Nyxkat

Hehe thanks. We ended up in the Novotel on Murray Street. It was decent though they needed to work on their organisation a tad.

I would also suggest speaking with a MARA registered agent to get an idea of what would be best for your circumstances. It's a first step a can really help clarify what you need and where to start and narrows down your options so is well worth the small consultation fee. There's no obligation to go with the agent you consult either, you can decide that later. Though I highly recommend one. There are some on this forum with good reputations including Paul Hand who has already replied here.

Quarantine exit day woohoo! Its been an experience. If I had to I could do this again but I am thankful for a few things. Having my partner here with me made this all the more bearable, having brought enough to occupy my mind throughout helped so much too. I brought my switch, laptop and we even managed to wrangle a micro gaming pc in our hand luggage! I also had my crochet and we brought a card game too. If you want to eat off of decent plates you will likely have to risk trying to bring your own bowl/ plate but most places provide you one set of cutlery per person for the duration on your stay. Suggestions: Bring moisturiser, your skin can and will dry out in the constant air con. Bring slippers/house shoes if your feet are prone to the cold from air con. Don't break your tv the first day you are here (partner managed to somehow delink the TV as soon as we got here lol. Luckily we were able to stream via our computers to the tv) Bring plenty of varied things to do! I cannot stress this enough, it is boring in quarantine. You will need entertainment and hobbies. Be prepared to be forced into the hotels schedule/ Routine. We had breakfast at 07:30, lunch at 11:30 and dinner at 17:30. It was like being 5 again O.0 Overall we had a decent stay it wasn't too bad food wise though they did forget us for food occasionally which was corrected but was annoying. if you find yourself in the unfortunate circumstances of having one of the hotels that shows up bad on rate my plate quarantine Australia I am sorry. There is a light though, you can tell them not to bother with the food and order in from woolies or coles. I would suggest checking with your hotel how that works with the payment etc though before you cancel altogether. To the staff working these quarantine hotels - you folks are great! Thank you for all your hard work, I understand it is not easy. Thank you for being patient, polite and helpful.

You can also apply for the travel exemption multiple times without penalty.

The first one sounds like you might get stuff for the visa cost on top of whatever they're quoting later. The second one sounds much more realistic though they could have quoted you the prices of all the visa options you have but depending on how many options you have that could get confusing. Your best bet would be to go through the agents on this forum that Marissa mentioned above and go with who you feel fits you best. The agents on this forum recommendation come so via positive experiences from forum users and are active here as well as being MARA registered.

So many forms!

Yeah we brought laptops and switches and kindles! We knew we would need them. We seem to be stuck with standard aussie TV but there are options to use our Netflix etc so not too bad!

Hi Cal, thank you! We are both so excited and are really looking forward to getting out there and finding a home etc. Its such an adventure for us even with all the stress it brings of packing and so so much de cluttering.

Wasn't sure where to put this so figured here was an okay fit. We made it to Perth after 24 hours of travel, 3 flights and a lot of crazy spoiling in first class which was cheaper than economy by the time we got to booking our flights (I know, what a strange world currently!) It was crazy expensive but the extra space on the flights was worth it. Quarantine is going okay so far but dont quote me on that in a week haha (it's our first full day in quarantine). We got a good night's sleep and the room is decent if a bit small. My partner has an rrv and I am going to be applying onshore for a defacto partner visa in the next few days. We are lucky to have been able to get to this point and we are very happy to be here. Border staff were great, don't be shy about talking to them about your trip and your reasons for going etc. They're used to seeing tired travelers! I am happy to talk about the process and what its like in quarantine etc. I have seen a few posts questioning the process. It is going to be different from state to state and hotel to hotel so some of my experiences won't be as helpful or shouldn't be taken as going to or not going to happen. A few faq things: Yes you get fed in quarantine. You get 3 meals a day at a cost to yourself as part of the quarantine package you pay for. Though if you're in a self catering unit I don't know how that works as I am not in one. Yes you can order food and groceries in but they will not usually be delivered to you until they do a run up to your floor so be sure to time it with the meal or drop off runs. This also varies per state and area and hotel I believe so check your check in paperwork. No you cannot have visitors or meet up with other guests in the hallways. It's called quarantine for a reason hehe. No you don't get a choice of room or hotel etc. You will be assigned a place and taken to it upon arrival after some security checks etc. I hope this helps and puts some minds at rest. I will try and answer any questions but please remember that my experience will be different to yours and the rules will change or be a bit different state to state hotel to hotel.

Hello! We just got into our quarantine in Perth. From what it looks like in the paperwork if you arrive between midnight and 07:30 am you would have to wait until 2:30 pm to leave, whereas the rest of the time you would be checked out at the time of arrival or 2:30pm depending on whether you had had your health check and got a pass to be let out by then. ETA: it is not guaranteed you will get to leave 2 weeks after you arrive. If you show symptoms or get a positive pcr you will be staying longer so you need to be prepared for this eventuality. I would suggest taking Nemesis advice and not book your onward journey until you are cleared from quarantine.

