Finally back online
#1
BE Enthusiast
Thread Starter
Joined: Oct 2003
Location: Edens Landing, half way between Brisbane and Gold coast
Posts: 652
Finally back online
I have no idea where to begin, so much has happened since we last posted.
A brief recap,
we arrived at 8.00 pm tuesday the 17th august in brisbane.That night once at the hostel we ventured out for something to eat and saw a needle ( this has already been mentioned and it's not something i wish to raise again, like i said, it's a brief recap ).
The following morning we opened a bank account at the hsbc and started wandering around the many many malls.
One of the first things that struck us was the number of eating establishments, there are foodcourts just about everywhere selling just about anything and everything you could ever want, to say the country is multicultural is a vast understatement .
We found ourselves a pub ( the pig n whistle ) and loved the city from the first day.
We forwarded our account details to HIFX on the wednesday morning (aus time ) and i phoned them on the friday night ( friday morning uk ) to enquire where the money was.Now i know it takes time for these things to happen but i was told prior to purchasing our currency that the funds would be released immediately by them but it may take the hsbc upto 4 days to clear them.So, on friday,with the hsbc claiming they hadn't yet recieved the money i phoned them ( hifx) and they told me the funds hadbeen released that day, i asked why it had taken them over two days to release the funds and he couldn't tell me.Whilst their service was good i fely it was important to mention this.Due to the exchange rate they were offering we decided to send as much as possible via hifx on the understanding that we would not have the money for a maximum of 4/5 days after our arrival. As it turned out we got a phone call from the hsbc on the monday afternoon saying the funds had arrived and we could draw from them whenever we wished.
So it still only took 4 days to clear but we spent that weekend expecting the funds to arrive monday and possibly clear thursday/friday, it was a very worrying weekend for us.
That afternoon we bought a car, a nice little toyota echo, costs $34.00 to fill and we were mobile.
On the tuesday we went to an estate agent ( sorry, real estate ) that we had been referred to by a man in the uk , " my dad owns it " he told us , so we found it and sat down with him.
He had grown up in morecambe and knew the very road we had lived on, it was really nice talking to him and he suggested we take a drive, he wrote down a couple of places for us to look at and told us he had nothing around either area but thought it would suit us.
We took off in the car down the motorway ( that was quite hairy actually , i'm pretty sure in the uk that overtaking is only permitted on the right, undertaking is a no-no. over here you are allowed to undertake if on a multilane road ie:motorway as long as it is safe to do so, there you are plodding along at a steady 95kph when a wagon comes steaming past you in the right lane and another in the left. I wasn't hogging the centre lane, i had just passed an exit and he had come on down the slip road ) and arrived about half an hour later in edens landing, we fell in love with the place immediately and started looking at properties.
We went to lj hooker and got a couple of sets of keys, had a look at them both, decided we wanted the second one and told the agent so.We filled in the application form and she told us they would be in touch, hopefully within 48 hours. A little dissappointed we returned to the city and went out to the pub again .
After one drink i had a phone call from a scottish lady at lj hooker telling me if we were prepared to pay the first 3 months upfront then it was ours.The following day we took the money and got the keys, since then we have been buying furniture and sorting out the internet, kidsin school etc.
The house has 4 bedrooms,air con, lockup garage,large back yard,Huge storage/laundry under the house and a large verandah out the back overlooking a valley.Basically it's pretty much everything i have always wanted in a house,just wish it was up for sale lol .
we took the kids to the local state school and they told us that as long as we had proof of residency ( contract from the real estate agent would suffice ) then they could start the following day. The kids are loving school and finding things much more interesting than back in the uk. Each year has it's own playground ( and i'm not talking about a large slab of concrete covered in paint here, this is more like a park, with monkey bars,slides, all the bells and whistles, all under large canopies to keep off the sun.The teachers are very friendly and on monday shannon brought home a letter from her teacher requesting two more exercise books, the letter was written by hand and started with " Dear Paul and Ann-Marie ". Very friendly, very supportive and very welcoming. A huge relief to say the least.
There are bad sides too, no job yet ( still waiting for that elusive interview ) but have started putting out the feelers.We are all getting homesick from time to time, we thought we would be able to chat with people no problem and never really considered the time difference.Unless you get up pretty early then it's too late in the uk to phone anyone and when you feel good towards the end of the day they are just waking up and getting ready to go to work, needless to say i have yet to meet someone who was dead happy and jovial first thing in the morning.
