gidxg03

Just a quick post to say we have been in Melbourne just over 2 weeks and are loving it. Best decision we ever made to move here. 2 tips for those coming out are:

1/ GPS - Tom Tom or simular. We have found this invaluable when looking at rentals/places to buy/doing day to day stuff.

2/ UK to OZ travel adaptors. The bane of our life since we arrived. All our plugs are UK and we have found it very hard to find adaptors. The ones we did find were expensive ($7.50 each). Bring a few with you.

h2oskineil

Agree with the Tom Tom... we pre-programmed all the places we wanted to visit while still in the UK and stored them in the favourites. Then when we arrived in Perth we drove to all these places with ease.

gidxg03

We put in on the rentals in areas were interested in from realestate.com.au. Then drove around and looked at the outside of the houses/location etc. Cut our need to call into agents by about 90%.

Wendy

Or, bring a UK multi adaptor (or 6 ) and change the plug on that.

Or, change all the plugs on everything.

Scuba Steve

What Wendy said ^^^^. An absolute must.

nurselindsey

I agree with everything thats been said - we got our shipping the other day and realised we had 10 items that needed plugging in and three travel adaptors - someone's dropped a b*****k and surprise, surprise it wasn't me! I did suggest we should visit the pound shop and buy some more!

Oh yes and the sat nav - we bought a tom tom one and ken (the voice of the sat nav) is now our new best friend!

Lindsey

Loch Lomond

Me and the family have just returned from a holiday in the UK and had SatNav in the hire car while we were there. It was the first time I have used it, it was great. I saw all the adverts on the TV in the UK for Tom Tom satnav and it looked like a good buy but I never thought the UK version would would work in Oz. I must be getting too old and technology is overtaking me.....

Cheers LL

Astronaut

Re: Sat Nav
I thought these things were kind of continent specific, or at least were programmed slightly differently or retrived data differently. But are we saying that its best to buy one in the UK before you go rather than buy one in Aus on arrival?

I've been told that Sat Nav is the best time / argument / stress saver out there when you're landing in a new country! Essential.

ianhutch1

You can buy a UK version and load the Australia map onto it, costs about £40 from the tomtom site

warponydestroyer

Sounds like a good idea.

Any advise on what sat nav system to get?

Centurion

Or you can simply buy an Australian one when you get here and then not have to bother paying $100 more

sormesher

i have a tom tom in the uk and couldnt live without it now, both work wise and holiday/trip wise. and yes it saves all thoes map reading arguments or having to wake keith up when i dont know where i am going.
we are going to oz for three weeks in march and are thinking about downloading the oz maps, i just have to work out how to do it.
i brought my parents a tom tom for chrismas, i find it so easy so i think they will find it okay too they arent the best in tecnological advances. keiths parents have one (not a tom tom) i font think that is as good.

Red_V_Roger

AGREED - Jane is my best friend....

Red_V_Roger

Yeah the satellite signal is teh otherway up in Oz

I'm quite in to GPS and geocaching http://www.geocaching.com

I went with my mate to Dick Smiths to buy Sat Nav for him and I would say that generally they were more expensive than the UK. If you have a UK one, just buy the Oz maps for it.

Buzzy--Bee

My top tip of what to bring mate would be shedloads of money, a positive attitude and an open mind.

I appreciate not everyone has the first, but anyone can have the others.

Buzzy