lorraine.81

hi there,

my husband has a possibility of a new job in Melbourne, Australia which we are seriously considering for moving from London, uk.

As this would be really a big move for us, we would like to ask someone that moved from UK about how's life there and if there are things which you miss....but can live without..

- Job / job market, how is it these days?

- Internet.. is it fibre optic still not covered everywhere?

- what about shopping?

- Weather (we have heard that Melbourne's weather can change quite a lot, how's overall?

Essentially we're looking for a place that is family friendly, where we can settle down and that will give a decent life. We're fed up of people in London that are rushing everywhere, as if they're doing a marathon! Is there that kind of feeling in Melbourne?

- Food...can you find good organic food in Melbourne? we're really into that

- Apartments (how's the apartments scene? again London is too expensive for the square meters you get!

- A classic one...how's the deadly animals side of things? i mean.. we've been to Sydney and well, and while we were there there was a "shark alert", seemed more of a normal event though but we were a bit shocked. is Melbourne on the same level? spiders & co?

In a way i think we are used to London where you have pretty much everything, even though the price you pay is your "time". that's something we're completely sick of, that it takes ages to go from one place to another and time seems just to fly.....

that was quite a lot, thanks to everyone that can give some info, even just some points would be great!

see ya
Lorraine

Buzzy--Bee

Hi Lorraine, we also moved from London to Melbourne, about 8 years ago. We have found Melbourne to have all the benefits of living in London, with great beaches, more space and better weather - just love it!

You mention your husband has a job offer, so I guess you are asking about your own prospects. This very much depends on your line of work. SEEK - Australia's no. 1 jobs, employment, career and recruitment site is your friend for a general idea.

Not sure. We have cable. The NBN is being rolled out. I know some people are still on ADSL, depends on which suburb you live in. The older suburbs seem to get better internet for some reason.

Clothes are more expensive here and less choice, so stock up before you leave! But you can get pretty much everything here. Some types of shopping (eg DIY, beer and wine) are much better than England.

I think it's great. It's like London + about 10 degrees. So in winter it never freezes. And today in the equivalent of April we have 32 degrees. Have a look at Australia's official weather forecasts & weather radar - Bureau of Meteorology to see what Melbourne's weather will be over the next few days (clue: I'm taking the kids boating this weekend!)
In winter it is a lot cooler and wetter than other Australian cities - this has the advantage that you can drive to go skiing for a day trip! Winter lasts around 3 months.

No. Not in my experience. Melbourne, despite its multi-million population, can still have the feel of a large town. People are very friendly here. Nobody looks at you sideways if you talk to them. It's OK to be late to meetings (this annoyed me a lot when I first moved here).

Yes. Melbourne is a foodie paradise. The supermarket model is very different here from the UK, people do their food shopping at smaller shops with the effect that we still have high streets with a community feel!

Not sure as we live in a house but try Real Estate, Property & Homes For Sale - realestate.com.au. Depends on which area you pick I suppose.

No sharks here thank goodness, or at least nobody ever gets attacked by them. We boat/swim/kayak/wakeboard 7 months of the year and have no fear of getting in the water.

I have never seen a snake in suburban Melbourne. We used to get redback spiders in our garden but I have not seen one for a few years.

I think you will be pleasantly surprised by Melbourne. We love it here. But I guess everywhere is what you make it!

BB

bcworld

I think it is too!

But it's not that. London + about 3 or 4 degrees according to long term stats.

Some summers experience very short spells of extreme heat, others it doesn't happen at all. I don't think I've experienced a 'non summer' in Melbourne like you might in the UK. January is the hottest month with average max a shade under 26C. I find winter a total breeze...as long as your house is properly heated and insulated which is often an issue here.

GarryP

Depends what in. Some stuff is down, and some stuff is endemically missing. Think of Australia as 'branch office land', the emphasis tends to be on handle turning.

Ha.

Fibre of any useful form is few and far between. Hell, even getting ADSL is difficult in some spots. Generally the telcos are useless here.

Not as good as the UK, but there's always imports. Retailing is quite throwback in its behaviours.

The key point that tends not to get across is the speed with which changes can happen. I've seen it drop 15-20C in 20 mins, easy, as the wind changes direction and a front crosses the place.

However in general it's 7C warmer in Melbourne than it is in London - so the record low temp is -2.8C. It's more like the south of France than anywhere else, not that that stops aussies complaining about the cold.

