deryans

I've had a quick flick though this thread and I was wondering if the "little green eye" was at work as the posters who dislike Sydney don't live there. I've lived here for over 50 years and I have never heard a Sydney sider say that it is the best city in the World - best in Australia yes, Australia is the best country in the World - yes, but most people think that the country they were born in is the best, even if they don't live there.

The only thing that is really expensive in Sydney is real estate. Food is more expensive that it used to be, wages/salaries have risen dramatically but if you shop smart you can still eat very well on comparatively little. I have seen many changes, not all good, but Sydney is not as bad as is being made out, as I said in the beginning, maybe the little green eye is showing itself.

Totally agree with you, we lived in inner west SYD for almost 10 years, all our children were born there and started school almost right up to secondary, and it is a cracking city to grow up in, sadly we made a huge mistake and moved to adelaide in 2012, a city which is frankly so far behind its hard to see where it will go.

People who talk about quality of life and say adelaide is better than Sydney have obviously not lived in SYD.

Hello,

 

My husband and I are moving back to the UK in February and will be moving all of our stuff from Oz which includes a sofa, bed etc.

 

As we won't have it as soon as we move over, we wanted to hire furniture but not pay a fortune for it. Does anyone have any recommendations for furniture hire (Tunbridge Wells / London / Kent) which isn't completely extortionate? We were quoted £900 for two months but for that price I could buy brand new stuff...!

 

Any help would be most grateful

go along camden road would kit out a medium flat, Camden Road has quite a few low cost 2nd hand furniture shops in Tunbridge wells, the road has not really changed all that much since we lived there in 1999, British Heart Foundation and Oxfam all have cheap furniture, we're outside TN now rural 1/2 way between east grin and t-wells, there are quite a few reasonable places to pickup some temporary furniture, Crowborough, East Grin, if you're mobile then Lakeside IKEA beats Croydon of the sheer pleasure of traffic, and that's saying something.. not sure about renting quality stuff, we used outdoor table chairs for indoor use until our main table set arrived, we had a week in the house before the container, kids spent 1/2 time with grand mother and we used inflatable mattresses !

As cities go, I think Sydney is very livable, ..............

 

I also think NYE garden parties with best friends would be just as memorable as a Sydney NYE, if not more.

I think this thread is a little Silly, family and friends are what it's about most of all, however, Sydney is Fab, If you've never been then you should go at least once, but after 10+ years of living on the birchgrove peninsula we'd just pop out for the early 9pm set and later at midnight when the kids were young and asleep I'd go and sit in their room and wait until the flatbed boat that fired the mobile fireworks finished as there was some report, almost like 105mm mortars , it literally shook the window frames. Kids always slept through!

Sydney definitely does NYE very well, and in the 90's before family I'd definitely go party. I always remember the rocks and circular key as being just crazy, did the NYE Party at the opera house once which was special, she was not I married another :wink: , can't imagine what they are like now, but almost definitely not suitable for young children.

I see that all parks with views of the bridge are now non BYO and dry, there is a good reason for that.

It's a bit more in your face than most cities, for sure.

 

Where the hell do you pay 300 dolls for a good view?

 

One of the bars?

 

B

LOL, a bar with a view will cost twice that, 300 aud is for entry to a vantage point where the numbers are managed and some facilities are provided. Or you could just get there 2 days before and camp

I must also admit , as a sydneysider who moved to adelaide, its was not that hard to feel superior.

I think for us we needed to be able to get in and out of London fairly quickly (for work) but also have access to good transport ports, i.e. airports and ports, It could not be easier to get to airports, Gatwick is 1 hour door to door, that includes long term parking and checkin, Heathrow about 2 hours, south coast ports to the continent , I'm a huge fan of drive on, get a berth, have a meal and sleep most of the overnight crossings, it's the nearest thing to teleportation, we do avoid the M25 dyring peak, it's just not fun!

