WayneM

Thanks for the input, we are certainly considering a 4WD as you are not the only person to make a similar point. Care to share where your best spots have been?

Thanks for sharing, if I think of any particular questions I will be sure to post and see what comes back. We love to get out into the countryside, but find most of the camping spots in the UK feel too commercial. Last time we went we landed up with our kitchen set up in a utility tent 5 meters from our main tent, with a tarp construction on top acting as a big umbrella between the two. I'll certainly look into solar when I get out there. I had a look in the camping shop here last year, but figured I was best to wait until after our big move.

Ha, yep, I burn. Though in winter over here I'm in a hat all the time nonetheless

Hi mate, I am wondering whether to bring my car over:- Year: 2012 Nissan Qashqai NTEC Make, model & variant: Nissan Qashqai NTEC Body Type: SUV Engine & Fuel: 1.6L Petrol Transmission: Manual Drive type: Front wheel drive Mileage: 67,000 Any special features, options or modification: None Aircon: Yes Realistic current UK market value: £6,500 Australian RedBook value: Closest match was $16,500 - $18,600, but this is a 2014 2L, couldn't find anything older Australian market value (http://www.carsales.com.au): Closest match I could find was $20,000 but couldn't find anything older than 2014, and were all 2L Automatics Australian state/city: Queensland/Brisbane My wife also drives a Seat Alhambra, but can't seem to see that or the VW Sharan on the carsales or redbook sites, I might have to dig around a little deeper.

I suspect a big difference is if you are paying for site fees or not. I know when we have holidayed in the UK you're talking 20 quid a night, so that's the equivalent of £650 a month for which you could run a small flat on anyway. If you pitch your tent in the wilderness then there's none of that cost. Unfortunately that's not legal in England (yet Scotland is), I'm not sure about the situation in Queensland. The really handsome guy that looks a little bit like Yoda? Yep, that's me.

2 years is quite the commitment. I did point out to my wife that one option when we arrive, until at least one of us has a job, is to base ourselves in a tent to keep the outgoings down. It turns out that's not an option, I asked why, she says, "for so many reasons" though I'm not sure what these reasons are. I am wondering if I ought to get one of those Utes when I arrive, they seem quite common over there. We had a friend who lives in Sydney recommend getting a 4x4 to allow exploration of more remote locations, but I'm assuming it's a big investment for something rarely used.

My wife had to get one. We didn't realise when we applied as she'd been living in the UK for 15 years, but as she had spent more than 52 weeks over there across 6 or 7 holidays visiting family over a 10 year period, she had to get from both UK and India. Wish we had known that before CO had to request it! Fortunately she had a passport issued in the last few years so was on a database which I think speeded it up, but since applying via VFS in the UK, I think it arrived via the consulate in about 2 weeks, something like that, wasn't long.

My brain hurts too, but if this tip stands up to scrutiny, I thank you for it! Bridges are always commuter congestion points.

Cheers Bobj - yes hopefully somebody will come along with an answer - that electrical hook up lead cost me 20 quid so I wouldn't want to regret leaving it behind! Electricity when camping - yep - what on earth are you on about is pretty much my reaction to Mrs M's insistance we get something to power some fan heaters. Since then our glamping has extended to include a "carpet" for the tent can you believe. One of the things I am looking forward to once settled after arrival is working out where to take the kids on camping expeditions.

We are just firming up our plans for the big move and going through our stuff to take with us and wondered if there was anything obvious we've missed. We reckon pretty much all of our UK camping equipment is going to be just as relevant in Oz. Cleaning the tent is going to be fun... I am looking at the special electrical adaptor we use on UK campsites and wondering if that's still going to be any use? Presumably solar kits are a bit more common over there.

I'm not genned up on the details of insurance policies yet, so this was a new term for me. I have to read it twice, at first I thought it was to do with worrying about your electricals sending you loopy

We've just started the process of getting quotes, had one in so far - £3,700 to take most of the stuff in our house. I haven't got the calculator out yet, but my gut tells me that the value of our stuff doesn't add up to quite that much. My instincts tell me I can cram the majority of our most valuable stuff into a movecube, and replace from IKEA the rest at the other side.