Apparently we haven't had a winter this year so are expecting quite a few redbacks around here ( so say the neighbours, who incidentally, i went to see a couple of nights ago,just to drop off a power lead they had kindly let us borrow for the weekend and got dragged through the house onto the back deck,given a cold beer and spent the next two and a half hours chatting about anything and everything, like i said, everyone seems VERY friendly ).
On the whole.....................as long as we find work, i think this is us.
We're just desperate to see some family though.
Take care everyone.
Paul
Having read through what i have written, there's a couple of things i would like to add.
Firstly the rent for this property is $250 per week, which worked out the same as we were paying in the uk for our caravan.
Secondly, i mentioned the scottish lady, the reason for this is that she is constantly on the phone telling us where we should go, " you have got to go to sanctuary cove, get behind the resort to the beach, you'll love it " and " the second sunday of the month, go to tamborine mountain " she left a message on the phone last week saying " paul, could you please ring the office ", my thoughts were " oh shit, what's wrong ", i called her and she asked if we'd been to sanctuary cove yet.That was all she wanted, she rings up to tell us where the tip is for all our excess rubbish etc.etc.etc.
The woman is a gem and i just wanted to mention her.
A brief recap,
we arrived at 8.00 pm tuesday the 17th august in brisbane.That night once at the hostel we ventured out for something to eat and saw a needle ( this has already been mentioned and it's not something i wish to raise again, like i said, it's a brief recap ).
The following morning we opened a bank account at the hsbc and started wandering around the many many malls.
One of the first things that struck us was the number of eating establishments, there are foodcourts just about everywhere selling just about anything and everything you could ever want, to say the country is multicultural is a vast understatement .
We found ourselves a pub ( the pig n whistle ) and loved the city from the first day.
We forwarded our account details to HIFX on the wednesday morning (aus time ) and i phoned them on the friday night ( friday morning uk ) to enquire where the money was.Now i know it takes time for these things to happen but i was told prior to purchasing our currency that the funds would be released immediately by them but it may take the hsbc upto 4 days to clear them.So, on friday,with the hsbc claiming they hadn't yet recieved the money i phoned them ( hifx) and they told me the funds hadbeen released that day, i asked why it had taken them over two days to release the funds and he couldn't tell me.Whilst their service was good i fely it was important to mention this.Due to the exchange rate they were offering we decided to send as much as possible via hifx on the understanding that we would not have the money for a maximum of 4/5 days after our arrival. As it turned out we got a phone call from the hsbc on the monday afternoon saying the funds had arrived and we could draw from them whenever we wished.
So it still only took 4 days to clear but we spent that weekend expecting the funds to arrive monday and possibly clear thursday/friday, it was a very worrying weekend for us.
That afternoon we bought a car, a nice little toyota echo, costs $34.00 to fill and we were mobile.
On the tuesday we went to an estate agent ( sorry, real estate ) that we had been referred to by a man in the uk , " my dad owns it " he told us , so we found it and sat down with him.
He had grown up in morecambe and knew the very road we had lived on, it was really nice talking to him and he suggested we take a drive, he wrote down a couple of places for us to look at and told us he had nothing around either area but thought it would suit us.
We took off in the car down the motorway ( that was quite hairy actually , i'm pretty sure in the uk that overtaking is only permitted on the right, undertaking is a no-no. over here you are allowed to undertake if on a multilane road ie:motorway as long as it is safe to do so, there you are plodding along at a steady 95kph when a wagon comes steaming past you in the right lane and another in the left. I wasn't hogging the centre lane, i had just passed an exit and he had come on down the slip road ) and arrived about half an hour later in edens landing, we fell in love with the place immediately and started looking at properties.
We went to lj hooker and got a couple of sets of keys, had a look at them both, decided we wanted the second one and told the agent so.We filled in the application form and she told us they would be in touch, hopefully within 48 hours. A little dissappointed we returned to the city and went out to the pub again .
After one drink i had a phone call from a scottish lady at lj hooker telling me if we were prepared to pay the first 3 months upfront then it was ours.The following day we took the money and got the keys, since then we have been buying furniture and sorting out the internet, kidsin school etc.
The house has 4 bedrooms,air con, lockup garage,large back yard,Huge storage/laundry under the house and a large verandah out the back overlooking a valley.Basically it's pretty much everything i have always wanted in a house,just wish it was up for sale lol .
we took the kids to the local state school and they told us that as long as we had proof of residency ( contract from the real estate agent would suffice ) then they could start the following day. The kids are loving school and finding things much more interesting than back in the uk. Each year has it's own playground ( and i'm not talking about a large slab of concrete covered in paint here, this is more like a park, with monkey bars,slides, all the bells and whistles, all under large canopies to keep off the sun.The teachers are very friendly and on monday shannon brought home a letter from her teacher requesting two more exercise books, the letter was written by hand and started with " Dear Paul and Ann-Marie ". Very friendly, very supportive and very welcoming. A huge relief to say the least.