The hipster/CBD tries to be like that, behave as a world city. However its mostly front and outside that its more lifestyle orientated.

Probably, never bothered myself.

Melbourne prices can get silly (not quite London, but not that far off). However it's less necessary to pay it (and the real estate market looks towards a 'correction'). Lots of dumb apartments selling to the chinese in the CBD.

Not seen an obviously dangerous spider, nor snake, since I've been here. In general just give anything a wide berth and nuke any spider with spray.

The main thing about Australia (even with Melbourne) is you can get from the city to countryside in a relatively short time. There's not the continual urban sprawl across the SE that London is in the middle of. To give you an idea, from where I am the train takes 23mins to get into the CBD, but I could probably walk to where they filmed part of the original Mad Max.

jad n rich

Some good points there. Would add, don't budget on the property prices on RE websites. . IME of at least 20 auctions of houses, things go for between 150,000 and 300,000 over the guide price. This was in the under 1klm to city ring. one or two were only 70,000 over, stamp duty will add about 40K on a 700,000 home.
Weather. Plenty of nice days. Plenty of mad weather too, extreme heat very low temps at night in winter.The major factor summer or winter is the winds. In winter they can shave up to 10C off the temps, so that 12 day is suddenly very cold and in summer, the heat comes in like a furnace with aeroplane jets, its ferocious. But none of this is every day, it can be 12 or 15 or 25 and quite normal, but its has some totally mad weather quite often too.
Its not a bad place to live at all, much to enjoy, like a large UK city entertainmet wise, but not like London or New York. More Sydney, Vancouver like.

quoll

Will you be on a temporary visa? That imposes a layer of problems that a permanent visa is less likely to - getting employment as a temp dependent can be harder, if it all goes pear shaped you have 90 days to leave or find another sponsor, you aren't entitled to some benefits, medical coverage can be more problematic in a few situations.

Fewer holiday entitlements in Aus (20 days the norm) and working days just as long with commutes potentially just as long so if you live in the burbs as most do its just the same except the trains aren't as frequent as the Tube. If you stand on Flinders St station in winter you will need your winter thermals!

It's a nice enough place if you fancy an adventure and it would like to think it is up there with the world cities but it lacks that certain "something" that makes the others great.

GarryP

eg, from today (get the image whilst it's hot, it will probably change)

bcworld

There are definitely plenty of venomous snakes in some of the bushier areas of the suburbs, I think particularly in the north, like in Eltham where my OH's parents live...they've had the snake catcher out a couple of times at least for the nastier ones. However you never hear about anyone dying from snake bites...their pets might be another story!

What's more of a concern is the harmless critters, namely the huntsman spider...non venomous but could probably cause you to crash the car! Very funny incident this morning. I was waiting in a queue of traffic to turn left onto a major road...any the only time you can pull out is when a pedestrian has triggered the crossing to get to the tram stop in the middle of the road. We waited, and waited, and waited, and waited and finally...someone pressed the button. Then we waited ages for the traffic lights to change. Just as our queue of traffic started moving the old man driving the car in front opened the door and got out...well I was annoyed! Then I saw he was trying to flick a giant huntsman off his car! First it ran over the windscreen, he was trying to flick it off but couldn't keep up...then it ran across the roof...but the poor guy, he'd left his door open...so it ran straight back inside the car!

I could tell he was freaking out but his only choice was abandon the car or get back in and drive off, which fortunately he did. Poor guy!

GarryP

And since it disappeared, a longer lasting grab:

Alfresco

Not too many shark attacks down there. Most seem to be non fatal so far.

Shark Attack Data: Victoria, Australia

Beoz

Same happened in Sydney yesterday. I think you shared in the same heatwave followed by southerly change.

Buzzy--Bee

In fact the last fatal one listed was Prime Minister Harold Holt, and we all know that he was actually abducted by a Russian Submarine.

BB

bcworld

...and then they named a swimming pool after him!

Buzzy--Bee

...which the locals refer to as "Dead Harry's"!

...as in "going down Dead Harry's to do a few laps after work?"

BB

OzTennis

One point I would add to all the excellent observations is to take account of the fluctuating exchange rate. Clothes, salaries, property etc (for those with £stg taking them from London to Melbourne) have become 21% cheaper in the last 12 months due to the strengthening of the £/weakening of the $ (which has pro tempore halted and slightly reversed with the recent RBA no change to cash rate announcement).