Well its hard to believe but we have now been in Melbourne for a year! Here's how it happened....

Hubby's brother had been to Melbourne on a years secondment about 4 years ago and was raving about it and trying to get back with a permanent job. So we started looking into the possibility of making the move in Feb 2003, however a definite job didn't materialise at the time, my sister was due to get married that year, our eldest was due to start school; so we decided against the move at that time.

The following year, (early 2004), hubby sent off enquiries within his company who have a base in Melbourne. The manager over in Australia had a telephone conversation with my hubby and although nothing definite was said, was certain that he would be able to offer a job. In Sept 04 the manager was in the UK on business and saw my husband for a proper interview  and offered him the job to start Jan 05!

From then everything moved very quickly - the company sponsored us for 457 visas, we arranged to rent out our house in the uk, and we booked our flights for new years eve 2004! We arrived in Melbourne on a sunny morning Jan 2nd 2005. We were collected from the airport and taken to our temporary accommodation which the company had arranged it for us. The first few days were busy getting everything sorted - tax file number, medicare, bank, buying a car etc.

Once we had bought a car we started to look around at properties to rent for the longer term - this was a nightmare! Not sure if it was just the time of year but there wasn't much available at the time. We looked in loads of different suburbs, some houses they advertise aren't actually available for another month and you can't even go and view them. A lot of houses were just horrible inside. After a week my husband had started work so it was down to me, a melways and 2 small children to continue looking. Anyone that lives here knows it can take quite a while to drive around between suburbs, (particularly if you don't know the area). Well it got to a week before the school term was due to start and still hadn't found anywhere so basically we took the first decent house we could find - and so we ended up in Ivanhoe, (about 10k north east of the cbd). We enrolled eldest child in the local school and she has settled in very well now - took her a while though!

We are loving it in Melbourne, there's so much to do and places to take the kids. We have an annual pass for the zoos and museums which have both been well worth the money. Most weekends even through the winter we would go out somewhere for the day. We've been to lots of the national parks. Been to the Great Ocean Road, Grampians, and soon to go to Lakes Entrance. There are so many places we still want to visit, and thats just in Victoria!

Obviously we miss family and friends but with phonecards it's cheap and easy to stay in touch. We now have webcam set up which works really well. The company sponsored hubby under employer nomination scheme for permanent residency which we got in October!

Hope this is of some help to anyone yet to make the move. Just go for it! Life's too short not to make the most of it and the opportunity was there so we took it. We don't regret a minute of it.

Good luck!