic so after 5 days of waiting we were moved a day forward which didn't mess us up much and then hoped the flight and our seats wouldn't move, and they didn't. I did speak to a family at Heathrow and they had said their flights had been cancelled 4 times but that was in May/June time, after then it was pretty secure. 

The news from over here is that people are incredibly upset about the flight situation and are putting pressure on the government and state premiers (SP) to lift the ban so the Govt. and SP's have said that when Australia are around 70 - 80% vaccinated they'll open up the country meaning flight caps and internal / external flight restrictions will ease / drop. Looking at that timeline, last night on South Australian news it was reported that this could be achieved November / December time so hopefully this should make flying into the country a little easier and I hope this gives you both some reassurance albeit minimal.

1 minute ago, Ben P said:

Congratulations @BeauVinyl bet your over the moon! I hear Singapore are the ones to go with! We are not with them unfortunately but I hope to arrive all the same! Thanks for the update @Jon the Hat

Good luck to you @Ben P. We are over the moon but still apprehensive, we leave quarantine where we have been fed, felt safe and been entertained to the outside world, the 'real' world and it's a bit scary. I'll keep updates coming in when I have things to say. All the best.

Just now, Jon the Hat said:

Yes!  Fingers crossed.

Everything crossed for you. On our flights (both of them) as there were only 30ish people on the flight and 95% of them were going on to Adelaide we were allowed to lie all over the seats which made it more bearable and I'm 6ft 5. Food was good but we took snacks for the kids (pringles, cheese biscuits) which was a godsend as on the first flight we had breakfast and main meal and this was the same for the second flight, exactly the same food, so a pringle and cracker interlude went down well with the kids.

16 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

Mine aren't until the 15th September.  

@Jon the Hat is it Singapore you are flying with?

21 minutes ago, Ben P said:

@BeauVinyl @Jon the Hat did you both make it onto your scheduled flights?

Hi Ben, yes, we got on our scheduled flights. They were quiet, as was the airport, but it went pretty smoothly.

4 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

Congratulations @BeauVinyl so glad you made it ok!  Sounds a little traumatic but I'm sure you will be fine.  My dad is also unwell just as we are about to leave (although he lives in France so i cannot see him) and it certainly adds to the stress.

Hi Jon, I do understand. It's been hard but have been in touch a lot with the parents and they have both have given their blessing for me to do what I am doing, which helps. 

As traumatic as it was once here it feels good. Quarantine have been a bit of a pain due to that 'groundhog day' feeling but we have two nights lift and then onto our AirBnB. 

What are your plan when you get out here?

Evening all, yes we made it. I'm sat in hotel quarantine in Adelaide. Any questions please ask.

6 hours ago, BeauVinyl said:

As a sign off I have just read that South Australia have now closed it borders to returning South Australian residents (basically me) and that an exemption now needs to be made to enter here. This news has shocked me as we, as a family, made it by 9 days. If we had had this news and we were still in the UK we would have knocked the ‘dream’ on the head and can only feel for people that this will affect. Not only do I feel incredibly lucky to be here with my family, but I also feel a great sense of guilt that we have made it and others probably cannot. I only hope that the Australian public heed this action by the Australian government and get vaccinated. The news from here is that once 70 – 80% of the adult population of Australia are vaccinated then things will go back to normal and in the time I’ve been here the percentage of vaccinated has risen from 19% to 29% and now a lot is being made of getting vaccinated.

Apologies to all but I believe the above to be incorrect, SA have closed their borders to Victoria, not to the world. In my haste I had read this incorrectly and do not want to worry people, my apologies.

Beau Vinyl

Good evening, good morning and good afternoon one and all,

I write to inform you all of my current situation as I said I would a month-or-so-ago, so here goes. To cut a long story short we are in……………………………..Adelaide, we actually made it and after hearing the news just now from the South Australian government it sounds like we made it by the skin of our teeth.

So, in the past 2 months I’ve sold my house which was more upsetting that my wife and I thought it would be. The thing that broke us was on the last day of owning the house, as it was empty and quiet the postman delivered 3 letters, one to us (final gas bill) and two addressed to the house address but to the new owners and that was what made us cry, like really cry. It was that knowledge that the house we had of 11 years, where my two children grew up in and spent Christmases and birthdays in the safety of those four walls had gone and we were homeless (we still are), it was a very sad day. We then moved in with my parents for 7 weeks which, at the start, was great. Mum and dad have a routine that elderly parents have and for us it was ok at first but got tricky the longer we were there but that is to be understood, they have bee on their own for 21 years so then having a family of four for 7 weeks would be disruptive, and I think it was, but we managed to cope.

