NickyP

OK so we have been here for nearly a year and I thought that I would give everyone a rundown on how our move has gone.
We have had a very unsettled year all in all but we are still here and have no plans to leave in a hurry. Moving to country Victoria when we had never visited Australia before has been a serious learning experience but we are slowly finding our feet here. For those who don’t know we started our move here after 3 years in Belgium and arrived in Wangaratta last year on a 457 visa. The visa suited us personally as Ian enjoyed his job and the company were already going through the application process for PR so it was always a temporary measure. We arrived with our 4 children and had moved into our 3rd house after being here for less than 6 months so we were kept very busy. The younger children settled into the routine here very quickly and love the place but our eldest is still not settled. We got our PR in May and are planning to get citizenship as soon as it is available. Our time here has felt like lurching from one crisis to another but overall we are starting to feel more settled and we are not worried by the fact that we can't afford a trip back to the UK in the forseeable future.
In general here are the things that we like/dislike about where we are (I won’t say about Australia as we haven’t seen much of the place).

Good points:

Loads of space
Reasonable house prices/ sizes
Friendly people
Good schooling
Fantastic scenery nearby
Reasonable weather with proper seasons
Sun most of the time (it really makes a difference to us)
Real community spirit
Weird dress sense keeps us all amused and means that the kids can really wear whatever they like.
It is a bit like stepping back in time here
I love seeing the parrots in the trees

Bad points

Isolation from family (it is such a long and hard journey with kids)
Starting again from scratch is really a lot harder (mentally) than we expected
Finances are tighter here
The area is very conservative in a lot of ways
What can be seen as friendly can feel suffocating at times (everyone knows everyone here)
No shopping malls nearby (sometimes it is nice to shop out of the weather)
Lack of water does need to be thought about (kids love the rain when it does arrive here)
Need to cover up for 6 months of the year to escape the mozzies.
Very narrow experience for the kids culturally after living in an international community (we are in a very white dominated area).
It is a bit like stepping back in time here.
A long way from the sea


We have been through the feelings of wanting to get on the next plane home but over time we have made a small circle of real friends. We have also found lots of people from the UK hiding out here which has come as a surprise. Generally people have accepted us for who we are without a second thought and there is a genuine interest and friendlyness that I think may have been harder to find in a big city.
Anyway I have droned on enough.
Nicky

geordie mandy

Great post Nicky, i think no mater where you live all places will have the good points and the bad.
Do you think you will stay in Wangarrata permanetly ?
Mandy

NickyP

Looks like we will be here for a good few years as Ian loves his job and the kids are very settled in school. We have moved so many times that it is time that we stayed put for a while and allowed them to put down some roots. We will probably buy or build slightly out of town and I hope to get my teaching sorted so that I can work as well.
It is sort of like moving to a small community in England here even though it is classed as a city and I think that that was the biggest surprise for us.
Hopefully we will see you on your trip over soon
Nicky

Keith&Lol

Hi Nicky, hubby was supposed to visit Wangy on his reccie in may he went straight past it and ended up in Wagga Wagga, really liked the place so thats where we are headed. Kids a bit disappointed there's no beach but are happy that there is quite a big lake that they can swim and play in. Lol x

geordie mandy

I know what you been about putting down roots, even though im living in my home area, a place ive known since childhood. it doesnt feel like home to me anymore, after moving around so much , i thought i wanted to be here for ever, till we got here.
Cant wait till we move and can make a fresh start and then settle with out the baggage we have here.

Im hoping we do get chance to see you. As hubby told his uncle to organise everything while we are with him :scared:
Can i just ask it looks like we will get the train from Albury to Mel, found the website with the time table on but could not find out how much it costs, emailed the company but no response. Dont suppose you would know roughly how much it would cost. (noticed they stopped in Wangarratta a few times)
Mandy

suebrennan

Great post Nicky and best of luck with everything.

Sue

NickyP

Hubby has gone from Wang to Melbourne with work. He travels 1st class (not as swish as it sounds) and it is around $85 return. Beyond that I don't know sorry, I can call into the station and ask what the fare is and PM you.
Have fun.
Nicky

geordie mandy

Thanks that would be great
Mandy

Jaycee1

Agree, great post Nicky, it is nice to hear about people who are not in suburbia. My OH fancies moving to 'the middle of nowhere' but I'm unsure being a townie
J x

NickyP

One thing about where we are is that it is very safe, I have no problem wandering around at night and very rarely lock the car. The latest craze with the local school kids is called gnoming, they take people's broken gnomes fix them and return them with a little note (hardly a youth crime spree!). The local police know everyone and comment that they know within 15 mins of any criminals from out of town entering the city (it is probaby true). There are the usual problems of lads drinking and having punch ups outside pubs but nothing more than an excess of testosterone . I lost my phone in the local pub and 2 weeks later got a phone call from someone who had found it and they dropped it back at the house which was very unexpected.
There are drugs available but it is mostly pot and the big drug bust that they made nearby this week was for illegal tobacco (they do tend to grow pot under the tobacco crop though). Generally it is the sort of place that kids grow up in getting into the usual scrapes then move away to work or Uni, only to return later with their own kids.
My son's problem is that he has arrived at the age that most of the kids here are just killing time until they can move away .
Nicky

NickyP

That's some detour
I hope that you enjoy Wagga Wagga we have never visited but I have seen signs when we have been on our way to Canberra.
All the best.
Nicky

NickyP

We came over with work and I am sure that having the work in place has helped us to settle. I am not sure that we could have coped with moving with no work sorted, especially as we haven't got money from a house sale.
It might be worth looking at some of the regoinal centres as they are a good half way house between city and middle of nowhere.
Nicky

jothefw

Great post Nicky. Over the months I've found it great to read about peoples 6 mth in, 2 yrs anniversary type thread but seem like a really different lifestyle and experience as a lot move to Gold Coast, Brisbane etc to what we might expect.

However yours are fairly close (albeit our closest town has pop of 1300 ish) and also makes our 2 hr drive to the coast seem manageable!

Good luck with the next year!

thewoodz

hi
we are newbies to the site and although we have applied for the visa we do not know where we are headed. i love these posts about various parts of oz. i hope your experiences go from strength to strength
regards
nicky w

NickyP

We have always tried to be as positive about this move as possible but there do seem to have been a lot of hiccups along the way. Getting here is only half of the battle especially for those of us with no friends or family here to help with the settling in period.
It does get better but we still have our days where it all seems too hard (there are just fewer of them) and silly things thwart us. Over all though this has been an amazing experience and by far the best thing that we could ever have done for 3 of our children (we are still hopeful that in time Sam will see it as a positive move although I am not holding my breath at the moment ).
We are looking forward to our first visitors after Christmas and then looking to buy or build in a year or so. What I have found here is that if you throw yourself into the local community (school, clubs etc) then you are welcomed with open arms and it makes all the difference to how easily you settle.
Nicky