Ballaratburd

Hi G, The group is called Ping Pong Poms and it will hopefully give you some insight from other people who have made the move. It’s a huge decision to make but I know in my heart of hearts it was the right one. I can’t comprehend what it must be like to still live in Australia with the current state of affairs, particularly Melbourne or Sydney. I can’t comment much on the school systems as my boys are both still nursery age but I have heard from fellow poms that the UK fairs betters overall, however I do like the fact they start school later in Oz, personally I feel that the more involved and invested parents are in their children’s educations the better the outcomes but of course the school culture has a massive impact. I have to be frank and say that the NHS is probably in a far worse state than even most people are aware of. Despite not missing Australia I find myself in the middle of the night pining for the hospitals and work culture I left behind in Victoria. The current state of affairs in Scotland is an absolute disgrace and I have started looking into private health insurance (which is very uncommon to do here) but I’m so appalled by what I see on shift every day, never mind the fact that you cannot see a GP for love nor money and some nights I’m being told a blue light ambulance will take 4-5 hours to transfer my patients to a bigger centre.

Hi Lacey, Sorry for late reply. Initially we bought a house on Howitt street near to the show grounds, we then sold that with the intention of building near to ballymanus and rented in Alfredton on Elaine avenue however we then made the decision to move home. I was working at the base part time whilst still on maternity leave from my main job at The Alfred in Melbourne, the base was nice enough and I got on well with the staff there but usual story, lots of acquaintances, no real friends, as is always the case with aussies. I met a few girls from mums group and I’m still vaguely in touch with one of them now but I’ll be honest and say I don’t miss Ballarat in the slightest (bar a big bowl of chips and glass of wine at the Lake View then a nice stroll around the lake haha) the reality of living there compared to our expectations when moving from Melbourne was vastly different. Where are you from in Scotland? Have you given anymore thought to a move home?

Hi Haggis, I was pleasantly surprised when I got the email notification about this reply to my old post as I haven’t logged into this forum for ages. We moved back in September 2020 and I can’t believe I have been home for almost a year. It was an extremely stressful experience and almost nothing went as planned initially when we moved home however slowly but surely we have managed to rebuild our lives after so many years. Perfectly happy to answer any specific questions. Also im quite active on a Facebook group which I found really helpful when making the decision to move back and I really recommend joining for good info. I also ended up being interviewed for a podcast on the subject. I’ll post the link below in case you are interested. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/britstralian/id1562466988?i=1000519675970 Where do you live and work in Ballarat? I’m quite open about the fact that moving to Ballarat from Melbourne was definitely the beginning of the end of my “Australian journey” but in all honesty I think I would have needed up coming home regardless where I ended up living. I could never 100% rule out a move back to Australia in the future but I doubt that I will, despite all the difficulties since returning and the disappointment of realising there was a reason I moved away from quite a few family members in the first place (!) I’m really glad to be back home and raising my kids in the country I feel we all belong. Good Luck, any questions just ask. Pam

Sorry to hijack an old thread, but we have recently returned to the UK and I am looking to transfer my Australian driver's licence transferred back to a UK one. My UK licence expired a couple of years ago, however my Australian (Vic) licence is current. I had been under the impression that I could just get it transferred over, but on the DVLA website it says I need to have been resident in UK for 185 days before I can transfer it over. I really need a UK licence for work purposes and this could throw a spanner in the works. From the posts here, others seem to have just transferred it, I'm wondering if the rules have changed recently or if the fact I did have a UK licence previously means I don't need ot have been resident to renew it. Any help from someone who has done it recently would be appreciated.

I've only been here for 7 years and still in contact with a few friends from my old ward so luckily that part wasn't too bad. Currently still waiting fo Ahpra to do their bit and its asking for a supporting declaration and not sure what that is as a police officer friend at home and my manager here have both completed their sections. I applied for nurse bank and they got back to me and said they wouldn't consider my application until i was in the country (not that i was surprised, even after 7 years they are still as uptight an organisation as ever) I will also most likely be going back to a grad nurse pay as a band 5 despite being a band 7 here but again if our jobs were the only consideration we wouldnt be leaving Australia in the first place! I also feel like I am done with Australia as does my husband, ive been advised by plenty that this is just a difficult period in my life (which it is of course with 2 children under 2) and that it will be fine once they go to kinder/school etc but ultimately i dont want my kids to grow up here for a multitude of reasons and whilst we loved Melbourne as a younger childless couple as I said previously my priorities in life have changed and I dont have the same view of the UK and Scotland as i had previously. Amazing how some time away (and no doubt an increase in maturity) can change your perspective on things. What age is your son? Is there no chance of him joining you at any point?