The farewell to mum and dad was always going to be hard and it was, incredibly hard. The knowledge of us not seeing them again, ever was difficult and still is as my dad, the day before we left, was diagnosed with mild dementia, honestly I thought to myself what an incredibly selfish idea this was of me taking my family to Australia and them not seeing my parents again, and also if something did happen to dad or mum no one would be there to help, that’s the only time I’ve nearly quit the whole trip, that Tuesday evening of the 10^th of August will live with me forever. The taxi to Heathrow was a blur of tears and worry, the night at Heathrow was also fraught with anxiety, tension and sadness as I knew that once on that plane to Singapore that we it, there was no going back. It even got to the point when I almost hoped, in an strange way that we would get stopped at customs and told we couldn’t go as our visa was wrong, or the flight had been cancelled or Singapore Airlines had ceased business but we left Heathrow on a flight that had 25 people on a Airbus A380 (capacity of 471) and then onto Adelaide where the capacity reduce to 21 on another A380. TI’s an incredibly odd feeling to be on an almost empty flight but the spacing for us all to sleep on empty rows is something a 6ft 5 gentleman like me will never forget.

From Adelaide Airport we were all placed on a big bus and escorted by police to a CBD quarantine hotel from where I write to you all from presently. We are 10 days into a 14 days quarantine period and have not killed one another, which is a miracle. The hotel and staff here have been incredible, honestly, they have been so, so, good. The food is fantastic, the issue is being served way too much and it’s all really good but rich food, I’m dying for beans on toast or a ham sandwich.

We leave here on the 27^th and head straight t our AirBnB where we stay for 10 weeks and hope that COVID doesn’t enter the state. As a secure measure we intend to get to the AirBnB and isolate for a further 3-4 days. My wife is a nurse and is incredibly cautious about this and I can only agree with her, there would be nothing worse that bringing a new Hereford strain into Australia and knowing it was you that started it.

As a sign off I have just read that South Australia have now closed it borders to returning South Australian residents (basically me) and that an exemption now needs to be made to enter here. This news has shocked me as we, as a family, made it by 9 days. If we had had this news and we were still in the UK we would have knocked the ‘dream’ on the head and can only feel for people that this will affect. Not only do I feel incredibly lucky to be here with my family, but I also feel a great sense of guilt that we have made it and others probably cannot. I only hope that the Australian public heed this action by the Australian government and get vaccinated. The news from here is that once 70 – 80% of the adult population of Australia are vaccinated then things will go back to normal and in the time I’ve been here the percentage of vaccinated has risen from 19% to 29% and now a lot is being made of getting vaccinated.

So after the above I’ll sign off with a cheerful farewell and a hope that the above ‘wall of text’ will interest some people. If anyone has questions to ask then please do, I’m in quarantine, I’ve played Uno and scrabble SO much that I am not thinking of taking up origami, so I need a positive distraction from it all here.

I do hope you are all well and I look forward to hearing from you all soon,

Regards,

Beau Vinyl

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening everyone.

I thought I would update anyone who was interested on how it is going with me and the family and our move to Australia. We moved out of our house of 11 years 3 weeks ago. This was an emotional occasion and one that upset me more than I ever thought it would. It was not the bricks and mortar they upset me, but the memories made with my two children (12 and 9) growing up in that house. The small things that I missed, the wonky door handle, the noisy boiler, and the roast dinners every Sunday without fail, those little memories of the house (and the great memories of the kids growing up) is what I will miss about that house.

So, with the house sold, my wife and I and the two children have now moved in with my parents, roughly 25 mins from where we used to live. Although it has only been 3 weeks since we left the house, time has healed the sadness and we are now all over the emotion of leaving (the hardest thing was seeing the kids cry when we left, that was difficult) but we now live with Grandma and Grandpa which, as I write this, is going well. The kids get to spend time with my parents, and my parents love having vibrant youth about the place, I think it makes them feel younger but also tires them out, there is a fine line in what we let my daughter do with grandma as with usual 9-year-olds, she is nonstop.