For what it's worth, I did PTE to bring my points up. If you register on their website you can sit a mock test (I think you can do 2 actually, £25 a pop) so you can get a feel for your level before sitting it. The Youtube channel of Australian Dream was pretty helpful. My wife sat IELTS recently, and found the experience a little odd.

It's easy, dinner is what you eat at lunchtime. Tea, is context dependant, and means either your evening meal, or a big mug of cha

When I was getting my skills assessment done, somebody from ACS contacted me for a query on an inconsistency and I gave them my honest answer which was accepted. I don't know if that experience helps you, but that's what happened with me, though I was unaware of the inconsistency until they pointed out, I wasn't proactive about it. The correction/explanation only took a day or two via email correspondence so didn't delay any application for me.

It's an interesting point holding kids back from entering the schooling system. Going somewhat off topic, I seem to have a different opinion to almost everybody I talk to about this casually. Most people want to hold their kids back so that they have a better chance of competing for high grades by being older rather than younger. My view on it is that once you get to about 16, 17, 18 or whatever this difference isn't going to be anything like as pronounced as it was when you were 5 and grades will have evened out according to academic ability. So for things like your exam grades eventually indicating which universities you're likely to attend, which career path you are likely to take etc I'm not convinced it makes a difference. Personally, I'd rather get the whole school thing over and done with as soon as possible in order to get on the career and housing/investment ladder as soon as possible. I don't think I've ever met anyone else that thinks that way. Maybe I don't give enough credit to the emotional impact of struggling in the early years. Whether young kids are better off in a formal school or a homeschooling environment in the early years, that's a whole different matter. Anyway, couldn't help but offer a contrasting viewpoint!

Hi Hannah, I'd be happy to contribute. Wayne

I am interested to hear if people have comparitive experience of the contract and perm work in Australia compared with the UK. I'm from a .net development background C#, SQL, Web and Desktop and have worked both purely technical contract roles, and team leadership perm positions over here and trying to work out which model would be better to aim for once visa gets sorted. I figure pay and competition for positions are relevant factors, as would be the impact of availability of finance i.e. mortgages if following a contracting model. Any feedback, advice or experiences anybody wants to share?

Thanks. If the income multiples concept doesn't exist, then that would explain why I couldn't quickly Google it! The affordability checks apply here in the UK to, but I always get the impression they are to refine from the income multiples figure and reduce based on lifestyle commitments. Over here in the UK, the general advice seems to be to live as frugally as possible in the months before a mortgage application to reduce the risk of lifestyle issues impacting your potential lending. I kind of have the hope that in Australia the banks lending criteria allow adult lenders to make their own responsible decisions. Things went a bit crazy here (from my perspective) after the 2007 crash.

Hi, I was wondering if anybody knows of any rule of thumb scenarios used in order to work out how much lenders will likely end in Australia? (My assumption is that these would be fairly generic across the country) The equivalent rule of thumb in the uk (based on my knowledge anyway) would be that a single mortgage applicant would be able to borrow 4 to 5 times their income. In order to achieve this, you normally have to have the first 10% of the purchase price available, referred to as the deposit. I did a bit of research on this a couple of months back that suggested that some of lenders will lend up to 7 times income with 5 times being more typical, and that additional insurance is required for high LTV mortgages. Thanks :)

Maybe Google Maps still works, so long as your device doesn't everyheat ?

Check out the user Australian Dream on youtube, one of her videos helped me. Out of interest, are you a native English speaker?

I wondered about this when I applied, less of an issue to me as I had 15 years experience, but I reasoned to myself that it is about how many years experience you have working at an intermediate to senior level that they are interested in. So, I work in software engineering and it is very common for people in their first two years to have job titles like "Graduate Developer" or "Junior Programmer" etc, or be treated as such within the organisation irrespective of title. I presume they have just taken the view that you are a "full" professional after you have spent time transferring what you learnt in text books to commercial scenarios. It makes sense to demand that your skilled migrants are experienced; why they don't just do their grading differently and increase the number of years required to hit different bands by +2 - no idea - maybe it makes too much sense! or maybe it is done to keep alignment with certain other industries or something.

Congratulations @Leighbee98 , I recognise your face from a few of the threads I've taken interest in here. Each step seems to take forever until it comes through out of the blue.

Out of interest, how do you find the UK during a heatwave?