Cobs_Ahoy

10 hours ago, Marisawright said:

I think the Northern Rivers has one of the densest populations of koalas anywhere in Australia, but sadly that's not saying much, as koalas are on the verge of being endangered. It's hard to find koalas in the wild. They're always high up in the treetops and all you can see is a round furry bum!  

The Port Macquarie Koala Hospital is well worth a trip as, being a hospital, they have more than the average number of babies, and there's nothing cuter than a koala with a bandaged paw.

The Billabong Zoo, also in Port Macquarie, is also good - you can hand feed kangaroos and wallabies and they have a koala breeding centre.

https://www.billabongzoo.com.au/

 

That's great, will definitely print all these bits out to show my daughter. My sister 'adopted' a koala for her last Christmas, I checked the certificate last night and its from a place called Taronga Zoo in NSW, so will add a trip there to the Koala Overload List! Not sure what I will do if she's totally lost interest in them by the time we get there!

I didn't expect the invite that quick either @BoldyC I had a very stressful call with the Passport Office yesterday, not a good time to be wanting a quick turnaround!

I'm not sure about your codes, I'm sure I read that if they are closely related (which you can tell by so many digits at the start being the same) its ok, but I'd look into it if I were you. Sounds like you have had some very intense jobs though, I hope you get some good supervision to debrief!

11 minutes ago, BoldyC said:

Hi, I am new to this forum. I just wanted to give some hope to you if offshore.

We decided to start the visa process January 2021, we gathered documents etc and I passed the IELTs. 

We finally submitted our EOI October 2021 and we received an ITA for a 491 family sponsored visa last Thursday.

I am a registered children's nurse and we had 75 points.

Great to hear, congratulations on getting your invite! I’m currently battling UK passport office as all our passports are with them, but we need them for the visa application I received my ITA the day after I sent my passports off, and now passport waiting times are an average of 10 weeks! 

20 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

In that case, maybe tell her that you're going to move to where the koalas live?

If you take her to the nearest koala park to your new home as soon as you arrive, I doubt she'll mind whether it's the exact same koalas or not. I think you're going to Northern NSW - maybe you should give some thought to Port Macquarie

https://www.koalahospital.org.au/

https://www.portstephenskoalasanctuary.com.au/

 

Yes I am going to Northern NSW, well remembered! A trip to a koala park upon landing is a great idea, thanks for the links,  I will have a good luck at them this evening. 

Is port Macquarie particularly good for koala spotting then? We are tied to living as far south as Grafton (Northern Rivers have sponsored my visa), but would love to do some road trips to places where my daughter could spot some koalas! 

8 hours ago, calNgary said:

As long as your kids are with you they will be happy at that age. Our eldest was a touch older when we moved and it was a big adventure to him. We showed him on the internet the area we planned on moving too and all the activities we wanted to do when we arrived. He was happy enough and even helped sorting his toys/books etc when the time came to de clutter.

 Good luck with everything

     Cal x

Planning arrival activities is a good idea, she is obsessed with Izzys Koala world so might do a google earth tour of magnetic island and get her involved in planning a trip up there. 

9 hours ago, Quoll said:

I'd agree with Eera, she won't understand the implications of it until it happens and she cant go and visit her nanna or play with her current friends.  Kids are remarkably resilient and for the little kids "home" is mummy, daddy, their toys, their room and their pets regardless of which continent it may be on.  She may hate you for removing her from something she loves, she may not, you won't know until it's happened.  She may settle, she may not, you won't know until you've tried it but the vast majority of kids settle quite well so the best you can do is be in tune if she remains unsettled for a longer time (very rare but it has been known to happen).  It really only gets difficult when they are older and there are all sorts of "belonging" issues.  Thinking about change of home when I was about that age and I really cant remember a thing about it - cant remember what, if anything, my parents told me, it was a grown up thing and it happened - I was still "home" with mummy and daddy and my bear Billy so all was good with the world.

That’s helpful to hear, I can’t remember moving to Portugal for a year when I was 4, but then I suppose we don’t always have to remember something for it to have had an impact. I’m hoping she will settle quickly once in school, as she is starting to get to an age where her sense of self comes largely from school/friends and others outside the immediate family unit. 
 

She is sensitive but also adventurous, so fingers crossed she will be able to focus on the excitement of it all, and that she is young enough to not feel the culture shock too much.

