British Expats Happy in Australia

[Guest sadiesmum]

Thanks for these great posts. I have had a week of turmoil with 2nd thoughts about moving to Aus, Ive even delays applying for the visa as I, not sure

 

Reading these posts I have a more positive picture of what our life could be like, I think we just need to reach a compromise about our moving date as my OH would like to move ASAP but I would prefer to wait until September (purely so we can enjoy one last british summer for what its worth, perhaps a european holiday and also have time to sort out things with renting our property etc.)

 

Im confident with moving now, thank you!

[Bobj]

Happy in Australia...Had one helluva great time adventuring, exploring, seeing and doing what this mighty land has to offer.

 

Check out Reminiscing and you will get an idea of what Australia has.

 

http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/out-about-oz/60134-bobj-reminiscing.html

 

I've had an absolutely fulfilled life.

And still a few more adventures to try.:yes:

 

Cheers, Bobj.

[Georgiajoe]

I love reading this, sorry still in uk so can't comment, moving to Perth next feb, all these positive post make me soooo jealous

[Guest The Pom Queen]

I have deleted a few off topic posts, we are not here to judge people going back, the thread is for people here to tell of their positive experience moving here.

[Guest GoldCoastMag]

This may be long: And this is the condensed version- About 40 years ago my then fiance and I decided to look into migrating to Australia. With no internet our research looking back was patchy and limited. We talked to family and freinds about it, we watched tv documentaries (usually about scary things that bite or maim) and we read all we could from Australia House.

 

We went for an interview and medicals, and were accepted by the state of Queensland. This made us happy as although we had never visited the country at all, we were unconvinced about the sub tropical climate but more than willing to give it two years. (Our commitment, which we felt morally obligated to keep)

 

My family despite knowing they would miss me, already had family members all over the world and seemed more accepting that I would be leaving for at least 2 years. My fiances family seemed far less accepting and tried some of the guilt tactics to make us change our minds, but we decided our lives couldnt be lived for them, and booked tickets planning to return for a trip to visit them all in 2 years time.

 

We arrived in Brisbane and although mosquitoes were eating me alive, I immediately knew I was meant to be here. I loved the vibe, the tropical scent in the air of frangipani and orchids. Bananas and lemons in peoples backyards thrilled me, the pool that I swam in that first winter to all the locals amazement. We were soon befriended by a couple of australians and drove over mountains on unmade roads, visited the coast and had a bbq on open fire on the beach of fish caught in the surf, we saw the wildlife and entered a magical garden with rainbow lorikeets raining down on us by offering a donation in Currumbin.

 

We both quickly found jobs and started to furnish a little flat in highgate hill near the mater hospital, where I could walk to numerous shops on the strip with unidentifiable (to me) offerings that the shopkeepers seemed delighted to educate me about. Our diets changed, we ate tropical fruits and local produce with less ingredients from supermarkets and I gradually forgot about what I used to buy in sainsburys. I found the work easy and started to feel more at home when the jibes about how I said certain words lessened, maybe because I started to say vytamin, and yoegurt more like the local pronouncements. My boss seemed to exist on coffee and a "bex" a powder in a packet like beechams powders which she poured down her throat regularly. This seemed particularly common in the Australia of then. We went to little family run italian stores for wonderful nights out dining on pizza. Neither supermarkets or fast food outlets were common and the best hamburgers were available with pineapple and beetroot on them as what seemed like a complete meal in a bun.

 

In a very short time we had bought an old banger with the knowhow and help of our new Australian friends, and were well able to get around exploring our new country. Soon we were on our way to a modest new house in the outer suburbs, it was out in the sticks and meant a change of job for me. Once again I found a job in a family owned company that I was able to get to by public transport but knew that in this country having my drivers licence was almost a necessity.

 

I sat in our house on bare boards the day we moved in, waiting for a bed, fridge and lounge suite to arrive. All the rest had to wait until our savings had built up a little, but we had started to find the best places to purchase our needs. I do remember remarking that things here were a little behind the times, because most beds on sale were wire springs, not the box bases I had been used to, and now I realise that sometimes things are done differently in different countries because of local needs and customs, not always because of lack of modernity or backwardness.

 

Our family started to expand and with young children the first couple of years flew by without us making that trip back to see friends and relatives. No one visited us either but our little family made good friends who were willing to step in, and we had guardians, baby sitters, people to call on in emergency who became my surrogate sisters through the Nursing Mothers, later called Australian Breastfeeding Association and still continue a volunteer role with them having made many friends in the past 30 years by going with them to coffee and letting the children socialise and play.

 

My kids have grown and are independant adults, some left to go overseas and I wondered if the reverse migration would apply, but after a couple of years we were all back in SE Queensland. I left and migrated to Florida which brought me to forums researching visas. 5 years there. And all the time I was hankering to get back to the gold coast. I know life doesnt always go how we plan, I know I am fortunate, I know where I want to be;

 

I still wonder every day, how I managed to be so lucky to live in such a wonderful place, to feel like I am on holiday and yet know that I am home.

[ali]

Love reading these posts ... so thanks for sharing.

