garyfish1968

have to agree with lots that has been said.
I'm cornish and now live in Plymouth but i'm looking to move to melbourne in the near future. going for a sightseeing trip next week to get a feel for the place.
Cornwall and devon are beautiful places but:
wages are very low average in plymouth is £16-£20000 a year if you can find decent work. its lower in cornwall less jobs available.crime rate is steadily growing due to lack of jobs.
House prices going through the roof. just had my house valued for sale 3 bed small terrace £150,000. and its not in a desirable area. add another £70,000+ for the same in a rural location. The house prices are still going up and have done so all through the current economic climate.
summer days can be wonderful but seem to be few an far between, winters now colder and wetter than i can remember, seen more snow this year than in the rest of my 41 years. seaside towns are like ghost towns from october to april and can be very depressing.
traffic in the summer is a nightmare gridlocking cornwall.
cost of living is comparable with bigger sities like liverpool and birmingham almost getting as bad as london.
Dont get ill down here, the health service is falling apart. The hospitals are in a very bad way (my wifes a nurse so i know) the care is awful. nearly lost my son earlier this year after a routine operation, thank god my wife was around to sort him out.
if you can cope with all of this then its a lovely place and can be very relaxing, just dont expect to much from all the lovely places we have down here come april they all get packed out and are slowly being ruined (just look at the damage that has been caused to Dartmoor!)
I love my home county and proud to be cornish but its not what it used to be.

i hope melbourne has what i'm looking for which is none of the above.Rural life in unspoilt surroundings, uncrowded lanscape with lots of peace and quiet. we shall see!!
good luck with your plans no matter what you decide.

stuckinblighty

Dont believe the bollocks about Melbournes weather being crap,changeable yes,crap NO WAY !
IMHO apart from the odd stinking hot day the climate here is excellent

lunny

Mmmmm, so the tables have sort of turned. First it seemed Cornwall was getting the vote, but I'm glad of the comments from ppl who have actually lived there. I'm sure it is a beautiful place, but maybe the drawbacks just outweigh the benefits. Think I'll have to get the ball rolling soon, been toying with the idea for months, I just need to make up my mind and decide.

Thanks a million for your opinions. I'm sure I'll be back soon with more questions.

Hutch, I think your comment about gut feeling instead of logistics is spot on

Nu-Shooz

I think you made up your mind from the start..Melbourne!

iamthecreaturefromuranus

Yeah, and they were expecting everybody to come on and shout "MELBOURNE" and got a shock when it didn't happen.

Asked where we would prefer to live and many of us said Cornwall, but that's not to say we considered all the issues about jobs, housing, cost of living there etc... its just where we would prefer to live.

Just an afterthought.... I hadn't noticed Melbourne being particularly known for the cheapness of its housing stock.

BadgeIsBack

I only said Cornwall might do as I am low on my pro-UK quota and month-end is approaching!

mohogony

Have you considered Tasmania , l went for a holiday there once it is has some the best scenery and nicest countryside anywhere in Australia, but its cold in winter. If your looking for a quite rural place with great scenery its perfect and you can catch the ferry to Melbourne.

emma75

Cornwall is beautiful, we try and get down there for weekends all the time and are going down there for a long weekend at Easter. I would love to live there but feel it has no job opportunities for us. It must be a tough decision for you as you are already living in an amazing place!

oz miller man

we lived in Cornwall for 3 years. and as its 6 hours away from my home town was a great test/experience before taking the plunge to Australia...infact the move to cornwall was harder in some respects.

why?
jobs, hard to find and low in pay
house, rents expensive and poor quality-we had an ideal looking rural stone cottage that was so cold and damp, didnt have proper heating and was spooky n haunted.
locals dont really want you there---you will get called an emmit
way way too busy in summer
bleak in winter
towns like redruth, cambourne, helston are dead (shops, take aways and pubs)

but saying all that, if i had to go back to live in the uk it would be cornwall or northumberland.