My wife gave up her job as a theatre nurse 6 weeks ago and has just started working bank shifts for the next two weeks as our flight date to Australia on the 11^{th of} August looms on the horizon. The date changed 3 weeks ago when Singapore Airlines moved our second leg of the flight (Singapore to Adelaide) to the same time our first leg of the flight (London to Singapore) took off, overlapping the flights. After 4 days of phone calls, we were placed on the 11^th of August flight (it was the 10^th August) and felt pretty safe, that was until one week ago when the Australian intake was then halved again. We’ve been waiting to hear of horror stories about peoples seats being moved, flights cancelled or people having their seats ‘gazumped’, increasing our anxiety on the fact that our seats will have been moved / cancelled etc… but again, as I sit here and type this, and after receiving an email from the Flight Centre just an hour ago, our seats are still there, they are ours, they (Singapore Airlines) haven’t cancelled or moved anyone as yet and we are still on for the flight.

As apprehensive I am about asking this question, has anyone heard of any horror stories of people losing seats etc…?

Like I said, with Singapore Airlines they have not cancelled/moved any seats so I can only assume that the flights to Australia from Singapore were never to full capacity which I find incredibly odd.

So, once we fly to Australia (Adelaide) and we quarantine for two weeks we move into our AirBnB in Blackwood, our two children will then be going to Hawthorndene primary, and my wife will start her employment as a nurse in Adelaide around the end of September. We are looking to stay around the Blackwood area of Adelaide and thanks to people on this site, I have been told of other affordable areas around Blackwood that would suit us as a family.

I will update again in a few weeks’ time with an update but if anyone has any questions about what I’ve written or anything that they think I can help with regarding the move to Australia then please do not hesitate to ask, the community on here seems wonderful and the people who I have spoken with have helped a lot.

Regards,

Beau Vinyl

53 minutes ago, Craig Colas said:

We booked our flights last week, £4,500 for 4 of us for November the 8th. Late morning flight from Heathrow with Singapore. Looking at the flights now, most of those flights on some days around that date are now gone, but some are still available and the price on the same day as us is now £16,000. Has me a bit worried that we booked at the right time but very likely will get bumped off if someone is willing to pay that for an economy flight. 

I wonder if they have just put those prices up on the off chance someone is willing to pay that and just remove the ones that paid less just to make more money. Has anyone else seen their flight times price sky rocket and then be bumped off?

Hi Craig, what what I've read I think you could be correct in thinking that if someone were to come along and pay £16,000 for those seats you'll get bumped, it's the same fear I have with us. We fly on the 10th August on the same route as you but our seats, for four of us, cost £3,600. Currently we are 4 of 28 people on that plane from Sinigapore to Adelaide but money talks and if someone wanted to get out desperately and they had the £££ we'd be bumped / cancelled. It's all up in the air still. Good luck to you and yours though, hope you get over.

1 minute ago, Jon the Hat said:

Yes Howard Springs doesn't look great.  Not that keen on 12 and 8 years old having their own rooms with outside access.  I can well image the 8 year old going exploring for a start.  Unfortunately we might not have a choice, I finish up work at the end of August.

Yeah, totally agree, I have a 12- and 9-year-old and they are both 'explorers'. I finish my job on the 6^th August, we are living with my parents at present and the kids finish school next week. If we don’t get out there this year we’ll knock the idea on the head due to my age, time taken and jobs etc…

4 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

Join the club!!   I think if you are in August and it is there now you have a decent chance!  I am banking on the fact that the flight we have in September SQ223 is the one that continues daily into perth in July / August.  Fingers crossed.  It wont stop me booking a DFAT flight if I can get one as backup.

My feeling is that the closer you are to your flight date the better chance you have of flying but I have been told of people being cancelled the day before their flight, so it really is cutting it fine. The DFAT flights look good to go for but reading about the quarantine centre in Darwin (Howard Springs) I am not too sure I would want to put my two kids through that, the stories I have seen are worrying. I do hope that our flights to Adelaide and Perth both go ahead. Another thing I was told by the Flight Centre was how amazed they were that Scott Morrison only gave the airlines a week to sort out the halving of the already minimalised cap. The told me that if they only gave a weeks’ notice on that then they may only give a weeks’ notice on relaxing it or tightening it further, it is bananas.

Thanks Curly.

3 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

You can check your flight on the SIA schedule.  Looks like the below at the moment.

Thanks for this Jon, I have the app and refresh it 10/15 times a day.

If you are still looking in September after I land and quarantine, then I would be interested. I figure that getting to Australia knowing no one is an adventure in itself so to get to know people in a 5-a-side team would be great.