freeflyer

Hello ,
A newbie here that really needs advice.
My husband has just been offered a skydiving job at Mission Beach near Cairns. As we have never been to OZ , does anybody have any opinions on the place.

from what we can work out it is v. small with only one school.
We have an 8year old daughter so we want to make the right decision.

my husbands salary would be about $1000 p/w would we be able to live on this? without bringing much cask from UK.

Do all the dangerous creatures , crocs , stingers , snakes , spiders etc have any impact on daily life , or am i worrying over nothing.


sorry for all the questions, I am panicking as my husband has to decide this week. Any feedback would help - good or bad.
thanks Anna

Mel Gibson

Its the cane toads up there that are the real killers.

HiddenPaw

Mission Beach itself is absolutely gorgeous - white sands, palm trees. The surrounding rainforest is also beautiful (and it's cassowary country - very beautiful huge bird). There isn't really a lot in MB itself, but has easy access to Dunk Island tho (lovely island on the Great Barrier Reef, great for camping). I think the nearest town to MB is Tully - Australia's wettest town no less - about half an hour from MB! It's a very small regional centre with shops, places to eat, hospital, etc etc. (I had the misfortune to be admitted to hospital in Tully and stuck on a drip!). Cairns is about 2hrs drive away. I can't comment on life in Tully and things to do but it is pretty small in terms of population.

ShellnTez

you should easy be able to live off that amount but then it depends on your lifestyle, if you want to buy a big house with a big mortgage then you might need more
we were there in oz for a year, went through the outback, bush walking etc and saw very few dangerous spiders and snakes etc
shell

Bix

Anna,
Have not visited there but one of our Aus workers lives there by choice and loves it.
Here's a site on it........
http://www.gspeak.com.au/missionb/

Nasties live all over Aus. Don't make your decision purely on that. I live in the suburbs of Cairns quite close to the rain forest and to be honest have not seen a lot of nasties so far. MB may be worse but there are things you can do and precautions you can take.
The whole region here is lovely.
Plenty to see and do.
If it gets you here is it not worth doing ?

Amazulu

It's a nice place, very quiet, great beach & rain forest. Lots of backpackers.
I enjoyed it there.

scrawni

Anna,

I think the salary will do you fine. I do find the cost of food a tad more expensive than say, Brisbane but not by much.

Cairns itself has plenty of shops with one big shopping mall in the centre. Second hand cars here are expensive but the new ones quite cheap

Remember though that it does goet extremely humid up here especially at this time of year, 80% humidity the last week with temperatures of 32 degrees. Make sure that your rental property has airconditioning and ceiling fans. It last for about 3mths then the humidity drops off and in July/August the temperature is in the mid 20's.

As for bugs, we have not had a problem really. All the doors and windows have screens. I keep a can of insect spray handy just incase but to be honest I did here some horror stories before coming here but not been bad at all. I have only seen 2 spiders, I wouldn't call them huge either. We are practically surrounded by rainforest it has been fine. We do get cane toads in the garden at night but we don't let that bother us. When we first got here we were bitten by mozzies but put spray on and you will be fine. Sand flies are a bugger but once again, spray!

The area itself has some beautiful places to visit. We often go swimming in some fresh water pools (the ones we know are safe from crocs because the water is too cold). Also remeber that you cannot swim in the sea for 6mths of the year because of jelly fish. There is a lovely man made lagoon in the centre of cairns though which is free to swim in with life guards.

House prices have increased, i'd say the average house price is about $300,000 to $350,000, you can get cheaper the further out you go, dearer the further in you go.

Plenty of rentals but gets very busy in the winter here July/Aug/Sept so choices are limited then.

Lots of schools, lots of kids tend to go to Catholic ones here which are about $400 per term plus all their books etc.


Here is a couple of websites for you:

www. cairnsinfo.com.au
www.cityofcairns.com.au
www.cairnsnqrealty.com.au
www.cairnstoday.com.au
www.courthouserealty.com.au
www.abc.net.au

Hope this helps

Mandy

aussie73

l agree. If you put together all the nasty creatures in Australia, snakes, spiders, sharks, crocs, stingers they kill a combined total of around 10 people
a year compared to 2,000 killed in Car accidents and 600 drowning out of a population of 20 milllion. You are probably more likely to be struck by lighting or hit by a bus as they say. The risk is so small it is not something you should
even consider in your decision to come to OZ.
Although in the far north of Queensland where you are moving l think you can't swim at the beaches for half the year because of stingers. There will be warning signs on the beach.

freeflyer

A big thank you to everyone that has replied, the info and links have been great.

We are going to go for it, My husband has booked a flight and is leaving next week.


Anna

Um... Cane toads - what are they?

scrawni

Good for you!