Basil Brush

My hubby and I are still considering a move from Melbourne to the UK (there's always a reason why we can't leave right now, but we are always thinking about it in preparation for when we can finally make the move). Devon was one of the places we thought would be a nice place to live as we could still enjoy some of the things we have come to love about Melbourne, such as being close to the coast. Does anyone know if Devon is likely to be as difficult as Cornwall when it comes to: -

A) Finding work
B) Wages
C) Housing costs
D) Being accepted by the locals and not being called "emmits"

I have looked at places like Torquay which look lovely but I can imagine would be a nightmare in the Summer months with so many tourists flocking to that area, so was wondering if maybe somewhere on the outskirts of Exeter would be a safer bet as far as finding work, but I really don't know which areas are considered to be the "good" part of Exeter as far as buying a house. Any help or advice would really be helpful as all of this MBTTUK lark can be so very confusing

Bix

Bring out the janners.

canadaeh

What makes you think your lifestyle will be any better here? It’s not like Home and Away.

Seriously, why do people still think Australia has a lower stress level of life, with more free time to spend? Or that the weather is always sunny? Lower cost of living? Bla bla bla.

Australians on average work longer hours than the UK. (A study a while ago even said Aussies work longer and harder than any western nation).

Oh, and it also rains here.

People here still have to work full time, still have to pay bills, still find things expensive, still do over time, still get stressed out – it’s like the UK, only without the cheap weekend breaks to Europe.

Think realistically, if you are coming here just because you want better “lifestyle and weather” then you’ll be in for a shock.

If you’re coming because you want to spend a year on a WHV having fun, then go for it. (Remember a WHV is only temporary and if you can’t secure a Permanent Visa you’ll still have to go back, you are also limited to working 6 months in the one job, and will only get the second year if you do things like fruit picking).

Also, don’t know if you and the OH are married, but if so then you don’t qualify for the WHV.

I have loads of friends who came here on a WHV, and even though they had experience, could not get a job in their areas, simply because they were seen as a “Backpacker” and limited to a time frame. They all got stuck with basic, low paid backpacker jobs.

Like I said, if you want fun and adventure for a year then go for it. If you have a fantastic career option for both of you, have already been here and loved it then go for it. But if you just want to escape the lifestyle and weather of the UK then you best stay put as they are the wrong reasons for coming.

Good luck either way.

Am Loolah

Well, I can't comment on Melbourne as I live in New Zealand, but I can share my experiences of Cornwall.

We left London and moved to Cornwall for 10 years, before moving to NZ 3 years ago.

We were fortunate to be able to afford a decent house in rural Cornwall, but there's no way we could afford to be anywhere near a beach - not particularly a bad thing as it would take you 30 minutes to travel the last 2 miles to one in Summer.

Ah, Summer in Cornwall - I remember it well, both days of it in the 10 years. Mind we chose to live on the outskirts of Bodmin Moor - rain, rain and more rain.

It would take us 20 minutes to pull across the A30 on a Saturday in the summer holidays because of the traffic, to the point where we wouldn't travel then unless we absolutely had to. The infrastructure, well the one main road, is diabolical.

Even after 10 years we were always outsiders in the village we lived in. Despite having a child born in the village, the first one in 14 years apparently - still not good enough for the locals!

3 years in NZ, similiar scenary, similiar coastline, live one street back from the beach and are still swimming in the Pacific with no wetsuits and it's Autumn now!

Given the choice I'd go for Oz, but hey, everyone's different. You might go to Cornwall and love it.

By the way, we thought about moving to St Ives from Bodmin Moor instead of NZ, but we couldn't afford the housing! Bue certainly our favourite spot in Cornwall.

Good luck whatever you decide.

lunny

Quote:

Originally Posted by canadaeh

What makes you think your lifestyle will be any better here? It’s not like Home and Away.

Thanks for the opinion

Grayling

Perhaps you ought to check the sunset times in various parts of Australia if light evenings are important to you.

Much of the year it will be dark when you finish work and dark not much later than 8.30 pm in the summer (6.30 ish in Queensland).

http://members.iinet.net.au/~jacob/risesetmelb.html