justme

Hi, I just wanted to say that we are in a similar situation ... well similar in that we realised a short amount of time after arriving that we don't see our long-term future over here and, therefore, we don't see the point in spending loads of cash setting ourselves up here temporarily. I've read through a lot of posts on here recently (trying to justify the way we feel) and soooooo many people say the whole 'it takes at least 2 years to settle' thing. That is very true I'm sure - I've lived in 3 different cities over the past 20 years, my husband emigrated to the UK from the Mediterranean, so he's made a move abroad previously, and of course it always takes time to settle somewhere new. BUT it doesn't take that long to know that you don't WANT to settle somewhere, that's the big difference for me. For example, lots of people love living in London, but equally somebody could go there for a weekend and decide they could never live there. I'd write more but my baby just woke up! But if I was you I'd trust your instinct and not worry that you're missing out on something that you haven't found ... not everyone's 'dream lifestyle' is the same ... our discovery too!

Sq51 then sq221 ?

Hi again! We booked the flight. Late November with Singapore airlines. Manchester to Singapore on A350-900 then Singapore to Sydney on A380-800. We’re stayinh two nights in Singapore to break up the journey and to enjoy a little holiday of sorts! Excited and nervous all at the same time!

Thanks Jetblast. We’re flying end of November. We’re intending to stay two nights in Singapore to break up the trip. The onward journey we are looking at looks to be an airbus 380. To be honest as long as the planes are safe that’s the main thing I’m after! Still not sure about whether taking a day or night flight for the long leg is better with young children? Overnight seems like a good idea - but only if they sleep. Otherwise overtired young kids could be carnage. Day time flight would mean everyone is fresh, but may get bored? Anyone who has made the journey with a toddler and infant have any words of wisdom? ?

Hi Jetblast. We’ll be flying economy. We’re now looking at the Manchester flight, which is on the a350 as it’s cheaper and we’re closer to Manchester. Downside being it leaves at 11am so our 1 and 3 year olds will be awake for a lot of the flight. Perhaps tell me about the different planes and it’ll help make our decision ... thanks in advance!

Hi Jetblast, we’re thinking of flying Singapore in November too. To Sydney via Singapore stopover for a couple of days. Probably flying from London but could do Manchester. What are your thoughts about the aircraft flying on the London - Singapore route. There seems to be a choice to take the 8pm or 10pm flight - one is Boeing 777 something and one airbus 380? Are these aircrafts newish or is the Manchester flight better? I’m a bit of a nervous flyer ...

Hi All Bit of a random one but I thought you lot would know. We’re moving over at the end of the year to NSW and starting to think about what we want to ship. Our bed is incredibly comfy but has a fleece topping on it. Stupid question maybe, but am I right in thinking this makes the bed warm as well as comfy? And, if so, presumably I wouldn’t be suitable in a warm climate? There are other household items that we’ve been needing to replace for a while but are unsure whether it’d be worthwhile doing so before we leave (if we’re paying for shipping anyway) or waiting until we’re there. I’d love to know if there are any things you’d definitely recommend bringing from the UK and what you’d wait to get in Australia. I saw someone mentioning calpol and bedding in a previous thread for example. We’re in the fortunate position of being able to stay with family for the first couple of months so no worries about immediate furniture purchases etc. Look forward to your comments

Hi Piscin Good luck with your skills assessment. I was just honest on my CV about my previous jobs and described what my roles and duties were. Perhaps your friend was knocked back because his role or duties didn’t match what they consider a construction project manager to do? You need to make sure that what you do matches up with their description of the duties. You can find this online under the occupation code. To be honest I don’t think the CV was the main part of the skills application though. It was 1.5 years ago that I applied so I can’t remember all the details, but I had to fill in all job descriptions on the application and also have letters from my previous employers describing my role and responsibilities. Good luck!

Yes you have 28 days to submit documents once asked. You just need to make your first entry to Australia by the date they give you, so a holiday would be fine to activate the visa.

Hey, we just got our 190. Some people on here advised against front loading the documents in case it takes nearly 12 months to decide the case and then you have little time to make the first entry to Australia (as it’ll be 12 months from the date of your medical or police checks). I guess it depends if you think that’s likely or not. Currently they are processing 75% if applications in 6 months. We didn’t front load, but as soon as we submitted our application a tab became available asking us to complete the medicals, so we did that straight away. Case officer contacted us three months after we submitted to ask for police certificates. We did them st that point then waiting another 1.5 months for our grant. No big deal for us. Though in retrospect I would probably just have done the police certificates earlier on and I think we’d have got a direct grant in April.