I got my inbound travel exemption after 4 attempts (yay!). I feel like we need a thread on this as it is a tricky thing to navigate, so here goes. My experience with the process was a frustrating one but luckily I got mine on our 4th attempt. Some people have been trying a lot more than that. I've seen people talking about their 10th application etc. From my application process what I learned was that structure matters. Organise your documents well. Ours were already very well organised - I had to go super picky on it. If you are applying for a partner exemption you seriously need to have your stuff together. It's almost like applying for the partner visa itself, you have to show almost as much evidence. If you get rejected get right back on it, organise it some more and add more details and proof. Keep on applying. If you are applying to leave Australia you need to get your stat dec written and organised well. Depending on your reason for leaving you will need proof eg: medical letters for compassionate grounds or proof you have ended jobs and left houses If you are relocating. If you are applying to enter Australia for compassionate grounds be prepared to provide medical proof and letters from docs. The most important thing is stay positive, you will get there! Good luck to you and don't let the rejections get to you, they're just struggling right now and the clearer you make it for them the better your chances.

I would highly recommend using a MARA agent, you have two who have replied to your post here who come with great reputations. Make sure any agent you pick is MARA registered.

When you say your official 2 year mark do you mean that that is when you put in your apication or when you got the 820? I have seen it mentioned a lot here that it will be from the date you lodged the application, but you should double check with your MARA agent to be certain. My knowledge isn't professional in any way.

We are flying late August so not got there yet

How long is it until you go? Quarantine for pets is booked out months in advance so it's good to get in early. There's also a surprising amount of stuff to be done before you can even book quarantine. The rabies vaccine needs to be proven to be working -and- needs at least 180 days (at least for cats) in the system after their labs get to the lab which is another 6 weeks ish on top of the timescale. (This is going to Australia) Pet Air have been great for us so far with our 2 cats. Edit: removed a comment about direction of travel as I got it wrong. Edit 2: typo correction

I'm inclined to agree with Marisa here. You will forever be wondering and wanting to try if you don't try now. Go out, test the waters and see how it feels. You don't have to make a decision right there and then but it will help you think it through.

Yeah I realised thus and posted above x

Ahh I didn't realise dfat was an official thing, that makes loads more sense *facepalm*

Yep definitely a scam. There should only be gov.au after the @ if its official government stuff. Scammers often make fake domains that look somewhat official to seem like they are the real thing.

Yeah I think he is settled on using iron chef if he moves the bratty car (long story but I swear his car dislikes me lol). I plan on going to the Saturday craft market in freo if it is still going when we arrive and pass quarrantine. I can locate yarn crafters and sew types there to ask too. And I know there's at least one crafty artisan shop. I am also hoping I can take my crochet hooks and some wool with me on the flight so I have something to do in quarantine. I know there's some restrictions on this sort of thing and they would go in the hold not my hand luggage.

Was the first day of madness today. My shop opened so I was there managing the queue today. There were tens of thousands of people out today of not more. The queue for my charity shop wasn't too bad, between 4 and 12 people long, but no one was bothered about distancing. People queueing for primark were all scrunched up together too and that queue was over a mile long today. It went up the high street to the park and zig zagged around for a while o.0 There were people drinking outside pubs at 9am. It's going to be hard keeping those numbers good when people are behaving so badly.

Interesting info! Thank you. I shall investigate that option as that seems like a good interim measure to take.

Not exactly. There's already a huge impact on trade and transportation of goods. I've seen people who have had to pay more for the import of their item than the actual item costs, -after- they had ordered it, charged as extra by the shipping company for the extra costs of shipping. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/buying-online-from-europe-post-brexit/ Keeping on topic though I am hoping for a bit more of a rise. I plan on getting some currency soonish with some if my redundancy pay as we are planning to move to Australia in August. It will take a bit before I can get a bank set up properly and want to have a little bit of cash for the smaller stuff and to pay my way till I have an account (bf will have cards he can use and already has an aussie account).

Things may appear to be moving fast here but they really are not. Yes the vaccine rollout is excellent. The rest of it is a total cluster fudge. It's been one awful decision after another and things are still opening up too early IMO. Also they've been letting people travel to the UK this whole time pretty much only deciding to restrict certain arrivals after 8 months of covid. Don't get me wrong I'm definitely amazed at the vaccine rollout it has been impressive. Though even the vaccine rollout has had its issues. Currently there's potential links to blood clotting in certain brands which is extremely rare but is worrying enough people to cause low key chaos at hospitals with people showing up with mild symptoms because they're scared. And then there'd the holdups of transporting the vaccines due to brexit and the petty arguments that have stemmed over that. We are far from okay here. Please send caramello koalas and corn jacks. On the subject of the actual post, agz15 I'm sorry you're going through that. I would definitely wait till you have citizenship before doing anything. Maybe you can go back fir a holiday/extended visit when it is safer to and see how you feel after returning? (Don't go rn, returning is super difficult). If you feel like you need a change you could move to a slightly different area, say the next suburb over, rather than a whole new city. The urge to want to avoid certain places goes away after a while and feelings will settle.

Yeah he is mulling that over to be fair. It's a BMW convertible so apparently very desirable over there. It's more whether it's worth the hassle. Honestly I haven't got a favourite brand as such for yarn, though stylecraft has always been nice. I go by colour and texture mostly. I do have a soft spot for cake yarns though (like Caron cakes) as I love the ways they colour shift. I have a bunch of stylecraft tweed super chunky xl I may get some more of as it is so soft. It crochet and loom knits up a dream.