beketamun

what is wrong with Wollongong? Never been there, but met somebody recently who was saying it's not bad to live in.

I used to get hayfever in England every few years, but luckily have avoided it here and don't know why...different pollen? The amount of pollen that comes down here is astronomical, we virtually have to hose it away and then wash all the garden furniture a few times in season.

As Bulya says, that's one part of Australia and probably only a place i'd like for some winter warmth, or for a 2 week beach holiday in the dry season. South East coast or just inland has lower humidity, four seasons, probably more sunshine and clearer days/nights than in the North East. Spring and Autumn are glorious, Winter is great for cold walks and slow cookers but i avoid the snow and ski bunch, Summer probably my least favourite which i never thought I'd say. In fact, the humidity inland can be so low in summer you need to spray saline up your nose to stop getting nosebleeds from dryness. It makes a 40+ degree day feel a lot cooler than it would further north, though we've not had one for a few years. Yes, in summer people are out at 6am exercising before work, but in late afternoon with a common temperature drop of 15-20 degrees at night, it's fresh enough to go out again and walk without bucketing sweat...I like the vibe. The food i agree about, they've never really taken on fast processed food in supermarkets, though there are more things like pre-made sandwiches on sale now although it's limited and they do not sell crisps or Mars Bars alongside them! Pret A Manger took a look here a few years ago and decided against opening up, they reckoned there was no market and they might have "done a Starbucks". Much more attention is focussed on fresh ingredients, home cooking and bringing in your own leftovers for lunch unless you're restauranting.

Flow Flex is available in Australia, I purchased these for myself before i left. They were also one of the private purchaseable UK ones for post-arrival testing for travellers where you send the test off with passport details for certification. Nobody contacted me about post-arrival testing back in Australia but we used the generic NHS ones in the white box.

Yeah, each household could get 7 per day delivered, or 14 per day if you gave them the code at a chemist and self-collected. Plenty of people i spoke to had never taken one, one person had had covid 4 times and just didn't bother getting tested anymore. Because I was looking after an elderly person i took a test every single day i was there ( because i was going out shopping and mixing etc), I tested them every 2 days, left a few boxes for them to use after i'd gone, and i brought some back for myself and family for our own arrival testing.

I watched that Elliot bloke on the news last night...what a pig. They play a video showing him accusing the Unions of "terrorist-like activity", then he immediately denies saying it despite the video just showing him saying it. He says he was in bed and knew nothing about the shutdown, now a text message is leaked that shows he WAS briefed and still decided to go to bed anyway ! Perrotet was also weak, slamming the Unions before it was revealed that it was his own Government that shut the services down, despite a legally agreed work protest in place that was protected. Suddenly...the whole Government caves in and decides to withdraw it's court case against the Unions and will now negotiate with them ! Is this the first case of a Union winning a battle with hamfisted politicians without having to do anything?

if you don't have to submit it, how will they know? Are all the NHS ones the same? I brought back 42 last week and they were all boxed the same, didn't see any other kinds.

I'd second somewhere near Circular Quay, or even a little further back within 5-10min walk. Near to trains, restaurants, ferries, Barangaroo, Darling Harbour, Tower, and all the shopping if you want it. You can then get a direct train from the airport very fast and hop off right by wherever you stay...i think it takes 13 minutes. We keep Opal cards and just tap on and off everywhere, much easier than cabs or Ubers. I actually think prices are very reasonable at the moment, there are bargains to be had. The Amora Jamison is right by Wynyard station in a really good spot and not bad prices, a decent 5* but only about $220 per night? We didn't eat there, but you don't need to if you're in that location. The Sheraton is right by St James's Station and Hyde Park, a little more expensive in April at about $300, but it was knocking $450 a couple of years ago. Another option is around Town Hall station, lots of reasonable places and access to Chinatown and loads of food and shopping. Another idea is to spend a morning on one of these opentop London buses, then go back and visit the places that look interesting. We went on for a joke and it took us to places we'd have never bothered with before, and some of the ones we'd planned to see we could jump on and off for a quick look without having to pay taxis.

It's a bit like jewellery that you value as an heirloom.... when somebody values it by weight it's scrap metal value unless you have provenance that means something to a complete stranger.