We lived in Sydney , Birchgrove for almost 10 years, 364 days of the year a great little island of tranquility within a 15min bike ride to CBD, Kids loved it, fireworks very easy to get to, had our own little dingy I taught the kids to sail, literally walk outside the house 200 yards across the park and you have a full view.

Except....in 2008/9 Leichardt council decided that most if not all parks should be dry for NYE, that is , except our park....

Well you can imagine what happened after that , many residents simply tired of the 4am bogans and car chases, numerous assaults, even a murder at ballast point park....... so in the end we simply avoided NYE and in fact most of our neighbours used to go away elsewhere, simply not safe anymore.

I'm sure it must have changed by now as that situation could not continue, ah I see below they've banned Glass and Pets (yes, some bogans brought their fighting dogs one year and although I did not see it, I heard that one of the dogs ate another woman pet....., I'll miss the crunch underfoot the 1st day back as I walk to the ferry.....

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydney-new-years-eve-where-you-can-and-cant-buy-alcohol-food-and-drinks-20161229-gtj9is.html

OH is a director/dispensing optician with Specsavers, with a whole heap of experience (25 years with the company, 12 as a director) so he should find work pretty easily. We have spoken to Specsavers in the UK, and they can find something for him pretty much wherever. Whether he wants to buy into another practice or not we haven't decided, but he should get enough work temporarily whilst we decide. I am a qualified optometrist, although I've not worked in Australia due to kids/had to retake professional exams. I could easily register with the GOC though, and find work either as an Optometrist or as a really over-qualified DO.

 

We have four cats, so we were thinking of paying six months rent upfront, plus a higher deposit because of the cats, plus agreeing to have the carpets professionally cleaned on departure.

 

The Sydney housing market is REALLY buoyant still, or at least it is in this area. Both of our neighbours houses sold within the past two years, so we have an idea of what ours is worth, although ours will be renovated where the other houses weren't. We will have to complete the renovation on our house though, which could take three to four months. The bathrooms are a disgusting peach colour and the plating has come off the taps, so it looks really bad/dated compared to our beautiful modern kitchen and flooring. Upstairs needs new carpet too. We have enough put by to do a basic revamp on the bathrooms/laundry/carpet plus a bit of redecoration/gardening etc as needed. Lots of it I will do myself.

We renovated to sell also, most if not all I did myself, and here in adelaide we had fist wide cracks to hide!! only advice I can say is paint is your friend! that and IKEA bathrooms, everything else paint it!

To be frank, we found Adelaide to be extremely backward and narrow minded, almost an poisoned inheritance we did not wish on our children with if that makes sense, vastly narrow minded and myopic on views, often completely ignorant of world events, culture, music (yep, they bang out easy and popular pieces by adelaide chamber, but most of its trite - no colour, no passion, no risk, ) Museums that you can walk through in an hour, no interest in things that did not impact SA, a small inward looking community perhaps oft compared to a country town (this is of course unfair to country towns as they do not seek the hubris and pretence of adelaide), which probably goes some way to explain why they are so sub standard in performance across all major measurable, child protection, education, electricity , justice and so on, we simply could not sentence our children develop in such a sub standard environment like that

So let me think this out loud for you, we got an address within catchment for the CoE primary (which was easy anyway as they need more kids anyway so 7 year old sorted) and the two secondary schools we chose were close together but we were not in the catchment, however, we applied as you mentioned above in early June, which was about 2-3 weeks before the close of term and did so also urgently before every administrator at the schools disappears for 2 months, and since our daughter got accepted almost immediately , brief but interesting interview, our son also got preference because of sibling, to be honest I'm not an expert on this and my wife (whose Aussie) worked the system very well to get the places, but the sibling issue was important and also the interview was a little hilarious as they seemed very interested in my daughters district performance in sports in NSW , They also interviewed our aspie boy, whom we had coached to death in what to say , and he just went completely off script with the headmaster in the interview, who just then took it in his stride, we knew then we'd hit a winner with the school!

