Pollyana

Tough one isn't it. And its why I now feel I only have one.

nphilips

So why not move to a temperate zone here?

nphilips

In Qld I have to agree.

Grayling

Because I prefer England

Beoz

Yep. Both countries have a lot to offer depending on what tickles your fancy. I think you'll find on here that many of the disgruntles reside in Queensland and are quite vocal on here about their dissatisfaction. The rest are over in Perth. A lot of those Perth opportunities have recently changed so for some its time to bail out. Those in Sydney and Melbourne seem to be a content lot. More variety I guess.

steve-n-jo

Good answer.
As I've said elsewhere on here, nothing is really wrong here, but nothing is really right!!!
I've been a model migrant that Australia loves, worked hard, studied hard, studied hard again, got a well paid job that i've been in for 7 years (pro rata now!! long service 3 years away)
I just feel isolated, its hard to socialise when friends and family are hours away and 'day to day life' gets is in the way. It has become increasingly difficult to spend time with anyone.... distance and time are the problem and they are hand in hand.

GarryP

But as I say, the thing is wherever you are you'll tend to find that friends move away, thus friends change, over a ten year time horizon. Even if it's only 200miles, it still means that most contact is going to be online/phone based. And the people that never move, that stay in one place for decades, well you aren't that type of person, by virtue of being here...

Australia has advantages over the UK in certain aspects, and disadvantages in others. Trick is to take advantage of the benefits and mitigate the disbenefits. If you are continually thinking 'its a long way from anything' of course you think it's remote - yet it's demonstrably no more 'remote' (distant from the centre of global population) than is the US, and its connectivity to SE Asia is good.

I do sometimes wonder if the people who still hang out here have a greater percentage of people who still associate their 'home' with the UK, and are therefore more likely to be dissatisfied in some way, as the measure everything relative to what they grew up with.

scrubbedexpat098

All depends what you want to be close to, I'm close to most of what I hold dear and that's good enough for me.

the troubadour

Nowhere stays the same. I'd be more likely personally to give a third country a try before returning to UK. But then I don't have relations or close associations left in UK as do others.

Checked out Malta recently with early retirement in mind a little further down the track. Spoke with a few happily settled Brit's there. So another place on the list along with a few others.

ozzieeagle

I doubt I've got one person I could call a friend in the UK now.... Plenty of family. Plus in relation to people moving that had started before I moved away from the UK. Sure distance is a issue here in some cases, but it is in the UK as well. My family are in North Wales, I lived in South London... I reckon I could fly easier, cheaper and faster to my Cousins and other family in SE Queensland then I could drive from South London to North Wales. It's relative to ones own circumstances in other words. It's probably not far beyond reality that I could get to friends in Adelaide and Sydney from Melbourne than my Brothers and cousins houses in M keynes from South Norwood. I do live very close to the airport here though.

Beoz

Interesting you say that. My father inlaw moans we live in Oz and he only sees us once or twice a year when we travel to the UK. Then I remind him that when we lived in London, he came to visit twice in 8 years. 1 and a half hours drive away.

Molly Coddle

Hi, just read your other thread. It sounds to me like you have made your mind up. good luck with it all.

Molly Coddle

I reckon you can safely say Australia is your home Ozzie..
Yeah, And the States vary so much, you have to see it/live it to believe it.
I reckon a lot of blokes think along the same lines, my husband would be happy anywhere as long as he had us lot with him.

Molly Coddle

I feel for those of you who are torn between Australia and the UK.

That is a position I don't want to find myself in 5 years down the line, I can imagine it's not a nice place to be in. We have a week to make our minds up, due to my husbands employer needing to know. So, will we stay here in Australia or will we move back to England. We are in a position to do both. The easy option would be to move back. However, I do like Australia but I have to ask myself do I want it to be my home for the foreseeable future. Not sure. It's a tough one. My head feels like it's going to explode going over and over the pros and cons.

England offers us better education for the kids and more money, obviously we have family and friends there too, but I also have family and friends here, albeit not my childhood friends but friends none the less.
Australia offers us some fantastic weather which enables us to do all the things we love to do. I also love the overall optimistic attitude people have here, but is that enough to keep us here, I don't flipping know...


Eldest son wants to go in the RAF. He would have liked to join the RAAF but you have to be a citizen, so that would be 4 and a bit years wait. So that's a bummer.


Youngest son, who is the most a academic of the two has only had three days of school since we arrived on the 28th of August due to the school fannying about getting him a place. This was a major set back for me and him. If we do go back to England he will have to go back into year 9 rather than year 10 due to all the GCSE prep he's missed. Also he won't get back in his old school, places there are like gold dust, so it would be another new school for him. Probably one we would have to pay for, however if we moved back to the same area, he would still have his old set of mates, which are a good set of lads, same for the eldest, he had a good bunch of mates too.... Decisions, decisions....



If there's one thing I've learnt from this whole process, it's this.....' If it isn't broken, don't try and fix it!'



You live and learn!

Grayling

Not all of us are 'torn'....many are quite clear about where they would prefer to be.

Uprooting and moving after a few years is not as simple a process as some would have you believe.