The last house we bought here, the real estate guy turned up in three different BMW's during the course of the sale....they have made an absolute fortune in the last 12 months with the rocketing prices and I expect a lot will be retiring early. They are on a different level with the marketing over here though, rapid to get to market, strict advice on how to present the property, professional photographs, drones for the listing videos, open homes with multiple staff to deal with the hassle, they push hard to get the sale, you get the surveys done in advance so they're ready for viewing at open home. It's a totally different experience, and if prices have risen 40% in a year they are going to be going all out to grab those sales margins. Contrast to selling in the UK which i've just arranged. The Estate Agent is really nice, he takes his own photo's with a phone camera (they're crap) , was warning that the process will take 16 weeks from offer acceptance, was wondering when they could send people round alone for viewings, wasn't fussed about the house presentation. He nearly fell off his chair when i said in Australia we're expected to complete within 30 days, or less at an auction. They did try and reform the UK process to speed it up a few years ago but it's still very basic and undeveloped.

Aldi wine is pretty good...was it an imported one? A lot of the Aldi brands are ghost marketing names, they don't actually exist but are used to sell high quality surplus wine at a cheaper price without revealing the name of the actual winery it's come from, who won't want to damage their usual retail pricing. Costco also do some very good wine under the Kirkland brand, again you don't know the actual vineyard but they obviously have some very good deals setup with places that usually sell at a higher price under a different name. Usually applies in the USA for Californian or South American wines, but occasionally Australia gets some imported. Yet to discover whether they have deals with Aussie wineries. I have a friend who's never bought a bottle of Aussie wine with a label on it..she grabs the clearskins from the baskets and reckons she's never had a bad one. Cheap as chips.

we were the opposite....we never drank at home in the UK, always always a social thing in a pub. In Oz, we have so much beer at home it's untrue, but drink it in moderation. The social UK thing ended up being binge and session drinking with mates and very enjoyable it was...but hardly been drunk in Oz in 10 years.

I think the rule used to be that if you went straight into paid employment in Australia then you could request to pay Class 2, which is a lot cheaper. I've got a few years to top up....not sure if they will change the rate in April when the UK hits it's people with a big NI contribution rise. As Marisawright says, get onto them early because communication from the UK can take bloody ages.

He's from Queensland, I think he's from Brisbane originally but was in the armed forces so travelled.

We did a Xmas in Noosa once....loved it. Homemade Xmas lunch on a big balcony, crisp white wine and a koala in the tree right by us. But to live there....not a chance, you can hardly get past the roundabout in a car. I'm working with a bloke in Canberra from the SC, they built early around Kawana Waters and he worked on the new hospital...the plan was to stay, retire, look after the grandkids. They've now left it because of the traffic up there, he said it was worse than anywhere he's lived ! Whole lot of them decamped south, wife, children, grandchildren.

for water you just need to confirm if it's in or out....if it's in you need to see the bills and you evaluate that against your rental cost. It's not expensive really. We were presented with 3 years of water bills when we left our rental many years ago. We argued and didn't pay it, the assumption was that water was included in the rental as we had never been presented with a bill and the landlady had done a dodgy by putting two houses on 1 meter so our house was never even registered....luckily the landlady had no idea anyway and hadn't checked anything herself, so we were fine. We had a new property and got the landlord to pay for the physical installation of a Telstra line...it used to be that it was required for emergencies so was necessary building infrastructure. Now with NBN and mobile technology taking over...it's grey. It's worth going to NBN checker and putting the address in, to see what technology mix the property has. Assuming you're not in the outback, it should be pretty simple. If you're already connected, which you should be, you choose an ISP deal and they sell you your internet connection over NBN infrastructure, you don't need to contact NBN itself unless the physical connection is not there in the first place. If it's not connected to anything, i would try the landlord and see if they will pay that initial connection charge, as it will obviously be a property improvement available for all future tenants. https://www.nbnco.com.au/connect-home-or-business/check-your-address For the bond, take photo's on the day you take up the lease. Occasionally at the end of the lease unscrupulous landlords try and claim back stuff like dead grass and relaying turf, or worn out carpets....and they'll try and take this from the rental bond so they don't have to return it to you. You don't have to improve anything for them, just maintain and hand it back in the same state, allowing for normal wear and tear. If you've torn a hole in the wall.....yeah, the bond will be used to cover repairs.