 

Well, we moved here on a 136 visa (independent PR) in January 2007, we had visited Australia for a holiday (no thoughts of migrating at that time) but we had never been to WA. We did some research or rather hubby did ... I joined PIO and that was me done - I didn't have time to go anywhere else. But after hubbys research we chose WA. We were both exceptionally lucky to arrive here with jobs to go to and we're still in the same jobs 5 years later. We arrived by chance in a suburb called Leeming (we managed to get a rental before we came over), loved the feel of the place, decided to buy her and 12 weeks after landing at the airport we moved into our first bought Aussie Home. We became Australian Citizens in 2009

 

Our chilren at the time were 11 and 7, it was slightly more difficult for my eldest because she'd had the wider social group and she'd only been in school 2 weeks when it was her 12th birthday and she didn't feel she knew everyone well enough to have a party. Moving on 5 years, she celebrated her 17th birthday last month and has told me that she is so glad to have had her teenage years here in Aus. My son thrives on being able to play outside with his mates after school.

 

We don't go to the beach a lot it's not our thing but we do take advantage of more opportunities here to do things. It's not that they were unavailable in the UK we just never really found the time to do them. We continue our love of football and even though the A league isn't quite the same standard as most of the English leagues - if you love live football whatever - you'll find a team. As a family we really got into T/20 and go to the WACA, we go to the theatre (as a familly), and in general spend more time together than we did previously. At New Years we met up with heaps of families to have a BBQ on the park and in January we joined 9 other families for a holiday in Margaret River

 

We have (again) been very fortunate that we didn't experience home sickness, although I did at times of family celebrations miss people, we have now, got a great circle of friends both individually and as a family - these do take time to develop though, but what a difference when they do.

 

As a family, we settled very quickly, we were realistic in the move knowing it wouldn't be a bed of roses, it would be hard work to re-establish ourselves with work/friends etc. I think for us that although we had family and friends in the UK we weren't reliant on them for anything, being a self-contained little family unit for us made the move so much easier.

 

We haven't yet been back to the UK and to be honest we don't have any plans to (untl the inevitable happens and we lose someone), I often say that we're a pretty average family, we live in an average street, we don't have a McMansion or a super 4x4 parked on the driveway (for us that's not a measure of our life here), our measure is that we're happy, the kids are happy and we are very content. It's the latter that for me living in Aus has brought - a sense of contentment that I hadn't known was missing in the UK.

[Mummy Mann]

Thank you goldcoastmag. A beautiful post!! x

[Guest jaffas1]

I was really moved by your post goldcoastmag, it was beautifully written. I hope our experience in Australia will be just as wonderful as yours has.

[Guest Guest16631]

............have lived here since October 1992 ..................(.although did live here previously back a long time ago! .)...............it's was the smell that I like.........the heat and the frangipani..............the huge blue sky..............we lived in a rural area to begin with and my boys had an ideal childhood............they both had ponies............and would often disappear for the day with a water bottle and a pack of sandwiches............down to the beach or the forest across the way..................kangaroos were a daily sight.......early morning cutting across in front of the house...............lizards part of where we lived............we had a small orchard of orange and other fruit trees..........mango mulberry....and banana ............the orange trees every evening were covered in sulphur crested cockatoo's as mum had been encouraging them down with seed bells she made...............we learnt to net the trees we wanted the fruit off and left some for the birds.................having the large gum trees and lots of other native trees meant we were visited by lots of birds ...............the noise of the yellow tailed cockatoos is raucous..............flocks of bright coloured rainbow lorikeets............screech at sun down..........and the kookaburra's laugh always makes me smile.............we didn't have a lot of money and OH worked away for long periods at a time.............we experienced a bush fire................and the community spirit as neighbours we had never met before..( we had just moved in !)...........helped all evening put out the spot fires ...... Sharing a drink and stories of the area..........we also had a flood!.............and had the same help ...........we have done well here...........not all easy.........we lost my father and have had some major bad luck.........but the kids have done well.........two have good careers the third my little Aussie is finishing school...............we now live in a more suberben area .........still nice ...........but I would say to all comming ........visit the country areas they have much to offer..................good luck to all comming...............tink x

[Petals]

I migrated from Uk as a child, funny Dad thought about going to Nigeria, Australia and then settled on Rhodesia at the time. My brother was born in Rhodesia. We stayed there till things got a bit sticky and then Dad moved us to New Zealand. When his brother finished in the British Navy and got transferred to the Aus Navy he went to Perth, so Dad up stick and he Mum and brother went to Perth, me being older by that time took off to Sydney with three friends, a Brit, and two kiwi girls I knew. Loved living in Sydney as a single person, lived in Neutral Bay got the ferry to work each day, then lived in McMahons Point and got the ferry to work from there. We then decided to try Melbourne so with little money a few belongings we moved down to Melbourne, found a flat and got a job. I had already met my oh as he was at sea merchant marine and met him again in Melbourne. Got married and headed back to UK to live. Then we were at sea on a ship going around the coast of Australia and we were in Newcastle NSW and my oh went off to see BHP and got a job on their ships. So we got off the ship in Aus, not much money, got a flat, had to get a friend to go guarantor for a black and white tele and we had a couple of camp beds. Then oh went off to sea and I went to work in Melbourne. After a while we decided to buy a house with little deposit but oh did earn good money at sea. Then he saw a job ashore, came ashore and that was it here we are in Melbourne loving it after all these years. Two children, we have lived in only two houses and my oh took long service leave and built the house we now live in on our acreage and we love it. We love the area, everything about it. My children are grown, my daughter has traveled a bit, my son has been to UK with us but now could not get him over there if we tried. He lives in country Victoria and has a wonderful life, never home social life is excellent.

 

I think as we came with nothing we could only go up, I think if we had come with a lot maybe it would have been harder to settle, we just gone on with it and lived our lives. Always pleased to get back to Aus although I would like to live nearer to my sister in law and my nieces in UK.