There are bad sides too, no job yet ( still waiting for that elusive interview ) but have started putting out the feelers.We are all getting homesick from time to time, we thought we would be able to chat with people no problem and never really considered the time difference.Unless you get up pretty early then it's too late in the uk to phone anyone and when you feel good towards the end of the day they are just waking up and getting ready to go to work, needless to say i have yet to meet someone who was dead happy and jovial first thing in the morning.
Apparently we haven't had a winter this year so are expecting quite a few redbacks around here ( so say the neighbours, who incidentally, i went to see a couple of nights ago,just to drop off a power lead they had kindly let us borrow for the weekend and got dragged through the house onto the back deck,given a cold beer and spent the next two and a half hours chatting about anything and everything, like i said, everyone seems VERY friendly ).
On the whole.....................as long as we find work, i think this is us.
We're just desperate to see some family though.
Take care everyone.
Paul
Having read through what i have written, there's a couple of things i would like to add.
Firstly the rent for this property is $250 per week, which worked out the same as we were paying in the uk for our caravan.
Secondly, i mentioned the scottish lady, the reason for this is that she is constantly on the phone telling us where we should go, " you have got to go to sanctuary cove, get behind the resort to the beach, you'll love it " and " the second sunday of the month, go to tamborine mountain " she left a message on the phone last week saying " paul, could you please ring the office ", my thoughts were " oh shit, what's wrong ", i called her and she asked if we'd been to sanctuary cove yet.That was all she wanted, she rings up to tell us where the tip is for all our excess rubbish etc.etc.etc.
The woman is a gem and i just wanted to mention her.
Last edited by Paul&Ann-Marie; Sep 8th 2004 at 1:51 pm.
#2
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Finally back online
Originally Posted by Paul&Ann-Marie
I have no idea where to begin, so much has happened since we last posted.
A brief recap,
we arrived at 8.00 pm tuesday the 17th august in brisbane.That night once at the hostel we ventured out for something to eat and saw a needle ( this has already been mentioned and it's not something i wish to raise again, like i said, it's a brief recap ).
The following morning we opened a bank account at the hsbc and started wandering around the many many malls.
One of the first things that struck us was the number of eating establishments, there are foodcourts just about everywhere selling just about anything and everything you could ever want, to say the country is multicultural is a vast understatement .
We found ourselves a pub ( the pig n whistle ) and loved the city from the first day.
We forwarded our account details to HIFX on the wednesday morning (aus time ) and i phoned them on the friday night ( friday morning uk ) to enquire where the money was.Now i know it takes time for these things to happen but i was told prior to purchasing our currency that the funds would be released immediately by them but it may take the hsbc upto 4 days to clear them.So, on friday,with the hsbc claiming they hadn't yet recieved the money i phoned them ( hifx) and they told me the funds hadbeen released that day, i asked why it had taken them over two days to release the funds and he couldn't tell me.Whilst their service was good i fely it was important to mention this.Due to the exchange rate they were offering we decided to send as much as possible via hifx on the understanding that we would not have the money for a maximum of 4/5 days after our arrival. As it turned out we got a phone call from the hsbc on the monday afternoon saying the funds had arrived and we could draw from them whenever we wished.
So it still only took 4 days to clear but we spent that weekend expecting the funds to arrive monday and possibly clear thursday/friday, it was a very worrying weekend for us.
That afternoon we bought a car, a nice little toyota echo, costs $34.00 to fill and we were mobile.
On the tuesday we went to an estate agent ( sorry, real estate ) that we had been referred to by a man in the uk , " my dad owns it " he told us , so we found it and sat down with him.
He had grown up in morecambe and knew the very road we had lived on, it was really nice talking to him and he suggested we take a drive, he wrote down a couple of places for us to look at and told us he had nothing around either area but thought it would suit us.
We took off in the car down the motorway ( that was quite hairy actually , i'm pretty sure in the uk that overtaking is only permitted on the right, undertaking is a no-no. over here you are allowed to undertake if on a multilane road ie:motorway as long as it is safe to do so, there you are plodding along at a steady 95kph when a wagon comes steaming past you in the right lane and another in the left. I wasn't hogging the centre lane, i had just passed an exit and he had come on down the slip road ) and arrived about half an hour later in edens landing, we fell in love with the place immediately and started looking at properties.