I’m sure it will have massive challenges, the area I’m from in Scotland is quite deprived so i know that will be even more challenging however I’ve been feeling over the past few years that it’s definitely something I would like to do. I’ve basically had 2 under 2 with a husband who works 60 hours per week, zero family support and not much in the way of friends around either, it’s completely changed my way of thinking and what I want out of my career (previously I had aspirations of going higher up in hospital administration) but since having my boys I’ve realised I would really like to work with other mums, particularly those who don’t have great support. I’ve been quite involved with the breastfeeding association here and I considering applying for midwifery but now we are going gone I’m eligible to apply for a traineeship so we shall see how things go. How many years were you in Australia? Do you feel confident that you have made the right decision? I’m 100% sure that this is the right decision for my family but I’m sad to leave Australia, I really did think I would live here forever.

I have a crit care/trauma background and for the past three years I’ve been a bed manager and after hours coordinator initially at the Alfred then latterly at Ballarat, however believe it or not I am keen to retrain as a health visitor I looked into doing it here but of course needed my midwifery which I don’t have. KPI obsession is something I’m obviously very familiar with but overall do you still enjoy your role?

Hi Amber, I must admit that going back to work for the NHS is the thing I am dreading about going home (that and the horrendous cold sideways rain that Scotland has in abundance) im sorry to hear about your health issues, I have often wondered how I would cope if I was diagnosed with a chronic condition or even if I had an accident and was unable to work for a period of time. The reality of the situation is that now we have kids all of our reasons for being here no longer matter, I know that we will all be better off in Scotland and I’ll just have to suck it up and go back to being a frazzled, over worked NHS nurse.

Hi Lynne, I really enjoyed reading your post. Our situations have a lot of similarities. My husband and I moved to Melbourne from Glasgow in 2013. We moved to regional Victoria in 2018 after the birth of our first child but to be honest we have both felt pretty unsettled since then, we had another baby not long after, just before covid hit we had put our house on the market and had an offer accepted on land to build a house here and I think I must be one of the few people who feels they benefited from covid because the impact it had on our housing plans made us take a massive step back and re evaluate our lives and we realised that really we are no longer happy here and exactly as you put it "Our Aussie dream has run its course" I am a nurse also and my husband is a police officer. I managed to work my way up the chain pretty quickly here and I am now a Grade 5, my husband earns a lot more here than he did in Scotland and the working conditions for both of us are much better but honestly our earnings in no way make up for the increased cost of living and since I went part time I feel like we are constantly struggling for cash and I cant believe we were considering increasing our mortgage by so much to build. My husband works ridiculous hours here and commutes one hour each way to work, I am home with our two boys as still on maternity leave and have zero support network and I feel so incredibly bored and lonely. I have picked up lots of friends over the years and the majority of them have flitted in and out of my life, I find Australians to be very "on the surface" and I have struggled to develop any deep friendships and apart from two friends (one irish and one scottish) I dont feel I have anyone I can rely on here whereas I have stayed in touch with a lot of friends at home and also have my Dad, sister and several extended family members I am in touch with often. Since becoming a mum my entire outlook on life here has changed dramatically. I hate that my boys are hidden away at the arse end of the world and I honestly thought to myself one day a few months ago "why am i choosing to be this miserable" I love the weather and I love my job, but these things are no longer as important to me as before. I really tossed up just powering through, knowing that this period in my life would be difficult regardless and once my boys are older It will get easier but really I know I would be delaying the inevitable and I didnt want to find myself feeling like this in 8 years time when the kids are settled at school and its an upheaval to them. Ultimately they were born here and we are all citizens so if they decide in the future to come back then they can freely. As soon as we both admitted we were on the same page and wanted to go home its been all systems go and tonight we booked flights for the 8th of September, I still have a million things to organise but I now feel like I am 100% making the right decision and I cannot wait to be back in my homeland and I really feel I will have a new found fondness for the place. I would be really interested to hear what you decide to do. Good Luck with it all, its an incredibly hard decision to make

Hi there, Thanks for your reply, fortunately my husband and I are both in jobs that are always unaffected by economic downturns. Both the NHS and the police are having recruitment drives at the moment so it appears we will be able to obtain employment easily. I have debated this decision more than any other decision I have made in my life and overall I feel the benefits of moving home to be closer to our families far outweigh the negatives.

Completely understand. Dogs are family. Can I ask what airline she used? We are looking at flying home late this year and will be taking our dog with us. Thanks

I’ve been discussing it extensively with my husband over the past few days and I think we are going to give it a go. We effectively have nothing to lose. Our children are so young that they will never know any different, we are citizens and we can both come back to our jobs easily enough if it doesn’t work out.

