Haven't been on here since we left the UK so thought I give my thoughts on almost the first year in Sydney from the perspective of a middle aged couple (Aussie bloke [Me], English girl) with a young daughter. Its been a rather hectic and stressful time, like many people have commented before. Here is a run down of what happened to us:

- We left London in June last year, via Hong Kong for a short stopover to Brisbane, where my parents live (we are very fortunate to have had this option). Jet lagged killed all three of us, even with the 4 day stop over in HK, and it took us a good week to get over it. Rather than go straight to my parents place, we stayed in a serviced apartment for a couple of days to try and get over the jet lag.

- Whilst in Brisbane one of us had to fly down to Sydney to look at rental properties as that is where we wanted to live and work. This was a stressful time as we didn't have any private space in my parents house in Brisbane. Even though my wife has met my parents many times, this was the first time where we spent a lot of time together in one house (in all it was close to four weeks). This was very difficult for her and added a lot of stress to the trip.

- The rental market in affluent suburbs in Sydney is very competitive and the quality of some places leave a lot to be desired (but that can also apply to the UK)! We live in the inner west (Balmain, Rozelle and Haberfield are good example suburbs).

- We found a lovely house for only a six month rental (as the owners lived in Melbourne and wanted the option to come back) so we took it, after looking at a couple of places that were not up to scratch. My wife mentioned that one in particular stank of urine (not a good intro to Sydney for her)! Anyway, like many have said before, the viewings were only for 15 minutes and many people turn up to nice places in sought after suburbs so you need to be prepared for that. Most of the Real Estate agents we dealt with were rubbish too and really didn't care about what was going on (e.g loads of competition means someone will take the place, so I don't need to do very much!)

- Anyway, we settled in well, bought some new furniture, including the obligatory trip to IKEA to get some things, before our belongings arrived in July. Apart from a couple of glasses nothing was damaged or broken, which was great. The suburb we are now in is close to the City and the harbour and about a 45 minute door to door trip when getting to and from work on the bus (there are no train lines near where we are)

- On the job front, we both found it hard to find work and pretty much used up all of our savings (£20,000) for the move and covering rent and bills etc until our first pay cheques came in.

- Recruitment in Sydney compared to London is quite different, in terms of all the recruiters seem to want to put you forward for, are jobs you have done before. They do not seem to want to put you forward for your next role up the ladder so to speak, which was very frustrating if you want to get on. The other surprising thing was that Brits seem to have 'reverse colonised' the recruiting market in Sydney! I only ever dealt with a couple of Aussies, the rest were English expats! In terms of money, we are doing well, and based on the current £/$ exchange rates are better off here in Sydney (probably earning 1.5 times what we did as a family in the UK). Our workplaces also have a good mix of people. Mine in particular (in financial services) has a large number of expats (which is one thing that really surprised me about Sydney).

- My wife has settled in OK to life here (so have I to some extent as I was away from Sydney for 7 years) but we have not yet really made any new friends, which is disappointing. However, we really haven't 'put overselves out there' to find new mates. The wife hates the creepy crawlies though, like spiders and cockroaches, but she may get there in the long run!

In terms of the little things here are what I like/dislike/miss about Oz so far:

We like

• The weather and being close to the water - it has been very kind to us - apart from the week in February when the temperature at midnight was 33 degrees C!!! The sunnier weather has meant being outdoors more, which is great. We've even managed a couple of trips to the beach.
• Easier commute to and from work - 45 minutes now compared to about 1 hour 15 minutes in London, so I get an extra hour a day not commuting

Dislike

• Free to air TV (apart from ABC and SBS. ABC is virtually the BBC anyway seeing how much BBC content is on there)
• Many of the newspapers (the Sydney Morning Herald is OK but not fantastic)
• Public transport - even though our commute is shorter than London the trains and buses in Sydney are simply not good enough. I was here in 2000 for the Olympics and nothing has changed infrastructure wise since then! For example, Buses to our suburb often do not turn up (according to the timetable) or the ones in the city going home are packed full of people, leaving you to wait for up to 30 minutes for the next one!

Miss

• The Times and The Sunday Times
• The BBC
• Waitrose - get over here please!
• My wife's family

All in all we have made the move and settle in. Our plan is to give it another two years (end 2012) before we decide if we stay longer in Australia, or return to the UK.

Share