I think the reason that the inter year application works is that most of the shuffling and preferential choices have been exhausted by early June , and people are focussed on other things.

we have that in Sussex. Just move to a child friendly village.

Wow, your life sounds amazing! We couldn't afford entry into London - we will be returning to north west of England but I take your point about all the great sites to behold - the Uni info is interesting to know as well - thank you so much for this post, it's inspiring - happy new year Deryans!

We can't afford London either and my aussie wife will not do a suburban semi - anywhere, we're a good 50 min train ride outside of it, but that works for me, we have not bought yet life's too short to jump on the hamster wheel so soon again, so we're renting a 4 bed cottage on a farm, next door neighbours are a retired couple very nice and great fun and the nearest other building is 200 meters away and the couple there are police and ex forces - also huge fun, for us it's about experience, it's hugely roald dahl danny champion of the world place, we're surrounded by woods and the local pub is just outside walking distance to my wife's delight, but my children are getting to know a whole other side of a possible life that would not have been available to them if we stayed in adelaide. That place was just too narrow.

I suppose we're in a similar-ish position. We've been in Australia since 2009 and we are just starting to think about making a move back to the UK within the next six months or so. We've been fairly happy here, but I wouldn't say we've our dream life here (and we wouldn't expect our lives to suddenly be better in the UK when we move back), but I think we've now reached the point where the cons of living here outweigh the pros. I'm not entirely sure when the tipping point was reached (I suspect much earlier for me than my OH), but we've kind of reached the point where we return now or not at all. Eldest kid is due to start high school here in Jan 2018 (and in September 2017 in England or September 2018 in Scotland due to her birthday/the cut off dates) so we would rather move before she gets too far down the line with high school (she is Autistic, which complicates things a bit).

 

We've been lucky in that OH has worked extremely hard and has built up a successful franchise here with his business partner, which we will sell. Plus we'll have fully renovated our home by the time we come to sell, so we should be in the position to buy outright in Scotland/the north of England, and perhaps buy an investment property too. We are toying with the idea of rather than OH starting his own business again (he also owned one in the UK before we moved to Aus), that we both do part time or locum work for a while, just to give us time to settle the kids, draw breath, and then decide on whether he wants to open a new franchise, should the opportunity come up, or even go in another direction within the same industry or in something else.

 

We aren't really moving back for financial/work reasons though. My mother in law had breast cancer earlier in the year, and although she should be fine, it kind of made us realise that we want to be a bit closer to family. We won't be on their doorstep if we do end up in north of England/Scotland, but it is a hecking lot easier (and cheaper) to get back to SE England from there than it is from Sydney. There are lots of other reasons too.

That is what we did, I took a short contract to get house, bank and all else started, then took a three months off when they started school.

We are in rural east sussex and the local primary school is a bike ride away with my fab fizzy 7 (now 8) year old boy, but the other children 11 and 13 (now 12 and 14) go to a mainstream secondary school in tunbridge wells, my 12 year old is aspergers and the school said something about him I would never have heard the school in adelaide say. The UK school called him a wonderful , remarkable and fantastic child.

We found inter year applications easier than being there at the beginning and appealing, but that may be because we went a little rural.

how much are uni fees in Australia? How much are you paying in Europe? Most are £9000 per annum in the UK. If they are studying in Europe, then they will be hit for living expenses. Are languages not a problem, although I know many are in English. Will brexit be a problem?

yes you are correct, 9K gbp is more realistic we're looking at Scotland, Ireland and the Continent, no getting around living expenses though, we have EU passports so we're also mindful of the 3 year residency requirement for EU nationals, if Brexit is executed complete before 2018 we may have an issue as it will be inside the 3 year window of our arrival

Spend that Million on the house quick, lest the prices increase, besides SA needs the income

Not sure about that GGS.