We went to lj hooker and got a couple of sets of keys, had a look at them both, decided we wanted the second one and told the agent so.We filled in the application form and she told us they would be in touch, hopefully within 48 hours. A little dissappointed we returned to the city and went out to the pub again .
After one drink i had a phone call from a scottish lady at lj hooker telling me if we were prepared to pay the first 3 months upfront then it was ours.The following day we took the money and got the keys, since then we have been buying furniture and sorting out the internet, kidsin school etc.
The house has 4 bedrooms,air con, lockup garage,large back yard,Huge storage/laundry under the house and a large verandah out the back overlooking a valley.Basically it's pretty much everything i have always wanted in a house,just wish it was up for sale lol .
we took the kids to the local state school and they told us that as long as we had proof of residency ( contract from the real estate agent would suffice ) then they could start the following day. The kids are loving school and finding things much more interesting than back in the uk. Each year has it's own playground ( and i'm not talking about a large slab of concrete covered in paint here, this is more like a park, with monkey bars,slides, all the bells and whistles, all under large canopies to keep off the sun.The teachers are very friendly and on monday shannon brought home a letter from her teacher requesting two more exercise books, the letter was written by hand and started with " Dear Paul and Ann-Marie ". Very friendly, very supportive and very welcoming. A huge relief to say the least.
There are bad sides too, no job yet ( still waiting for that elusive interview ) but have started putting out the feelers.We are all getting homesick from time to time, we thought we would be able to chat with people no problem and never really considered the time difference.Unless you get up pretty early then it's too late in the uk to phone anyone and when you feel good towards the end of the day they are just waking up and getting ready to go to work, needless to say i have yet to meet someone who was dead happy and jovial first thing in the morning.
Apparently we haven't had a winter this year so are expecting quite a few redbacks around here ( so say the neighbours, who incidentally, i went to see a couple of nights ago,just to drop off a power lead they had kindly let us borrow for the weekend and got dragged through the house onto the back deck,given a cold beer and spent the next two and a half hours chatting about anything and everything, like i said, everyone seems VERY friendly ).
On the whole.....................as long as we find work, i think this is us.
We're just desperate to see some family though.
Take care everyone.
Paul
A brief recap,
we arrived at 8.00 pm tuesday the 17th august in brisbane.That night once at the hostel we ventured out for something to eat and saw a needle ( this has already been mentioned and it's not something i wish to raise again, like i said, it's a brief recap ).
The following morning we opened a bank account at the hsbc and started wandering around the many many malls.
One of the first things that struck us was the number of eating establishments, there are foodcourts just about everywhere selling just about anything and everything you could ever want, to say the country is multicultural is a vast understatement .
We found ourselves a pub ( the pig n whistle ) and loved the city from the first day.
We forwarded our account details to HIFX on the wednesday morning (aus time ) and i phoned them on the friday night ( friday morning uk ) to enquire where the money was.Now i know it takes time for these things to happen but i was told prior to purchasing our currency that the funds would be released immediately by them but it may take the hsbc upto 4 days to clear them.So, on friday,with the hsbc claiming they hadn't yet recieved the money i phoned them ( hifx) and they told me the funds hadbeen released that day, i asked why it had taken them over two days to release the funds and he couldn't tell me.Whilst their service was good i fely it was important to mention this.Due to the exchange rate they were offering we decided to send as much as possible via hifx on the understanding that we would not have the money for a maximum of 4/5 days after our arrival. As it turned out we got a phone call from the hsbc on the monday afternoon saying the funds had arrived and we could draw from them whenever we wished.
So it still only took 4 days to clear but we spent that weekend expecting the funds to arrive monday and possibly clear thursday/friday, it was a very worrying weekend for us.
That afternoon we bought a car, a nice little toyota echo, costs $34.00 to fill and we were mobile.
On the tuesday we went to an estate agent ( sorry, real estate ) that we had been referred to by a man in the uk , " my dad owns it " he told us , so we found it and sat down with him.
He had grown up in morecambe and knew the very road we had lived on, it was really nice talking to him and he suggested we take a drive, he wrote down a couple of places for us to look at and told us he had nothing around either area but thought it would suit us.
