EverydaySunshine

No we are not gas fitters. I am a Personal Assistant and OH and IT person

arkon

Hi, If you do a search on my name you will get an idea, start with the early stuff as it only got better from then on. But the short answer was Mid North Coast NSW, A farm, North of Taree.

ossigeno

Are you sure? http://www.gmcompany.com/

stalybridge

Arkon wouldnt be happy anywhere except next door to a sweetshop in the UK

Its all down to preferences at the end of the day.

I loved Oz from the moment I arrived, I just felt at home. I lived in LA before and although I liked California, I felt very foriegn, probably due to lack of English people and different culture.
Being fron SA you will love the weather here and the space, for example you can easily buy acreage here, everyone I know lives in a detached house with a decent back yard, swimming pools are cheap ($16000) and here in Qld you can live in shorts and tee shirt 90% of the time.
I love going to Wellington Point on Sunday Morning for full English ($10) al fresco and looking at the blue sky and blue ocean.........thats worth millions to me.

arkon

That's not strictly true. I was 100% happy with my life in the Uk prior to moving here. Coming here was one of those daft 'If I don't do it now, I can never do it' moments. The clock was ticking on the age limit to emigrate.

But yes, I did have a Tesco's within walking distance of the house!!

iamthecreaturefromuranus

That's a bit disingenuous… buying acreage is a non-starter if you plan to live in Brisbane, or any other major city for that matter. If you want to live somewhere with acres of land then you need to start moving away from the cities… and for some cities a long way away.

stalybridge

Sorry BUT.........

Ive just bought acreage in Capalaba, 20 klms from Brisbane CBD, and there are other blocks for sale

Wol

*Somewhere* I suppose the sun must be shining. Yes the weather is better than the UK (not difficult) but you're being a bit optimistic!

jond

I went into Bunnings the other week to get a replacement grass catcher for my mower and they said that they had gone bust and couldn't get a parts for GMC products. I had a look around and there wasn't any of there stuff there anymore.

Nicos666

Ear plugs, you will need ear plugs, australians are really noisy generally

jond

I remember a great post on here once, someone reckoned that all the people in the surronding properties brought huge blocks of metal and spent all weekend grinding them down with angle grinders as that was all they could hear every weekend

ossigeno

You are correct. I am most surprised. I spent a couple of weeks working for GMC 3 years back and they were going through an enormous growth phase. Obviously outstretched themselves in the boom period without leaving any slack for the downturn.

EverydaySunshine

Think we will have to disagree on that one. For me whether than sun is shining almost everyday it certainly beats looking out at miserable grey skies, nuisance rain and cold weather 80% of the time. The weather on a whole is rubbish here and if I can go somewhere where it's not always freezing then that's fantastic!

LouiseR

We've been here just over 2 months and are very happy here. Some useful info I've found is left lanes do tend to disappear so I stick to the middle lane or right lane (how very Un-English of me!), Don't say "Routing" around Australian's they nudge and wink at you , the police are very secretive about catching speeders - they hide in and around bushes like the Gustapo! I tend to use cruise control so I don't get carried away.

Food and beer is expensive IMO but on the flip side renters don't pay council tax, we don't have a gas bill and petrol is half the price of the UK so swings and roundabouts. We've found that on a percentage of earnings and outgoings comparing the UK to Oz its about the same.

Get a TFN as soon as you arrive, really easy to do online and mine arrived within a week, Register with medicare asap and find your local bulk billing doctor, If you are renting in the UK try and bring references from your current landlord for Oz letting agents and also a Aussie reference will go a long way for you as well.

The best advice of all is be happy and positive, it would be impossible not to compare it to England or whereever home is for you but slowly you'll stop. I went to the shops the other day and didn't convert the amount into pounds, one of the first times since I've been here.

Oh and don't get stressed when you don't where places are, when you get lost or when it just doesn't feel like "you're in the know"... everythings new and adjusting will probably take a long time.

Wol

I don't think we disagree at all!

The UK weather is one of the two reasons we moved - that and the overcrowding there.

There are no more plusses as far as I'm concerned.

Wol (settling in for another frosty night, having been out and covered over all the semi-tender plants.)