10 hours ago, Eera said:

Wouldn't worry about it too much; it's going to be a completely meaningless concept for her.  She might understand that she won't see her friends anymore but in reality that's no different to going to a different school.

My brother is autistic and has that whole hate of change thing on a different level, a major life change was easier for him to deal with than a simple break in routine.  And yeah, with ping-pong parents I got the "we are moving halfway around the world" several times, I remember really resenting the last move when I was in high school, but wasn't given the choice so had to lump it.  I don't actually remember the earlier moves too much. 

Thanks Eera, I hadn’t really thought about differences in how me and my daughter view the magnitude of the move in comparison to other changes. Because in my eyes the change is so much bigger than anything else we’ve done before, I’ve presumed it will be the same for her, but actually I guess when you are 6 moving to Australia is probably on a par with lots of changes that an adult would consider minor.
 

when we bought our first home it was about 5 streets over from where we were renting, and her distress really took me by surprise. She spent months asking to move back, although she was two at the time. Now she tells me she never wants to leave our current house, hopefully she will be saying the same about Australia soon!

Ahhhh Sunshine Coast was exactly where I wanted to go, unfortunately with Queensland closed to offshore applicants I decided to just go as far north in NSW as I could! 
 

I joined some Facebook groups recently to scope out visa times, 95% of what’s posted on them is useless but I kept my eyes out for nurses posting their grant times just to give me an idea.

Good luck with your application, hope you get some reassuring feedback from your agent on Monday, it’s nail biting waiting for stuff like this but seems like the visa-God’s are looking favourably on you at the minute! 

Ahhhhhh, you’ve got a family sponsored 491, maybe that’s why you got invited as I think the invites for that stream are selected by Department of Home Affairs rather than the individual states, so QLD being closed doesn’t make any difference in those cases. Might be wrong though, I haven’t got an agent so have read quite a bit about the process, some of it is likely wrong! 
 

sounds like you’ve had a really tough pandemic, sounds like thing could be looking up for you now? Where in Queensland are you hoping to go? My 491 limits me to the northern rivers area of NSW, I’ve potentially got some work around Byron/Tweed/Lismore.

I got my state nomination through on 8th April and visa invite on 20th, aiming to get out there by October if processing for nurses keeps at current times, but have to sell our house first and reluctant to that before the visa is granted (for reason you will probably understand more than most!).

Great to hear of someone squeezing through in the nick of time! It’s tough being in limbo when you have kids, we’ve been plotting this for a couple of years and just at the stage of telling people now we’ve received the invite, will be telling the kids first (our eldest is 6 and youngest is 2).
 

Out of interest, how many points did you have for the 491? I got invited by NSW as in offshore nurse with 90points (including the 15 for nomination).

Now things are looking more certain with our visas, we are at the point of telling people our plans. Obviously there is the usual guilt in terms of parents etc, but I’m ok with that, my biggest concern is telling my 6 year old daughter. Has anyone got any experience of telling primary-aged kids about the move? 
 

I know different approaches are going to be needed for different kids, but it helps to hear how others have gone about it, what the reaction was like, and how things went once they were actually in Australia. 
 

my daughter is very sensitive and hates change, so I already have an idea of how the news is going to go down.....

Oh I see, well fingers crossed for you, at least you have an agent to run it past. Logically you would hope that if it isn’t linked to points then it won’t matter. 

There is a person on here ( @Bluey128 I think) who recently mentioned sticking an EoI into QLD even though she is offshore as her agent said they do sometimes invite, so perhaps you are just very lucky and your profession is desperately needed.

I saw that NSW invited a load of teachers recently, and their premier is now encouraging non-vaccinated teachers to return to their previous jobs, so I’m guessing there is a real shortage in some states. 

I’m not sure about your citizenship issue, although would hope it’s not a problem if the change happened after QLD invited you and doesn’t effect your points, but will you have an issue with some of the QLD nomination requirements? As you said, they are (supposedly) closed to offshore applicants, and some of their requirements would be impossible/difficult to meet unless you were onshore - eg having worked full time in Queensland for 6 months, having a job offer, etc.