 

Those who are so happy back home in UK have only been able to do so on the back of good fortune and the fruits of living in Australia.

 

The money to buy the big house in the UK didn't come from the UK.

It is down to the benefit of having lived in Australia for a decade that has set them up for life.

 

 

Your own 'frugal' semi retirement as you call it after a life of living in the UK doesn't sound that appetising to many which is why they aspire to more from working in Australia.

fruits of living in Australia.

you mean cooked economy over the last 10-15 years ? Same everywhere

It is down to the benefit of having lived in Australia[insert country here] for a decade that has set them up for life.

what a joke

We had a daughter in St Aloysius city in adelaide (ages 11 -14), great school, medium to high fees, good outcome, I liked the principal and she had good solid values, we lived just behind Pembroke School in the eastern burbs, but there were rumours of drug problems there so we skipped that, My wife is from adelaide and went to another of the schools along that porthrush stretch of road , no point in me reporting these as we have no opnion on this.

Overall, adelaide produces schools as a product or commodity , seymour girls had below required intake last year, so too had scotch girls, easy in, but so be prepared to pay, overall it's not that expensive compared to say mayfield girls in Kent or say westminster in london , you'll get through a senior school kid in under 12-14K per annum, but compared to the school our daughter goes to in Tunbridge Wells, the adelaide schools have a mountain to climb in terms of breath of variety ,agility, skills and pastoral care, the adelaide schools are just well, very narrow, their focus seems too tight. We found an exceptional school in Adelaide, we also found an exceptional school in the UK, but that's down to just hacking into it and doing the grudge work, you won't find an easy answer here on a forum , to assuage you of the concerns you have for your greatest asset : your daughter.

It's good job you will be mortgage free as Adelaide does not have a huge pond of opportunities to earn income, your best bet (and this will be hard) is to get your child into a fashionable public school amongst the adelaide middle class, and work the PTA (parent teachers association) with all the might you can, this will open doors for you and your wife to slide may even open opportunities for your work (whatever you do) in due course.

Thanks Bungo and everyone else for your input - it's so great to have new brains on the issue without the subjective angle on it - it is an emotional time but also it's the longest time to be off work hence all the extra focus on it atm.

 

Planning to look into all aspects in 2017 and by July I'm hoping to have a firm direction sorted for our little family - will have been here 9 years then - in my mind 10yrs in Australia means I gave it a good enough go and if all goes to plan, we will return the UK in a much stronger position than when we left it. I think I will enjoy my Australian adventure much more in retrospect.

 

Does dual citizenship cause any problems when returning to UK?

Thanks Bungo and everyone else for your input - it's so great to have new brains on the issue without the subjective angle on it - it is an emotional time but also it's the longest time to be off work hence all the extra focus on it atm.

 

Planning to look into all aspects in 2017 and by July I'm hoping to have a firm direction sorted for our little family - will have been here 9 years then - in my mind 10yrs in Australia means I gave it a good enough go and if all goes to plan, we will return the UK in a much stronger position than when we left it. I think I will enjoy my Australian adventure much more in retrospect.

 

Does dual citizenship cause any problems when returning to UK?

Dual citizenship causes no problems at all, infact , In the current global climate, it's best to have as many passports as possible.

We sold up our primary residence in Adelaide before moving back, albeit adelaide is a serious underperformer for the last century, we still made money on it, and since it was our primary residence , I'm quite happy to let the tax office do the legwork.

Europe is a treasure trove for us, we have aussie kids, (but with euro/uk and soon to be another country passports) and they love it, since May 2015 we've been to Spain, France x4, Ireland x2, all over SE UK, Greece, Egypt and now we're planning a ski week in France in early march, plus we've taken the kids to see some amazing cultural sites, along with the exposure to the vast and i mean vast collection of what is available in London - should you wish , or want to look, it's just an embarrassment of riches. I'm teaching them how to shoot, and in the new year I'll be teaching them how to fly.

