Mike Peters

Arrived May 28th 2002 ,
After buying our house via the internet whilst liveing in london we moved in on 1st june house was better then we could have wished for,

Our 13 year old Daughter had picked her School by contacting the schools on the net and makeing app for when we arrived in Adelaide
she has made some lovley friends,

We took 12 weeks off sorting out cars House, taxfile numbers, looking around, (never been to AU before) then started looking 4 work
wife got job week 13 i started busness week 14 ,

Do we reg it yet, like hell we do

Do we Miss the uk, not yet

was it worth it , yep

I cannot comment on where PB lives or works but we have not me a bad aussie yet all seem helpfull and friendley, SO FAR PB

as far as we can see its true its the lucky country , BUT YOU MUST MAKE YOUR OWN LUCK.

I am not saying PB is wrong as 1) i have only been here 7 months
2) i dont live were he is
3) i dont know what his lifestyle is

But PB THE UK HAS CHANGED A HELL OF A LOT IN THE LAST 2 YEARS
SO LOOK BEFORE U LEEP MATE ITS NOT THE SAME AS IT WAS 5 YEARS AGO IF IT WAS I WOULDENT HAV LEFT.

PS THESE ARE MY FINDINGS ON ADELAIDE EVERYONES ARE DIFF

scoobydooathome

Hello,

I'm so pleased you're happy, it's what you make it to be, (you get out what you put in as the saying goes) well done for doing and going for it, like many people on the forum they too are ready for a change of lifestyle...

We are going to give it a try in 6 months, with an open mind, cash in on the house etc ...

It is true the UK has changed a lot even in the last 12 months, yuk

Good Luck.

mashiraz

Hi Mike, great to hear your story....we're headed to adelaide aswell and looked at Happy Valley property. What's it like to buy without viewing. Did you have friends to hunt for you?

Also interested in schools in Adelaide. So far got son (7) a place at Trinity College in Gawler but interested to hear about others.

Look forward to hearing more

Mash...

tinaj

Thanks for the info, it is great to hear that you are enjoying your new lives.
It sounds wonderful, was it strange to go and live somewhere that you had never visited? Very brave of you all to up sticks and go somewhere unknown.

You are right about the UK, it is awful here now, I have a hostel for asylum seekers down my road, they are not supposed to work, but they all walk around in designer gear WAKE UP MR BLAIR! how do you think they get the stuff!

Anyway I could write a new thread regarding this subject.

Fantastic that you are all loving it out there, how could you not it is brilliant compared to over here.
Happy sunny Xmas.
Tina

pommiesheila

Glad things are going well for you. We too moved out in May of this year, and have had good times and bad times, good experiences and bad experiences so far. Still in the "do we stay or do we go" mode at the moment, but interested to hear your comments about the UK - what would you (and any others still there) say are the major changes which eventually made you come over here - I'd be interested to hear your views. On "bad" days here, I am sure I tend to look back at the UK with my rose-tinted specs, and tend to forget the reasons we moved! (Mind you, Tina's comments about the designer-clad asylum seekers was one of them!)

r.bartlett

if you come back now you are heading into a major financial depression zone

things are looking so dodgy now starting a war is the only to dirvert peoples attention (remember thatcher and major both took this route)

cheers

richard

wizzywozza

Hi there,

I am the person Mike and Claire met over the net one memorable day in August 2001 when they sent me an IM asking about Adelaide.

I gave them all the advice I could, including the pros and cons about coming here. I had emigrated here in 1991 with my husband and kids, having never been here before, and having no family in Australia. It was considerably harder back then with not so much of a support network of expats, and no internet with all the wonderful information you can find on here.

I will admit to being extremely homesick for almost 8 years, until I went back to the Uk for a short visit - boy had it changed! Things here were not so good when we arrived in 91, the recession had just hit and employment was hard to find. Hubby was unemployed for almost 3 1/2 years - YES 3 1/2!! This was despite being accepted here on his Uk qualifications, which when we arrived found were not recognised as we had been led to believe.

Anyway, Mike and Claire and their daughter are the nicest people. They live very close to me now on their property in the hills, and I use their swimming pool a lot! I viewed a few houses on their behalf before they came to Adelaide and it was on my recommendation that they purchased the one they did. It's a beautiful house with the best view in Adelaide. I also helped them to buy their new car with which I met them with at the airport on the day they arrived here.

As Mike says, you really have to make your own luck here in the lucky country, but he is a hard worker and will make a great success of his pool maintenance company, especially in the weather we have been having recently. Mike and Claire have the Australian dream and they are going to be great Aussies when they have the op! I am so pleased to have them as my friends, they deserve the life they have here.

Sharon

Shikse

Bet the Blair government cancels Christmas in the UK soon, as it will no doubt upset all Muslims who have now made the UK their home.

tinaj

Exactly, couldn't see Muslim countries pandering to Christian Immigrants needs so much.

Even so called Christian schools over here have dropped Hymns as so many of the children are non-Christian and it would not be appropriate for them to sing them.

Did you know the majority of children grow up knowing a handful of 'Christmas' hymns - our culture is going down the pan, we are pandering to the minorities too much.

Surely you should adapt in some way to the lifestyle of the country that you go to live in ?

I am all for integration, but imbrace all cultures and understand that the country you go to live in may have a way of life disimilar to your own, don't expect the whole country to change for you!

With all the money that is being spent on immigrants it is a good job most of us are leaving, after all there will be no pensions for us when we are 65. Even though we pay a fortune into a state and private one each month

Tina - yes I am feeling non-festive at the moment!

cascarbar

Well done mike and claire - so pleased for you that things are working out so well and you are all happy. We are 'going through the motions' at the moment and fingers crossed will be in Aus in 2003 sometime. I have never been but like so many for the same reasons after 40+ years in UK have had a gutful of this country/governments/manic & expensive lifestyle. I seemed to get more depressed with this place each passing day. Sure not everything will be 'wonderful' in Aus but as you say you make your luck. Like you we are going for it ! stay happy happy xmas

renth

I'm sorry but are you talking about UK or Australia?