We took off in the car down the motorway ( that was quite hairy actually , i'm pretty sure in the uk that overtaking is only permitted on the right, undertaking is a no-no. over here you are allowed to undertake if on a multilane road ie:motorway as long as it is safe to do so, there you are plodding along at a steady 95kph when a wagon comes steaming past you in the right lane and another in the left. I wasn't hogging the centre lane, i had just passed an exit and he had come on down the slip road ) and arrived about half an hour later in edens landing, we fell in love with the place immediately and started looking at properties.
We went to lj hooker and got a couple of sets of keys, had a look at them both, decided we wanted the second one and told the agent so.We filled in the application form and she told us they would be in touch, hopefully within 48 hours. A little dissappointed we returned to the city and went out to the pub again .
After one drink i had a phone call from a scottish lady at lj hooker telling me if we were prepared to pay the first 3 months upfront then it was ours.The following day we took the money and got the keys, since then we have been buying furniture and sorting out the internet, kidsin school etc.
The house has 4 bedrooms,air con, lockup garage,large back yard,Huge storage/laundry under the house and a large verandah out the back overlooking a valley.Basically it's pretty much everything i have always wanted in a house,just wish it was up for sale lol .
we took the kids to the local state school and they told us that as long as we had proof of residency ( contract from the real estate agent would suffice ) then they could start the following day. The kids are loving school and finding things much more interesting than back in the uk. Each year has it's own playground ( and i'm not talking about a large slab of concrete covered in paint here, this is more like a park, with monkey bars,slides, all the bells and whistles, all under large canopies to keep off the sun.The teachers are very friendly and on monday shannon brought home a letter from her teacher requesting two more exercise books, the letter was written by hand and started with " Dear Paul and Ann-Marie ". Very friendly, very supportive and very welcoming. A huge relief to say the least.
There are bad sides too, no job yet ( still waiting for that elusive interview ) but have started putting out the feelers.We are all getting homesick from time to time, we thought we would be able to chat with people no problem and never really considered the time difference.Unless you get up pretty early then it's too late in the uk to phone anyone and when you feel good towards the end of the day they are just waking up and getting ready to go to work, needless to say i have yet to meet someone who was dead happy and jovial first thing in the morning.
Apparently we haven't had a winter this year so are expecting quite a few redbacks around here ( so say the neighbours, who incidentally, i went to see a couple of nights ago,just to drop off a power lead they had kindly let us borrow for the weekend and got dragged through the house onto the back deck,given a cold beer and spent the next two and a half hours chatting about anything and everything, like i said, everyone seems VERY friendly ).
On the whole.....................as long as we find work, i think this is us.
We're just desperate to see some family though.
Take care everyone.
Paul
Im so glad to see that you are settling in well.
All you need to do now is find out where the next ex pat meet is in your area and you will be sorted.
Good luck with the job front im sure you wont have any problems.
Keep us all updated
Mags
xxx
#3
Home and Happy
Joined: Dec 2002
Location: Keep true friends and puppets close, trust no-one else...
Posts: 93,806
Re: Finally back online
Good to hear from you; 15th October Ann-Marie for a girlie night out! Theres a thread fairly near the top (about page 3 at present I think!). If you fancy meeting up before then, give me a yell and I'll see what I can do. I'm up in Clayfield but can come into the city, or anywhere near a station (unless I can bribe tthe Bloke to drive somewhere!)
You need to have people to chat to - makes a very big difference! If you can't manage family - plenty of friends on here.
Sounds like its going well - really pleased for you.
You need to have people to chat to - makes a very big difference! If you can't manage family - plenty of friends on here.
Sounds like its going well - really pleased for you.
#4
Re: Finally back online
Well done guys, Sounds like you are getting all things sorted pretty quick. Good luck with the job.
Kala
Kala
#5
Joined: Jun 2004
Posts: 1,606
Re: Finally back online
Hi guys,
What a fantastic post. it was great to hear all your news and learn of both the ups and downs. Im glad the kids seem to be adjusting so well. Good to have you back here and keep us posted!
Lucy
x
What a fantastic post. it was great to hear all your news and learn of both the ups and downs. Im glad the kids seem to be adjusting so well. Good to have you back here and keep us posted!
Lucy
x
#6
Re: Finally back online
Good post guys, heres hoping a job offer comes soon.
Aren't those Scottish people lovely.
Aren't those Scottish people lovely.
#7
Re: Finally back online
Paul & Ann-Marie
Glad to hear that you made it OK and that you seem to be settling in to Oz life well. Keep the updates coming !
Glad to hear that you made it OK and that you seem to be settling in to Oz life well. Keep the updates coming !