Simple way to find out is to apply for one. About 25 years ago i had a UK friend who applied for US citizenship and declared a spent conviction from years previously and was then asked to provide further details. It turned out he was the only one who remembered it...the UK had no record and it held him up for a year getting out of the mess he'd created through his honesty. If there's no record, there's no record. Go figure.

my BIL pays $60,000 a year for gold family health insurance in Georgia. I remember about 10 years ago he had a football injury and wrenched his shoulder out tearing ligaments, so went straight to the Docs on a Sunday morning for an MRI. The family GP had his own MRI when at the time, there were 2 MRI's in the whole of Birmingham serving over a million people. You can get the best treatment in the world, but boy will you have to cough up for it. OK if you have the money.

I remember doing the same thing for TV's a few years ago when thinking they were very expensive. I compared to Curry's in the UK and Australia was substantially cheaper. I also used to think that cars were very expensive here, and i think they were 10 years ago. But seeing how cheap Toyota's are here when they're marketed as a more premium car in the UK is weird.

B&Q is absolute shite though. My dad came here and spent half his holiday in Bunnings amazed at the stuff you can longer get in the UK, it's more comparable to Home Depot than B&Q, far more trades use it as a staple and better quality. Australia is a DIY country.

I agree with that, and the old "Aussie Labor is very different to UK Labour"...it's possibly more of a right wing, self-provisioning, personally responsible society in Australia and we have some of the richest, greediest people in the world living here, but haven't yet gone down the more self-destructive and extreme route that's made the UK run off the rails. I still cannot work out why facilities, protections and provisioning here is so much better, and people in a rightish society insist on these public facilities.....that is the opposite trend of the UK local authority areas where they've just bred people full of spitefulness and incessant complaints, almost enjoying closing down facilities that bettered them as a nation because they no longer care and can't be bothered if they think it will cost a penny. When you get to the point about complaining about bin collections and start dumping your rubbish in the street, you're going more 3rd world with regards to personal pride than in the opposite direction. I've just spend 20 minutes comparing neighbourhood dog parks here for what they offer, they have toilets, swimming ponds, free doggie bags, bins, segregation, some of these run zones are hectares, they get reseeded every year, shade sails for your bloody dog to go under, cold water taps in all corners, free bowls....and one has light sensors so you can go 24 hours a day and it opens up for an individual. Nobody smashes them up, breaks bottles, sets fire to them. Things like that make it worth living here, it's the quality and pride.

I liked Bali, but not as much as Thailand or Vietnam, I didn't rate the beaches that much. Khao Lak is great if you like peace, cheaper than Phuket for a lot of things. I prefer the non-muslim countries, just feels a lot more relaxed and of course alcohol is cheaper ! I guess in Perth it's a lot quicker to get to any of those places.

I remember the last UK camping holiday I ever had, also to Cornwall but a very long time ago...it rained for 2 weeks and my mum and dad had to put up a wet tent and take it down 3 times as we roamed around. The tent was never dry during the entire holiday and i remember my parents were so pissed off...never again. From then onwards we went to the Loire or Dordogne, never camped in the UK again. I have got back into it over here, totally different experience and very popular....much easier with pop up tents.

can you not toss a caber then?

This is the one i meant, it takes a lot of money from it's buffet so you're probably right about them not surviving on cultural activities alone, but the history bit is interesting. https://www.burnsclub.com.au/about-us/history/ When we came to ACT 10 years ago, it was after the GFC and there were "a lot" of young Irish here looking for work on short stay or tourist VISAs. They employed thousands on the Canberra Dam project and a substantial number were Irish, and they were getting jobs via the immigrant network and the Irish club....it was very well organised and integrated into the fabric. I still keep in touch now with some of them who live far away, but they were helped into work and residency, and in some cases, found husbands and wives via it. https://www.irishclub.com.au/ I don't see any English equivalent, we don't make great immigrants because we don't see ourselves as immigrants, but "expats". Then you see the amount of "ping pongers" who leave feeling that they got no support and end up being resentful for years.