People who've not been really ought to realize what a multicultural place Oz is. Not only now but in a generation it wil become much more so.

Also don't forget that we too are or will be immigrants and all these so called "asylum seekers" are doing exactly what we plan to do - improve their and their families lot.

The main difference is that in the UK basically you turn up, you're in, more or less. Australia has, as we all know, a much more stringent filtering system. This is what I believe bodes well for the future for Australia, skilled families/individuals rather than shell suited Eastern European "jack the lads".

Australia needs immigrants, badly, it's a matter of demographics. Once you get that magic visa you feel glad it's so hard to get it.

Dan

captaincook

think the migrant issue is getting out of hand as reasons to leave uk. some perspective is needed on the numbers.

unfortunately oz is a migrant country chinese and japanese are now the biggest group of migrants everybody here is a migrant and country needs migrants to prosper sameway they help the uk. nz economy is only doing so well at the moment because they are allowing thousand of migrants to enter mainly polynesian. auckland is apparently a nightmare to live in due to all the fighting and violence.

i have to say that in my view migrants have tended to change uk for the better in the past. indian, west indian, pakistan have all added to uk despite racial problems particularly in poorer parts of the country. most migrants are hard working and want to better themselves. will do jobs that nobody else wants particularly not brits or ozzies. would rather a hard working migrant than a moany sit on your arse and do nothing brit or ozzie who expects the world and will do nothing for it.

you may not like the methods of the current uk government although the majority of people voted them in twice ! but its the same issues here. migrants are everywhere so you cannot avoid them by coming to oz. and there is no way you can say oz is that selective on migrants it seems to me they are only choosy in certain visa classes but there are also thousands of visas reserved for economic migrants. the ones on the tv here and those trying to jump the queue not the thousands coming in by the normal routes. so dont kid yourself the same issues are here and if you move to a poor part of oz from a poor part of the uk you are jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.

kentcoast

Hi Mike,

Great post, we are of course insanely jealous - 20 months seems a very long way off at the moment. We'd love to see some photos if you have some webspace to put them on.


With you completely on that..... Someone who remembers the UK from only a relatively short time ago will find a very different place now. Certainly 5 years ago although we'd toyed with the idea of going to the US we were never really serious and if we'd been told that in 2002 we'd be just marking time until we could leave for Adelaide I think we'd have laughed at them.

So on a serious note, what's changed? Why do so many of us want to get out?

Not an easy one to answer, ask anyone and they'll give a load of stock answers which don't actually stand up to any real argument...

The Health Service? No.... actually the NHS has been rotting for a couple of decades and although there are problems it's still holding together, in fact it's doing better now than it was in the late 70's - early 80's (when I left, feeling thoroughly disillusioned). I'm certainly not going to try to claim that Oz has a better health care system - it hasn't.

Education? There's been a crisis, but more one of image than substance. Public education in the UK is still actually one of the best in the world - try comparing it with the USA - now there's a real educational crisis if you want to see one. In about 1990 we were so concerned with the state of local schools that we remortgaged, cut out holidays and went without everything we could do without to privately educate the kids. I don't believe that now we'd feel quite as concerned as we did then.

Immigration? Don't make me laugh... Britain is still well down the immigration league. Legal immigration is incredibly tough, far more so than OZ or the US. Asylum and illegal immigration - trivial, even if some elements of the press and a few loud xenophobes would have you think otherwise. (Shout me down on this by all means but please engage brain rather than gut first!)

Weather? OK got me there, it stinks.

Economics? No, the vast majority of us are better off now than we've ever been. I feel tremendously sorry for those entering the housing market of course but those of us who purchased when the market was low have done very well thank you.

So why do we, like so many others want out?
Here's my theory for what it's worth - the mood of the country, the very nature of the place is undergoing a change and it's a change that I really don't like. The joy is going; our national sense of humour is evaporating. We are becoming an introverted, boring nation of whinging poms!
Another post in this thread is aiming a lot of blame at the current government, but that's not really where the problem lays, in fact much to my surprise they're not really making a bad job of running the place. But the style of government has changed and that's important, we're no longer governed through political process but managed as a corporate state. Politics in this country has always, whether you liked it or not engaged the population, now we're just uninterested spectators.
For someone who was considering coming back to the UK after a spell abroad I'd thoroughly recommend getting hold of a few copies of the Daily Express newspaper. Bear in mind that this is a broad appeal middle of the road paper with it's readership firmly entrenched in the British middle class. However, this nasty, tiny minded, hate filled publication has all that you need to know about the state of the nations' collective psyche in the first years of the new millennium and it doesn't look good.

Anyone still reading?

I've really rambled on there haven't I?

It's difficult to put it into words, but the bottom line is that the Britain that I grew up and spent my early working years in is not the Britain of today. Wheareas we used to spend most of our time complaining about the weather, we have now as a nation come to reflect it.

scoobydooathome

#

Hi there,

If MRS K.C. is a RN, you should not be waiting as long as 2004, we are ready to go as soon as possible, lets have soon better weather hey...

Good Luck.

kentcoast

Hi 'dere Scooby!

Yes, she is an RN and for that matter I've got all right ticks in boxes on my IT CV, we've even got a letter from SA offering state sponsorship.

We can't go until Sept 2004 for purely family reasons. But believe me when the time comes the feet will be out of the starting blocks and all that will remain will be a cloud of dust!

Perry