how long do you give Australia

[fourcorners]

Excellent post fourcorners, you put into the words how I feel all the time. I always thought if I had to stay here for the rest of my life, I wouldn't be true to myself and would be living a lie.

 

It's exactly how I feel as well, our choice to return to Australia was purely done in our heads and not hearts. We're not regretting it - our time here will allow us to do what we want when we do move back to the UK. And having been back to the UK once, I knew I just felt at home there even when I had to live with my parents and was unemployed for 4 months! We'll just make some hay while the sun shines....

[Quoll]

Living behind a mask can be very exhausting! Of course, hopefully new migrants do make the effort to fit in but when that means you have to be something you are not then it becomes hard to live with. Being back in UK now I feel "whole" in a way that all those years in Aus could never do for me - ephemeral reasons really and very hard to pinpoint but not having to live behind the mask every day is liberating

[daveg1980]

Hi,

 

We are in the process of applying for the 176 visa, the wife has just told her family and her mum is pretty devastated. The mother says she won't be coming out to see us during our Aus stay (some would say thats a blessing!). Maybe its just a bit of emotion taking over, but i think this could affect the wife and her ability to stay in australia. The wife is also worried about 'what if her parents get ill' etc etc. I think in life you can only do what you can, and you have to try new things and work hard to get the life you want, but most importantly live your life for you, and not for others.

 

I hope Australia is everything I/we have dreamt it would be, I expect the first 6 months especially to be tough! I think the 2 year rule kinda works, 2 years is long enough to try a place, and move area/state if unhappy with your initial choice. As i don't know NSW at all, I am spending alot of my time looking into area, reading up and preparing us for a new life. Who knows what might happen, with circumstances and all?

 

I think 2 years is good though, and i think we will make a decision before any kids start school, we dont have any at the moment!

I guess milestones and other factors come into it, to prompt your long term decision, like when you are ready to buy a house, kids, or whatever. I guess we will know when is right to make that decision?

 

I think this forum is great btw, it helps alot with the early decision process, and making new friends!

[MARYROSE02]

Hi,

 

We are in the process of applying for the 176 visa, the wife has just told her family and her mum is pretty devastated. The mother says she won't be coming out to see us during our Aus stay (some would say thats a blessing!). Maybe its just a bit of emotion taking over, but i think this could affect the wife and her ability to stay in australia. The wife is also worried about 'what if her parents get ill' etc etc. I think in life you can only do what you can, and you have to try new things and work hard to get the life you want, but most importantly live your life for you, and not for others.

 

I hope Australia is everything I/we have dreamt it would be, I expect the first 6 months especially to be tough! I think the 2 year rule kinda works, 2 years is long enough to try a place, and move area/state if unhappy with your initial choice. As i don't know NSW at all, I am spending alot of my time looking into area, reading up and preparing us for a new life. Who knows what might happen, with circumstances and all?

 

I think 2 years is good though, and i think we will make a decision before any kids start school, we dont have any at the moment!

I guess milestones and other factors come into it, to prompt your long term decision, like when you are ready to buy a house, kids, or whatever. I guess we will know when is right to make that decision?

 

I think this forum is great btw, it helps alot with the early decision process, and making new friends!

 

I always felt a little guilty for having broken my family up - my brothers and I left one by one at six month intervals for Australia but on the other hand, my parents got to see Australia and NZ and make contact with long lost relatives in NZ.

 

Australia is a nation of immigrants and they all face the same problems. My sister in law's parents left Italy in the 1950's and they are happily settled in Australia. There is no way that they would go back to Italy.

 

I've just come back from the pub where I've been having a laugh talking to the two barmaids. I don't have to be something I'm not with them just because they are Aussies and I'm a Pommie. Later on this morning I'm going to another pub - no drinks this time! - and I will be mixing with both Aussies and Poms, all drawn together by the common thread of following Spurs.

 

I guess, it's a subjective thing but getting on with Aussies has NEVER been a problem for me. I went through a very brief period of thinking that they all hated Pommie B*****D's - complete rubbish of course. I've had my share of problems here but absolutely NOTHING to do with being 'a stranger in a strange land!'

[Emmylou]

We were in Aus from June 2008 till August 2010, I started feeling homesick (depressingly so) in Jan 2010 and made the decision to come back after a trip home in April 2010. Have been back home for nearly 18mths and miss Australia and the way of life out there loads. There is no hard and fast rule... We are considering our options for returning to Australia but is a hard decision as hubbie has already said if I get homesick this time he wouldn't be able to come home a second time as it would break his heart....... He absolutely adores Aus!

