We emigrated to Brisbane about 3.5 weeks ago to start our new life. It has been the longest and hardest 3 weeks of my life and I thought I would share my thoughts so those of you thinking about coming will know what to expect.
We are staying with family while we find accommodation, which is helpful, but with a 3.5 year old on tow it's also very hard work. So far my time in Australia has consisted of job interviews, searching for cars for myself and my wife and trying to get a house to rent. All this sounds quite simple, but be prepared for a hard slog. Car dealers, as anywhere, are full of the "chat" and it takes a while to find one you will trust enough to buy a car from and they are not cheap compared to the UK. Luckily we already knew this by checking out prices before arriving. One good place to check prices is the drive section of www.theage.com.au
We eventually got 2 nice cars that we are happy with.
Next were the interviews for work. As an aircraft engineer I had a few doors open to me, but doing about 10 interviews in the first 2 weeks is mentally draining and extremely time consuming to say the least. I was sensible enough to sort out a few interviews before arriving but still found myself driving around all day to interviews and then getting stuck in traffic on the way home. This of course affects your family who are trying to adjust to this completely new way of life whilst you are hardly there. I eventually got a job with Boeing and received about 4 other offers so the hard work paid off in the end.
Now the fun part, trying to rent a house, my god was that an impossible task. We constantly searched on the net and on the phone to all the agents. As soon as you see one you like it is gone. We phoned to view 3 only to be told they currently had tenants and could not be viewed. Many of the viewings are done on open days which is a mad rush, especially when others may also be applying to rent the house. We eventually got a nice 4 bed place in Wakerley, Bayside but we are now trying to get the phone, electric, broadband etc connected and thats another epic.
The things I haven't mentioned are the opening of bank accounts, (and getting your head round their stupid fees for looking after your money!), finding schooling for your kids and sorting out doctors, dentists, Medicare child benefit etc etc. Luckily I have a very efficient wife in those matters and we are almost there now.
Then there's the hardest bit of all, saying goodbye to all your relatives. I was in the forces for 10 years and moved all over the place but at the end of the day I was always going home. This time we are not, or at least not for a couple of years anyway. My daughter has had many a day in tears missing all her school friends and family back in UK which, believe me, makes you feel terrible. I must admit at one point I could quite easily have booked a flight home without a second thought. You will feel homesick and it's not nice; I thought my wife would suffer a bit with this but I am afraid to say I have had it bad on the odd day or 2.
We are now coming through the toughest bit and I am about to start work, get in our new home and start this new dream life I promised my family. We are sure it will work out fine in the end and we are quite excited about it all but if i had realised quite how hard it was going to be on all of us I would have thought twice about it.
These are my tips:
- Do your homework on employment in the area you are moving to.
- Make sure you have plenty of money to start with cos it goes fast in those first couple of weeks.
- We got our daughter into a childcare centre after 1 week for 2 days a week for her to have some kids to mix with and to give us chance to get things sorted. She has loved it and we have got loads done.
- Be prepared to be patient because the way they do things out here is very very different from the UK and I guarantee at times you will be tearing your hair out.
- Take a break. We took a 3 day break to the sunshine coast after 2 weeks which was a good idea and helped us de-stress.