Also, 3 year ticks by and our oldest will qualify for EU Uni funding (wherever she is), so we'll pay 3-4 maybe 5K per annum fee's worst case for a choice of courses that only da vinci would think narrow, compare this with adelaide and her 3-4 Uni's fee harvesting 20-30K per annum for basically an arts and crafts degree and dropping you in a market that has no work ?.........

London is a cracking place, and it was kind to me when i was a grad, and it's kind 20 year later.

Amazing place. I love it.

If you were renting you'd have a fair old chunk of you rent paid if not all, as you'd probably qualify for social housing. Also I understand your Manitenace payments are taken off the amount you are entitled to. Have you got or are you entitled to the healthcare card? Maybe not if you own a house ( not sure of the criteria ) This makes many many things cheaper even visits to the zoo ( flippant I know but just to give an example ) even the food bank helps.

 

Being unemployed for for all your life and even having parents who were the same, certainly gives a whole wealth of choices. Not a route most of us would choose. But my point was these are included in the statistics which is a bit unfair really.

 

I wish you all the best in your job search, not a pleasant situation, I was in a similar one years ago only with two small children no maintenace and a small part time job. Very little in the way of help because I owned a house and wasn't renting.

You can't be for real ?

Adelaide has managed it though- think it is something to do with the original settlers and their interests.

You are of course Kidding ? We lived in Adelaide for just under 4 years and a place of such narrow minded, myopic and thought inagility would be hard to find, although it seems some people think Perth may fit this bill, I won't comment on Perth but Adelaide is seriously backward, highest unemployment rate in the country and no real prospect of this changing.

I've had a few PM's and conversations recently about flying in Australia, so thought I'd post some pictures here for anyone who might be interested (some of the photos have already been posted elsewhere in the forum).

 

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It's possible to fly over the harbour and perform orbits at 1500ft between the Opera House, Fort Denison and the Harbour Bridge under an airways clearance (Harbour Scenic 1), or occasionally when its busy just over Chatswood (Harbour Scenic 2). There is also an area outside controlled airspace along the coast called 'Victor 1' where you can track at 500ft from Long Reef past Manly, Bondi and down towards Sea Cliff Bridge, absolutely amazing. Air Traffic Control coverage is fantastic and they provide a great service and fit you in where possible, which considering the sheer amount of traffic your mixing with is in the terminal area is pretty impressive.

 

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Flying over the Blue Mountains and into the outback, full of adventures. It's a vast country, and you can cover so much of it quickly by flying, particularly into the outback.

 

We hope to do more outback flying, particularly to some of the stations where they have airstrips and B&Bs.

LJK and MWY ? MIF out of Camden ?

Hi guys,

 

I am finally coming to the end of my social work degree in the UK, and once qualified am hoping to begin working as a graduate social worker in Adelaide, south Australia. I will have the correct Visa to work in Australia, although I am confused whether my degree will be sufficient to begin immediately working.

 

I have checked online at the AASW, and they have detailed how a 3 year degree in social work from the UK is eligible to be assessed. I am looking for anyone who has managed to pass this assessment with a three year degree and with no post graduate experience.

 

Any information would be greatly appreciated!

 

Best Wishes,

 

Jack

Plenty of work (sadly) for what you do in SA, so there should be no significant obstacles to obtaining a gig in SA, Issues you will come across will be your over qualification, the sheer glacial progress on any application, you'll have to get SAPOL and working with children (vulnerable) clearances, that usually takes 4 to 12 weeks to come through so plan to have some cash and survival funds for at least twice that time (i.e. 6 months).

whilst there may appear to be a staff shortfall at families SA (that's child protection and social work)..... see below

http://indaily.com.au/news/local/2016/12/05/staff-shortfall-in-families-sa-offset-blowout-in-emergency-care/

There is a reasonable question regarding the departments competency and their ability to recruit resources and deliver a service to an acceptable standard, Now before you think I'm some random, I worked at DECD in SA (and Justice before that) before it was split into two separate agencies, and I would like to extend to you my sincere admiration for the work you do and the career path you have chosen.