We have our citizenship so going home and “trying it out” is a definite option. It’s just a very overwhelming decision to make I suppose

Thank you. I fear that if we don’t do it now that it will keep rearing it’s ugly head until we do go back and by then it would be much more difficult

Hi everyone. I posted here last year about the same topic but given that I’m considering moving home again I wanted to have a chat about it in a forum that can be non objective. My husband and I moved to Melbourne from Glasgow almost 7 years ago, we now live in Ballarat (small city 100km west of Melbourne) it took a bit of time but we finally managed to get into good jobs over here (nurse and policeman) bought a house, have recently had our second child and just purchased a block of land with the intent of building our dream home. I was very homesick after the birth of our first child but it subsided for the most part however recently (past 6 months) my husband has admitted that he feels like he is “done with Australia” He isint unhappy, doesn’t mind work and likes where we live, but for the most part he says he doesn’t fit in here and I tend to agree with him. We have no real friends here, I have lots of friends from work and mums groups but no one that I feel I could call on in a real emergency. I miss my friends and family at home and I do feel like I am depriving them from having a real relationship with my two sons. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic I now feel genuine turmoil because since he told me this all I can think about is whether moving back home would be the right thing for our family? I really enjoy my job here and I love so many aspects of the lifestyle but Is having better pay and working conditions and better weather and access to the outdoors worth never feeling that proper sense of belonging? It’s also a real struggle sometimes having two young children, a husband who works long hours and zero support. Not really sure what I am looking for here, just a bit of chat really and perspective from other poms I suppose. I should add that we became citizens last month and have extremely transferable jobs so if the worst came to the worst and we hated being at home then we could always come back, however I also feel I can’t really just use that as a back up because I’m a mum of two now and things are very different from moving here as a young couple with no ties and responsibilities. Thanks for reading

Hi everyone, Husband and I (Both Scottish) have been living in Victoria for 6 years now (5 years in Melbourne and now 1 year in Ballarat) but we have never been able to shake the feeling that perhaps we chose the wrong state when we first moved here. Don’t get me wrong there are a lot of things I love about living here, and now being in a large country town with Melbourne on our doorstep as opposed to living in the centre where it is extremely busy, massive housing costs, traffic blah blah blah it’s much better, but we both still talk often about how we wish we had moved to a warmer climate. Now that we have a toddler and another baby on the way, nightlife/restaurants/cafe culture isint anywhere near as important as it used to me and I still dream of the warmer weather, large house with a pool, taking my kids to the beach on the weekend, bbq for dinner most nights etc etc Anyways, looking to hear from those who are living in Western Australia (even better if you have lived in Victoria as well) What do you love about it? Why should we move (or not move) As although I love the look of Queensland, WA is much more feasible for us job wise as my husband could transfer easily with no training or setbacks. we could both earn more money in WA and from what I can see now the mining boom is over housing is much more affordable. Thanks everyone

He is a submarine engineer funnily enough. Any tips on the best place to look for jobs for him?

I think most likely south Australia but they haven’t even got as far as looking for jobs yet as I had advised that getting the visa first was the best option, however that was when I thought his job was eligible for a 189

Hi all, asking a few questions on behalf of a friend who visited me in March and has been talking about moving here ever since. Her husband is a marine engineer which is on the skills list but only eligible for the 187 RSMS visa. Am I correct in saying that he would need to secure employment first then apply for this visa? Is it possible to get the visa application in motion then try to apply? Does anyone have any experience of this visa living in regional Victoria? Since I live in regional Victoria I figured I would start my research based on that. Thanks again

Possibly the most diplomatic way I have ever heard Australia Post described haha

Thank you. It’s good to know it’s not a long wait time.

Oh I found a lot of things in life simpler in the UK. Not saying that I preferred living there, I love living in Australia but Australians have a knack of making even the most simple thing complicated [emoji6]

Not really simpler. It appears i need to apply for a citizenship certificate for him, and have to send in an identity form for the baby, proof of our PR status and his birth certificate (all certified of course) not that any of this surprises me. If there is a way of making things complicated the Aussies will always do it [emoji849]

Thank you. I was afraid that was the case.

Sorry if this post is in the wrong place. Both my husband and I are permanent residents and our baby was born in Sep 2018 in Melbourne. I need to apply for an Australia passport for him and it’s unclear online whether I have to apply for the citizenship certificate for him or if his birth certificate is sufficient evidence. Can anyone shed some light? I don’t want to pay $190 for the certificate if I don’t need to. TIA