 

Whatever decision you make keep an open mind. Life is hard at home and at times feels dismal, but I understand how hard it can be in Aus when all you want is to be here.

 

Luv Mxxx

[Guest Guest55385]

I have to say things are getting easier and today my daughter started school. I met lots of smiling faces which is a damn site better than I've seen before. Maybe things won't be so bad )

[legoman]

I.m from Portsmouth, worked for companies as a gasfitter around Hampshire, loved the new forest, went to Blackfield, fordingbridge basingstoke and loved the

sea at one end and countryside the other, was dodgy in the snow on a cold night on call out, but loved rocking up to the foreshore having lunch etc. was tough giving the job up to come here and have a fab letter thanking me for my services and should i return and want to do gasfitting to call em. had a wobble before leaving but lifes an adventure

and I know if i really needed a uk fix I can be back there 24hrs from now. My son gains citizenship in 2 weeks, 2nd grandaughter due next month here and younger son doing well at school, if i was forced to choose a country to live in for good it would be a hard decision almost impossible to make, WA, & Hampshire both beautiful places to live and my home town and career has been very kind to me. and i enjoy the open spaces here.

[MARYROSE02]

Do you mean - Chocolate Orange! (I'm trying to combine replying to you and to Legoman) - that taking your daughter to school, you felt a bit better about being here, seeing the other Mum's (and Dad's!?) Perhaps you might start to make some friends that way. On this, my second stint in OZ, I've been really 'PUSHING' myself to talk to 'strangers' - people I encounter in shops, cafes, pubs around my home, introduce myself, ask them their names, shake hands. I went for a coffee the other day with a lady I'd just met (at a party & without a single drop of alcohol!) and in the restaurant she saw me chatting away to the waiters and said 'you can talk to anyone. I wish I could do that.' I was pleased and surprised because I'm actually very shy. (My 'therapist' will also be pleased and surprised when I tell him!)

 

I was trying to remember back to when I went to the local infants & junior schools in Blackfield - did I walk to school on my own? I'm sure I did to the junior school and I've got a feeling to infants as well. Of course, there was nowhere near as much traffic then. The road through Marchwood is rendered almost completely impassable by the school with cars parked on both sides of the road. But as long as I did not have any reason to drive down to Hythe I did not mind as all the people from the south who wanted to use Marchwood as a rat run were also thwarted.

 

Blackfield was almost surrounded by countryside and Lepe & Calshot beaches are only two miles away - 10-15 mins on a bike. Before they put cattle grids on the roads and lanes onto the Forest, we used to get ponies roaming through the village. There are still a few villages on the Forest where the ponies roam free - Beaulieu I think, and Burley. Yes, you can buy postcards showing a donkey or pony in the doorway of the Queen's Head at Burley.

 

I love The New Forest but I can't see myself going back now, not on my own with no family there, whilst I have a brother living in Sydney. I was talking to one of the guys at the pub this morning, watching Spurs v Wigan, and I said 'I'm applying for job in Batemans Bay.' He was surprised. 'What do you want to go down there for? Leaving all your friends here in OzSpurs?'

 

It sounds like your family are putting down roots here, one son getting his citizenship, another doing well at school. Of course I did go back for twelve years myself, but, had my parents been here, there's no way I would have gone back. I doubt if I would have resigned my job to go back either but I was made redundant.

[VERYSTORMY]

Hi,

 

We are in the process of applying for the 176 visa, the wife has just told her family and her mum is pretty devastated. The mother says she won't be coming out to see us during our Aus stay (some would say thats a blessing!). Maybe its just a bit of emotion taking over, but i think this could affect the wife and her ability to stay in australia. The wife is also worried about 'what if her parents get ill' etc etc. I think in life you can only do what you can, and you have to try new things and work hard to get the life you want, but most importantly live your life for you, and not for others.

 

I hope Australia is everything I/we have dreamt it would be, I expect the first 6 months especially to be tough! I think the 2 year rule kinda works, 2 years is long enough to try a place, and move area/state if unhappy with your initial choice. As i don't know NSW at all, I am spending alot of my time looking into area, reading up and preparing us for a new life. Who knows what might happen, with circumstances and all?

 

I think 2 years is good though, and i think we will make a decision before any kids start school, we dont have any at the moment!

I guess milestones and other factors come into it, to prompt your long term decision, like when you are ready to buy a house, kids, or whatever. I guess we will know when is right to make that decision?

 

I think this forum is great btw, it helps alot with the early decision process, and making new friends!

