Jacko1

We are taking pretty much everything (20ft Container) My sister moved out to Australia 15 years ago and took nothing, spent a fortune!!!!

It all adds up $10 for this $20 for that etc.

Paul J

brionyj

We are relocating next year so all this is of interest.

I have done it the other way before, i.e. shipped stuff from Oz to the UK. I took furniture & personal effects, but left white goods.
I've read on other threads that quite a few people recommend taking fridges. freezers, TV's, DVD's, washing machines etc.

Has anyone done a cost comparison to work out if this is worth doing & if the stuff works in OZ!!

Brionyj

honeybob

do most people rent furnished accomodation until your belongings arrive from the uk, and then look to move into unfurnished, or buy, whatever?

because we have two little kids, we want to get settled as quickly as possible, originally we had intended not to take anything, knowing there was an ikea and also freedom and ambience, etc. but apart from anything else, i think the kids need familiarity (?sp), and well, i don't want to spend my first few months just shopping!!! i hope our time will be taken up doing far more important things.

does anyone know of info re renting furnished property in the gold coast area - helensvale, oxenford and surrounding suburbs, there seems to be alot of info for non furnished, but what do people do in the mean time until your stuff arrives?

and thankyou for the info re the smeg fridge! really pleased, thought we wouldn't be able to take it!

honeybob...

chocaholic

Just to help with a few of the questions......

We have mainly wooden furniture, alot of antique pine and some solid French oak. We had no problems with quarantine - your removalist will take a look at your furniture to see whether they invisage any difficulties but it is your responsibility. If you have any doubts have it checked out. If quarantine find a bug in your furniture they'll have it fumigated at your cost. I think the furniture will be fine here - you need to have your home treated so the termites don't get so close as to be able to eat your dining room table

We didn't bring our TV because we were told it wouldn't work - but when we got here, we were told it probably would've. We brought our video player, region-free DVD player and music stuff. Brought our 20 boxes of kitchen stuff - husband had plenty of plugs to change, but it all works. We brought our washing machine because it's still very good. You just have to make sure the drum is anchored with the special attachments that come with it (the removalists do this for you).

When we first got here, we stayed with my brother while we looked for a rental. We also needed new garden furniture and a new bed for the spare room. The garden furniture was used inside until our container arrived. We bought a TV and my brother lent us two beanbags to sit on as well as kitchen utensils etc.

We found the garden furniture place and bed place very accomadating with delivery - totally different to what we were used to. (One of them rang up and said "we're going to be 20 minutes early, is that a problem!)

chocaholic

Oh, I forgot to say we left our old wooden furniture behind - it would've been alot of work to get it completely clean. But the plastic stuff, we cleaned and brought along. They have great garden furniture here. I like the jarra especially.

gdcollectables

We're taking everything we'd need to set up our new home comfortably and as I've sold the excess we wouldn't need, I've used the money to buy other things I would not normally have been able to find the excuse to buy!

I don't want to have to spend hours in our new town trying to find things and saying - "If I were in the UK, I'd know just where to go"!

There are a few things we will need to source and buy, but not too many and not too urgently.

By the way, if anyone's going to Adelaide - Ikea won't be there until 2006!

Gary / Terri

Zapprabbit
we arrived some nine weeks ago and our UK 40ft arrived three weeks ago, we bought just about everything so do I regret what I bought, well I suppose much depends on your budget, if you have a good wedge to spend then buy new and you will get some good things and reasonabe prices. However I have seen some things on the site to which I have different opinions as is my want I suppose. I bought my panasonic cordless phone and it works fine with the usual large to small telephone socket adaptor, I also bought the freezer which is fine in the garage along with the tumble dryer. I wish I did not bring the washing machine as the wife wanted a new one, but with different tap adaptors it would have been fine. I also bought TV's this was a mistake as although you can use them in Aus you have to feed them through an Aussie video which is as expensive as buying a new TV if you want small portables say for the bedroom or for the kids.
I agree that Feedom and IKEA are good and reasonable as well, you will find some furniture just does not go in your new home but that is part of the fun looking for new things whilst stopping at coffee shops, bars and beaches on the way. The rest of the electricals are fine you just need a trip to BUNNINGS ( B&Q) to get some Aussie plugs a tip here for a few weeks is to bring UK plug blocks and just change the plug on this, therefore you can use your UK plugs for a while until you get round to changing them, vey useful idea for computer, printer, scanners etc etc leave on UK plug and just use the block to connect to the mains
The final advice from my experience is that most houses in Aus do not have lofts as they are full of aircon pipes and machinery, they also don't have rafters in the garages as they are either built over or have the electric motors, so think where you will store that stuff!!
Hope this helps

Gary and Terri

darkless

We are not taking any big stuff. We are going to ship about 10 tea chests of some of the little stuff that someone commented earlier that is $10 here $20 there, but all large stuff for us wasnt worth taking.

Fridge - only have a small fridge with icebox - ok as a beer fridge in OZ but nothing more
Sofa - old need replacing anyway
TV - wont work properly
Washing Machine - decent, but wont have warranty and not sure if parts will be available etc

I could go on and on... but I wont.

For us we have managed to get a reasonable price for most of our large furniture and white goods from the people who bought out house.

If I had a house full of decent furniture, expensive items or antiques I would defo ship, but I havent so we are actually looking forward to buying new things for our new house in our new life in OZ

Dave

MrsMangle

Its worth thinking about whether you're planning to rent or buy out here - I say this because I know if we had brought our white goods they wouldn't have fitted into our rented apartment - in the fitted kitchen only enough space to fit in a small fridge freezer... Of course if we'd brought a house we would have changed stuff round to fit belongings in...
we did bring a lot of personal items - ornaments etc - some of it is really junk - but it was soo good to see our belongings arrive and to have familiar stuff round us again!!!
The only thing we have brought and had probs with are computers - you may not be able to get replacement printer cartridges out here so stock up before you leave!!!!!

scoobydoo

We shipped all our stuff out here...as previously said it was great to see all our stuff arrive! But having just spent 2 hours trying to fix the washing machine (succesful!) and having to get relatives to send out hoover bags, think carefully about some items which they don't fix etc over here!