Ah that’s a shame Dublin are so busy. If immigration know then I’m sure it’ll be fine. The health check is sent online directly from the clinic to Australia, so you don’t need to upload it yourself. Or at least it was for us - maybe better check. So that’d suggest you could click submit once you’ve attached everything else they asked for within the 28 days. We’re looking at moving probably around October time. Need to sell our house before then (would’ve been doing that anyway as it’s too small for us). We’ve got a family member in Sydney who we can stay with initially and then we’ll take it from there. We kind of prefer the idea of being out of the city and finding a nice community and less expensive housing, but I guess it’ll depend where we can find jobs. Definitely lots of work in Sydney but also so expensive. What about you, assuming visa come through in next few months?

Oh that’s a shame. Is there anywhere else you can get the medicals done? We got ours in Edinburgh and they had appointments available within a week ... Otherwise surely they make allowances when you can’t get an appointment quickly? Perhaps you can upload your appointment booking details to the immiaccount or something so that you’ve put something there?

Yes you’re probably just 6 weeks behind us. Fingers crossed! Date of entry is by the end of January 2019 - basically the date of our medicals. Thank goodness we didn’t wait for a 189 invite! All very exciting now, but a bit scary too. Hope we’re doing the right thing!

We got our grant! 190 sponsored by NSW For those that are interested the timeline was: 190 EOI submitted early October 2017 20th October - NSW invite 30th October - submitted documents to NSW 22nd December - NSW sponsorship confirmed and 190 invite received 16th Jan - submitted 190 visa application. We did the medical a few days later 18th April - case officer asked for police certificates 27th April - submitted police certificates 7th June - visa granted I think if we’d submitted the police certificates at the start we’d have got a direct grant in April. It was a question I asked on here at the time and some people advice against front loading everything in case you then don’t have much time to move. We aren’t in a huge rush so no issue, but for those who are it might be worth considering ...

We got our grant! 190 sponsored by NSW For those that are interested the timeline was: 190 EOI submitted early October 2017 20th October - NSW invite 30th October - submitted documents to NSW 22nd December - NSW sponsorship confirmed and 190 invite received 16th Jan - submitted 190 visa application. We did the medical a few days later 18th April - case officer asked for police certificates 27th April - submitted police certificates 7th June - visa granted I think if we’d submitted the police certificates at the start we’d have got a direct grant in April. It was a question I asked on here at the time and some people advise against front loading everything in case you then don’t have much time to move. We aren’t in a huge rush so no issue, but for those who are it might be worth considering ...

Hi all, I’d be interested in the answer to this too. I’m also wondering whether adding more documents now would put us back in the queue. We applied for 190 in the middle of January and did the medicals a few days later as there was a tab on our application to do this (which now says medical clearance provided or similar). So all that’s missing from our application currently are the police documents. Our application status still says ‘received’, so presumably hasn’t been looked at yet. Is it really true that attaching more documents sends you to the back of the queue? hoping for answers!

Our invite came through after 7 weeks, but I noticed others on here getting it after 3-4 weeks. I presume if you are able to evidence your claims then you should get the invite ... Good luck!

Thanks for all the responses - much appreciated. We’ll definitely investigate options in the Blue Mountains area. Could anyone also suggest towns or suburbs with the qualities we are looking for (strong community, creative/alternative lifestyle-y, family friendly) on the central coast or the coast south of Sydney? Or even what suburbs of Sydney have these qualities? Thanks again for all advice

Nope

Thanks Toots. Where do you live if you don’t mind me asking? I’m not keen on snakes but don’t mind spiders, in that I’d happily let one crawl on my hand to get it out the house here in the uk. It’s the poisonous nature of them that I’m worried about ... Great news if you’ve not seen one in 37 years though!

Thanks for your response toots. I did wonder if the blue mountains could be an option - I visited Katoomba on a previous visit. What is that area like for dangerous wildlife, given it’s a less built up area? Sorry if I’m fitting an annoying stereotype of worrying about this in Australia - we do love nature and if it was all friendly would be happy to share living space with it ... but I don’t want poisonous snakes or spiders to be a day to day concern for my children playing etc ...