I wish you well in SA, be advised there are many passive-aggressive's and the DECD and indeed Families SA are in a word - organisationally dysfunctional, so all I can say at this stage is , good luck, or Bon Chance if you happen to be in Unley.....

You done really well out of it. By chance did you take out PHI with Bupa on you arrival back to the UK or are you just using the NHS?

forgive me a smile, but using that much private health care is not really doing well out of it! :wink:, I managed to make it to 30 without a scratch and then well, life took over, but you're correct , financially it was certainly good for us.

Yes, we have private here (might review this, i'd much rather pay the 300 into NI contributions than private), if only to cover off any real serious issue, but kids have had x2 NHS ops here (both dental) and we've not needed it, we pay about 300+ a month and whilst the kids are still young, we ride bikes, play sports, break things including windows with cricket balls, stack themselves on MTB's etc , I think it's a little peace of mind. I also ride a road bike and fly so there is a slight chance of kinetic energy halt.

all kids public in Aus, with the same midwife delivering each one !! at RPAH sydney, how about that!

Mind you, our experience in east sussex the NHS really does stand up to the level of care we had in Sydney, can't speak for adelaide (but did get hit by a car so private paid for the physio) as we did not use any hospitals there. I'm impressed with the NHS.

They might not / probably won't be stopped at the departure airport. But the parent left behind would report it, Interpol would be alerted and arrest likely to follow pretty swiftly. Probably upon landing if the other parent realises within 24 hours.

Yes, Borders in EU, specifically UK, Irish and French are very alert with strong formal co-operation to child movement, even with both parents present, they positively id the kids and check, with one parent present, they do the same and also check the bulletins, mine were asleep in the back of the landcruiser after a long journey to the d-day beaches this year and the Le Harve border patrol opened the door, lights on and checked the children (still sleeping) visually, they sat up looked at her and then plopped back to sleep (phew), this is good practice and i was also quizzed as to where my wife was, what we'd been doing, where we were etc, the whole thing took less than 3-5 min, and time well spent.

The more checks the merrier where children are concerned would be my feeling.

That was excellent advise ... I will definitely look out for those points. .. I already have my ambulance cover with ambulance Victoria. .

 

Best regards

Nick

Private Health worked for us, because we took it out many years ago, infact we had to take it out as part of my visa requirements and we just kept it up as the product we bought in 2004 was a very comprehensive one.

x3 kids later, all in public hospitals but with paid for private (I like that model as the public system benefits), x1 cancer including treatment and op, 16 pairs of glasses (2 each year), 2 years of psych (6 visits per person per year, used as support for aspergers child, you kind of have to wrangle the system to get it to work) , x1 child op on adenoids and tonsils, x1 child op on accident , x1 child op on plastic surgery (different accident) think first op on child might have been public

probably worth it, we used to pay 3K per year for say 10years, the cancer op would have come to at least 20K, each birth would have been 8k odd. we certainly used 4-5k per person per year on educational/OT/aspergers visits, infact I used all of my allowance, all of my aspie childs allowance and my wife's allowance on these visits over a 2-3 year term as the receptionist simply asked which one to place the charge against 1-5, so that worked out well.

Bupa tried numerous times to change our policy and I flatly refused, pinning them the benefits and extras package we took out in 2004.

When we moved back to the UK, I'd bet they were happy to see us go....

Oh dear, I'll be in trouble then - we got a business upgrade last time we flew to the UK because my parents transferred their airmiles to us, the kids went to private schools because they both got scholarships, and I am queen of bargain hunting for holidays!!

 

Hi ho hi ho, it's off to jail I go....

wouldn't worry, it seems you can simply walk out of jail in SA these days..