A cane toad was introduced to Australia so not a native frog. It is poisonous and are a threat to small animals i.e cats and dogs. They are considered a pest here.

Do a search on google.

Mandy

Amazulu

Replacement cricket balls. Feels good when you hit them for six.

brisnick

what!!!! survive on $52,000 a year??? that's a pick-up salary of $700 a week for a family of three with nothing to bring over from the uk??

are you kidding!!

freeflyer

Ref: Brisnick ,
Is $1000 p/w a really really low salary ?
What do people think would be the minimum for a family(3) to live on?

I realise that we wont be well off , but its a dream job for my husband so we were thinking that the sacrifice (money wise) would be worth it.

Anna

steandleigh

Hiya Anna,

thought i'd give you a breakdown of our monthly outgoings - ( we are in Cairns ) -

Rent - $290 per week ( we live at the beaches at the moment and are renting as we are building our own, also at the beaches, our house will cost roughly $380,000 by the time we have finished - 4 bedroomed, 2 bathroomed,"parents retreat" - whatever that means!!!- theres no retreat from our kids!!!, living, kitchen, dining, games room, swimming pool, landscaped, decent sized garden, rainforest backdrop, etc etc...)

Property rates / council tax / whatever you want to call it - $120 a month - $1200 a year - we are now paying this on our block of land, even though we haven't build a house on it yet!!! :scared:

Telephone- has averaged out at $160 a month so far but we have bought cheap 'phone cards recently, so will keep you posted on the next bill...

Electricity - last bill came in at $90 for the month - thats before the " hot and humid" season up here and although we are very sparing with our air con - only have it on at night-put it on 1/2 hour before bedtime (and set at 25 degrees), fans only in the day...so expecting it to be far higher this time..again, will let you know....

Food - $200 per week probably, by the time you have done your main shop ( including supermarket / fish market / veggie place plus extra milk and whatnot in the week ). We are a family of four and I make all my meals homecooked from scratch, no takeaways, no readymeals etc ( I enjoy cooking though, so it's not a problem ) and it IS more expensive than buying the $6.95 unlimited 'Eagle Boys' pizza every night of the week...you could eat takeout every night and it cost you far less in monetary terms and time...still we are healthy and we don't have the lard arses to show for it....

Theres plenty of other things too:-

Schooling - $10,000 a year all up for our two children to go to private school ( tuition fees, building levys, year level fees, books, uniforms,( which are NO joke - our kids book and uniform list just cost us $1000 alone... ), so you can budget $833 a month for that ( If you need it )...

Kids again - then you can add on all the other things for kids - $125 per year ( say $10.41 per month for soccer club ), $30 per 5 weeks for gymnastics, ( thats baby stuff though,(not the $ 75 per month for the 'good' gymnastics club ) i.e "push, push, push, It's the olympics for you baby", club...$50 a month for fishing bait for your little 'un to go fishin' with his pa, they get through bait like wanno....$22 a month to take 'em campin', plus the $30 you'll spend on wine for when the kids have bunked up for the night!!!!

Mobile phones - I don't use mine all that much, probably costs me $20 per month - Ste gets his free with work...

Car stuff - Rego - costs $558.85 for the year for my motor ( Rav 4 - and before anyone sniggers, I LIKE IT -THANKS!!!! ) So, $46.57 per month, plus PETROL:- costs me roughly $40 per week / $160 per month to fill it, PLUS: servicing ( about $90 every 6 months for us, plus whatever costs are incurred - can't tell you that yet as it's first time coming up.... so thats about $15 per month, plus any extras you may need to make your car roadworthy...

So far, thats $3350 ish per month...and thats without trips to the doctors and the dentists, those things which " may happen " e.g your washing machine biting the dust, car giving up the ghost, SUNSCREEN - which costs us about $20 a month, presents for the kids birthday party friends, inviting friends over for dinner, going out for a meal, taking the kids to the local lake and hiring a kajak (sp?),

MY POINT:- all those little things which don't seem a lot at the time...soon add up!!!! :scared: And then you have to add them to you fixed monthly 'outgoing' budget.....

This is in Cairns, so I can only imagine that certain things are even more expensive down south e.g Sydney etc...

Best wishes and hope this helps...

Leigh. x

Theres also the kids swimming lessons : $176 for 10 weeks, beer at $28 a slab per week!!!, house and contents insurance, life assurance, pensions, etc etc...

We are by no means well off, we both have to work and we have a mortgage...but we wouldn't be anywhere else either....

freeflyer

Wow! , thanks steandleigh for the breakdown of your finances (must have taken you ages) , it was just the sort of real life info that we needed. It looks as though we will just about be okay.

doesnt look like there is too much to spend our money on in mission bay anyway.
Anna