Hi All We’re hoping to make the move to Oz later in the year - myself, husband and two young children (will be aged 1 and 3). We’re being sponsored by NSW so I’m looking for some advice on areas to stay outside Sydney, as well as potential suburbs within/around the city. We are looking to find a town or suburb with a good community spirit, perhaps a ‘alternative lifestyle’ type place as we are both creative types (architect and graphic designer) and looking for a more relaxed lifestyle than the rat race pace that often accompanies city living. We’ve been living in capital cities for the past decade so really looking to have more space with our young family and be somewhere that we can get to know our neighbours and be involved in the community. Don’t want to be super rural as we’re used to having amenities around us. We like the look of the area around Byron shire, for example Bangalow, but have been a bit freaked out by reports of large numbers of brown snakes in that area. Is it silly to worry about this with two young kids that I’d like to be able to play safely in the back yard? It is a consideration for us ... We’ve got somewhere to stay when we first arrive in NSW - a family member has a large house on the northern beaches in Sydney with plenty of space for us to stay for a while. So we have time to explore when we get there and will treat our first 2-3 months as a holiday. However it’s obvious we won’t be able to afford to stay comfortably in that area ourselves due to the price of renting a house, never mind eventually buying one. We have properties to rent out in the UK so we’ll have $600 a week from that to put towards rent, which will be a good head start around Sydney and potentially enough to cover our rent elsewhere. We wouldn’t look to buy for a couple of years. Obviously if we settle in or near Sydney costs would be higher, but it’d be easier for us to find work. Outside the city it might be harder to find jobs but a good portion of our rent would be covered already, and we wouldn’t mind taking any job initially in order to get settled in an area that is suitable for us for the long term. Ideally we’d hope to eventually be working for ourselves or have our own businesses anyway, as we do at the moment. So what I’m looking for is ideas for: - any suburbs in/around Sydney that would be affordable on around $1000 a week and have a good community, creative, family friendly etc; - suggestions for areas outside of Sydney but within occasional commuting distance that offer a creative, alternative type lifestyle similar to Byron shire (eg somewhere on the central coast); - or ideas of any other towns in NSW that offer what we’re looking for. Thanks in advance!

Hi All We’re hoping to make the move to Oz later in the year - myself, husband and two young children (will be aged 1 and 3). We’re being sponsored by NSW so I’m looking for some advice on areas to stay outside Sydney, as well as potential suburbs within/around the city. We are looking to find a town or suburb with a good community spirit, perhaps a ‘alternative lifestyle’ type place as we are both creative types (architect and graphic designer) and looking for a more relaxed lifestyle than the rat race pace that often accompanies city living. We’ve been living in capital cities for the past decade so really looking to have more space with our young family and be somewhere that we can get to know our neighbours and be involved in the community. Don’t want to be super rural as we’re used to having amenities around us. We like the look of the area around Byron shire, for example Bangalow, but have been a bit freaked out by reports of large numbers of brown snakes in that area. Is it silly to worry about this with two young kids that I’d like to be able to play safely in the back yard? It is a consideration for us ... We’ve got somewhere to stay when we first arrive in NSW - a family member has a large house on the northern beaches in Sydney with plenty of space for us to stay for a while. So we have time to explore when we get there and will treat our first 2-3 months as a holiday. However it’s obvious we won’t be able to afford to stay comfortably in that area ourselves due to the price of renting a house, never mind eventually buying one. We have properties to rent out in the UK so we’ll have $600 a week from that to put towards rent, which will be a good head start around Sydney and potentially enough to cover our rent elsewhere. We wouldn’t look to buy for a couple of years. Obviously if we settle in or near Sydney costs would be higher, but it’d be easier for us to find work. Outside the city it might be harder to find jobs but a good portion of our rent would be covered already, and we wouldn’t mind taking any job initially in order to get settled in an area that is suitable for us for the long term. Ideally we’d hope to eventually be working for ourselves or have our own businesses anyway, as we do at the moment. So what I’m looking for is ideas for: - any suburbs in/around Sydney that would be affordable on around $1000 a week and have a good community, creative, family friendly etc; - suggestions for areas outside of Sydney but within occasional commuting distance that offer a creative, alternative type lifestyle similar to Byron shire (eg somewhere on the central coast); - or ideas of any other towns in NSW that offer what we’re looking for. Thanks in advance!

We had to get a passport for our newborn too. It said 3 weeks to process but we sent it off on Monday and got the passport on the Thursday! So you may get to submit sooner than you think. Good luck. It’ll be interesting to see how fast they get processed

Hey Reubs, congrats, that’s great! I submitted our application the day before yesterday - pockets £4200 lighter but it felt good! Still need to attach all the documents, should get time to do that tomorrow. Are you ready to submit quite soon?