So the problem I’m having is that I don’t have scans of my husband’s or daughter’s passports, and having just spoke to DoHA on the phone they seemed to think that even if I did have scans I shouldn’t put those details in as they are no longer accurate

The guy I spoke to was really nice and having spoken to the technical support team he seemed to think there were a couple of options. They me to put it in writing via the technical support form and wait to hear back from them. It will be a nail biting couple of weeks for me I think!

Thanks @rammygirl that’s a good idea. I was worried as my 2 year old has never had a passport, but have seen on the form you only have to put passport details for over 5s at this stage

.....and add it later in the process?

I submitted my nomination application to NSW last week, and then realised some of our passports had expired and others were due to over the next 12 months. I sent them all in yesterday thinking I would have 4-6 weeks for the nomination to be processed, but have woke up this morning to an approved nomination and Invitation to Apply for my visa. I know I have 60 days to lodge the visa application and fingers crossed they will be back before then as current processing time is estimated at 20-30 days, but if there is a delay am I able to lodge my visa application and then add the passport numbers at a later date?

NSW Nomination approved today and ITA received a few hours later so excited!

I’m in the NHS too Ruth and I reckon that’s a big factor in my current to desire to move! I’m totally burnt out in my current job and ready for a change. I’ve just been invited for a 491 visa and it’s only been in the past few days I’ve started to have a wobble, although I’ve got two young kids and the majority of my concern is around them. 
 

I think ambivalence around a massive decision is normal and to be expected as the reality of making the move gets closer, but I would agree with the others that it’s worth a gamble if you don’t have kids and your partner is up for it.

That’s a strange thing for them to ask for?!? Mind you, I’m not sure why NSW wanted my professional references, particularly when they already had my skills assessment.

Not had an invite yet, their website said 4-6 weeks for processing the application. Nice to have some progress though, even if each step brings me closer to bankruptcy! 

Great news on the nomination Bluey! I just completed my nomination application with NSW by myself and it was fairly straightforward, they didn’t ask for anything that I didn’t already have from doing ANMAC and AHPRA - they wanted skills assessment, professional references, English Test, ID stuff, PDFs of the EOI.

They hadn’t updateD some of their forms (still made reference to Australian Residency etc), but they got back to my emails really quickly, and after I’d submitted they got in touch with me again to ask for a couple more documents, so it wasn’t a case of ‘if your application is missing something you are rejected’. But I don’t what the other states are like, they might have a more hardline approach.

just to warn you though, in NSW they had outsourced the 491 nomination processing to the individual regions, and northern rivers charged $800 to process it! I almost cried, I was expecting the $300 NSW fee, but $800 took me by surprise. It seems like there are hidden (Or at least not obvious) costs all through the migration process - when I applied to AHPRA I paid the first fee, (which seemed expensive) and almost fell off my chair when there were another 2 fees further along the process. 

28 minutes ago, ramot said:

 my cousins 3 children went to the Catholic school in Alstonville and then on to university and good jobs. They have all traveled extensively, and my niece worked in London for Deloitte’s. They never seemed bored growing up there, all the usual activities are available but would have gone to Ballina I’m sure for the cinema, more likely to Lennox though for the beach and surfing. I’ll ask them one day if they felt they missed out not living in Ballina, but I know my cousin has loved living there, from the 1990’s when she moved there from Zambia, had her children there and made great friends. Sometimes a smaller community has a lot to offer.

ps don’t eat the cakes if you go to Nimbin!!!!

I watched a video on the Nimbin 'Mardi Grass' last night, it was hilarious, reminded me of Leamington Spa Peace Festival.

Alstonville sounds great, very much what we are looking for, will add to the list of youtube drive around videos that I seem to spend my evening watching......

Thanks @Bluey128   feels such a relief to have some movement. I started gathering documents for my skills assessment last June, so its taken a while to get to this point, and god knows how long it will take to actually get the grant! Fingers crossed for you and your partner, hope you get some positive news soon.

Thanks @Marisawright 

Thanks @NickyNook and @ramot that's really helpful, I'll have a look into the areas you've both mentioned. From watching some youtube videos on Nimbin I'm having flashbacks to when I lived in the South West and we used to go Glastonbury, very surreal!

Does anyone have any personal experience with primary schools? I know its a very personal choice in so far as different children/parents want different things from schools, but its always helpful to hear the first hand experiences of others. 

Thanks @Bobj that’s good to know