 

Just make sure that what you dream it will be is not looking with rose tinted glasses. These boards and other forums are full of a lot of people that had a dream of what Australia would be like. Yes its sunnier, but a lot of what people want to get away from in the UK also exists here. We have more than our fair share of crime, drugs and other social problems. The bills still have to be paid. There are some benefits, but try to take in the disadvantages / non advantages before you come out and you are a lot less likely to be disapointed

[janlo]

very well said -...you can get swept along always feeling 'not right' ! then its too late because ur kids have settled etc. Make the move sooner rather than later .

[legoman]

I.m from Portsmouth, worked for companies as a gasfitter around Hampshire, loved the new forest, went to Blackfield, fordingbridge basingstoke and loved the

sea at one end and countryside the other, was dodgy in the snow on a cold night on call out, but loved rocking up to the foreshore having lunch etc. was tough giving the job up to come here and have a fab letter thanking me for my services and should i return and want to do gasfitting to call em. had a wobble before leaving but lifes an adventure

and I know if i really needed a uk fix I can be back there 24hrs from now. My son gains citizenship in 2 weeks, 2nd grandaughter due next month here and younger son doing well at school, if i was forced to choose a country to live in for good it would be a hard decision almost impossible to make, WA, & Hampshire both beautiful places to live and my home town and career has been very kind to me. and i enjoy the open spaces here.

 

 

Yes family settled here now all had wobbles though, I do counselling and other modalities after studies and was due to start uni at murdoch on 1st feb to complete psychology degree after 2 years study in uk. strange how different happiness in uk and oz, here the kids are fine, grandkids too, open spaces and lots to do for them, financially I would be far better off in uk as plumber gasfitter with the good money and only 5years left on mortgage,Also built up good clientle there for my clinic, treated docs and their referred patients, not done here in oz, docs like to be gods lol. I would be equally disappointed if i was told I could not live in either country,

[legoman]

forgot to add I turned down uni place in end, i like what I do now, though some things hard to take with some cases, makes u wonder what we have to moan about when you see some peeps probs, more psychologist in oz per person in oz than anywhere and high suicide rate!.

 

I may break up the work and go do some pt gas to have break from terminally ill and other clients.

 

At the end of the day its what you want to make of it that dictates how we take being in oz or uk, and its not going to drop into our lap, get up get out there and make it happen, nothing wrong with going back to uk, u tried oz, not for you so change direction try something else, sometimes changing things in uk far better than changing countries.

[starlight7]

I have met a couple of people who have either returned or would like to return to the UK after many,many years. Often not possible because it is hard to get support there after being away so long. I don't feel that way because my home is here in Oz but I can understand those who do. When I arrived in Australia, way back in the 1970s, I felt more at home than I ever had in the places we lived in in the UK. I thought the people were more friendly and there were more job opportunities- a sense that you could be/do whatever you wanted. We knew no one when we came but we produced a large family and now they are all having children of their own. Do it yourself dynasty I guess. Nothing ever comes easy, does it?

[MARYROSE02]

Hey! I'm doing one thing you can't do in many places in England - go to an ordinary pub at midnight for a couple of schooies. I know there are a few in the city centres but not like here. Even in London when I stayed for a week at the Strand Palace, they all closed by 11pm.

[legoman]

I was in London once on heart radio in picadilly, after some drinks and buffet left at 2am and found it was like a sat pm down town in london, throngs of people buses

heaving with all nite clubs people, i couldnt believe it at that time of morning in london

[sneeze100]

Hi we arrived here in may 2011 the first few weeks where the hardest starting a new job and waiting for all our stuff to arrive. TBH once i got all our stuff that was me sorted out and the wife took a month to settle in now we love it nice atmosphere apart from the south African neighbor over the fence which one day will feel the wraith of my boot. But Perth is a nice place to live nice beaches lots of stuff to do good public transport system. Drivers are something to be desired ie they are crap lol. So would i go back to the UK at this moment in time no but i enjoy living here the kids love living here we got a dog now lol and saving away for a deposit for a house. plus its a little different for me i can come and go as i please now as i got citizenship after 90 days of arriving which was handy.

[Poca&Dan]

I think that the interesting thing about reading all of these blogs is how different and individual everyone's experience is which makes it hard to answer the question! I have come such a long way in the 3 years I have been a member and still don't know what to do for the best! I was homesick the moment I jumped off the plane, I knew/I thought this is definitely not for me! 2 years later my husband and I impulsively jumped back on the plane and came home only to discover we had completely changed as a couple and there is just nothing here for us in the UK anymore! We have been home 3 months now and are trying not to repeat our mistakes but honestly I wish I could just jump on a plane and go back! I honestly don't know how we have been so careless! And the funny thing is, a girl I worked with in Aus is also coming home, my immediate reactive thought was to email and warn her about coming back, but it's not my place or my experience to tell her she is making a mistake! I guess you've just got to live with your decisions and try and rectify them if you are not happy!

[MARYROSE02]

For most people who come here, it (Australia) 'grows' upon them, often imperceptibly, even as they are conquering their homesickness. Unfortunately for you, you are one of the unlucky ones who only found out after you went back to the UK. Are you able to re-emigrate to Australia or have you burned your bridges?

[Poca&Dan]

I completely agree, I was homesick for so long and on a daily basis struggled with whether I wanted to be here or there, we literally were staying forever one day and going home the next! Not sure why this occassion we saw through with our plans, but we did? Literally in Oct we decided to we wanted to go back and in Nov we flew home - how impulsive!!!! Only to return and discover we had changed a lot more than we thought and really there is nothing here for us! Our main deciding factor for coming home was having children and now we are home we have moved 2 hours away from family beause my it was the only place my HB was offered work and are now thinking our 'future' children would be better off in Aus! Anyway the good news is I am a nurse so getting back shouldn't be that difficult but we have got ourselves into a financial hole coming home so it's not a case of rectifying our mistake now but learning from our mistake and giving it a year or two to save and decide whether moving home was a mistake or not! My only fear now though is becasue I made such a wrong decision I daren't trust myself to make anymore 'big' decsions for fear of that being an even bigger mistake!!! I fear that in ayear we will be quite settled yet I'll convince myself life was better in Aus pack up and move back to be back at square one! Argh I am literally going insane! I thought by coming home it would put to rest all my daily thoughts about returning!!!! How silly! And so my saga continues!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MARYROSE02]

When my Mum and Dad were alive, I loved going back to see them every couple of years (and they made a few trips out to OZ too.) Then I was made redundant, went back for a year, and ended up staying for twelve.

 

Funny how things work out; if I hadn't lost my job, I probably would not have been able to go back and look after my parents. I got a job with Royal Mail two weeks after I arrived back, then twelve years on, after my parents had passed away, I came back to Sydney again.

 

It's been very hard trying to get a job this time around but then again I've had some good new experiences and met some new people.

 

PS Who knows about 'grammar' and 'punctuation?' Was it correct for me to use a semi-colon after 'funny how things work out' or should I have used a full stop?

[Guest guest51333]

hi laura r u still in oz has it got better are u settled now? would love to hear how you r xx

[Guest guest51333]

Hi we arrived here in may 2011 the first few weeks where the hardest starting a new job and waiting for all our stuff to arrive. TBH once i got all our stuff that was me sorted out and the wife took a month to settle in now we love it nice atmosphere apart from the south African neighbor over the fence which one day will feel the wraith of my boot. But Perth is a nice place to live nice beaches lots of stuff to do good public transport system. Drivers are something to be desired ie they are crap lol. So would i go back to the UK at this moment in time no but i enjoy living here the kids love living here we got a dog now lol and saving away for a deposit for a house. plus its a little different for me i can come and go as i please now as i got citizenship after 90 days of arriving which was handy.

Hi how did you manage to get citizenship so quickly? thanks Kelly

[Guest guest22466]

forgot to add I turned down uni place in end, i like what I do now, though some things hard to take with some cases, makes u wonder what we have to moan about when you see some peeps probs, more psychologist in oz per person in oz than anywhere and high suicide rate!.

 

I may break up the work and go do some pt gas to have break from terminally ill and other clients.

 

At the end of the day its what you want to make of it that dictates how we take being in oz or uk, and its not going to drop into our lap, get up get out there and make it happen, nothing wrong with going back to uk, u tried oz, not for you so change direction try something else, sometimes changing things in uk far better than changing countries.

 

Hello Legoman I have also heard the suicide rate is high in Australia why do you think this is so ?

[Guest Julz]

Hi how did you manage to get citizenship so quickly? thanks Kelly

 

I'm guessing they are with the Australian Defence Force, my husband and children got citizenship after 90 days too.

[legoman]

Hello Legoman I have also heard the suicide rate is high in Australia why do you think this is so ?

 

 

 

 

I still no tsure, found out about 2 gp who also commited suicide, I know there are more psychologists in oz per person than anywhere else and it seems almost everyone has done some sort of psychology course yet I dont know any specific reason why the suicide rate is high, given the job is the same the world over.

strange one that. I am aware the increasing stress rates here in Perth, and drug abuse is climbing but I dont think this would or should have a bearing on the therapists.