rossifumi

Well, where do we start?

Brisbane city is a sight to behold especially at night viewed from the south bank. The weather was lovely, god did we have some rain though for the first week, but it was still lovely and warm.
I attended a course for the first 5 days we were there but Lynn felt safe walking around the city with the kids, which for an area bigger than London with a population a tenth the size...

Public transport is good throughout from what we experienced before we hired a car, air conditioned buses, now that was pleasant.

We went with the view if you need to ask advice just ask anyone and that's exactly what we did, people were very approachable and friendly to say the least.

We stayed in the city for the duration of our stay and day tripped it, visiting a few locations in the Sunshine Coast; Caloundra, Mooloolaba (nice) Mooloolah & Maroochydore (nice), didn't make it up to Noosa.
At the Gold coast we spent a day at Surfers Paradise, it was Alex's birthday. We also looked around Broadbeach, Burleigh Heads, Miami, Coolangatta (nice), Mudgereeba (nice) and Tweed Heads.

Living in a tourist destination we have decided we really fancy a change and hope to settle in Northern Brisbane.

We managed to visit 5 schools from private to state run and all in all we were pleasantly surprised, when your eldest says "dad, I want to go to this school" well, the kids must have felt comfortable.

We tried to dispense with the rose tinters as soon as possible but that is easier said than done.

I dragged Alex around the 4 main banks (he wasn't impressed) and opted for the National, we opened a bank account the next day.

We visited the Medicare office and the Tax Office both of which were very helpful, we'll sort out the medicare and TFN when we return as we didn't feel there was any need until we settle. The TFN can be done online and Medicare will take about 30 mins max, barring any huge queues, which there weren't at 10:00am ;0)

One thing I was a little concerned with was the distinct lack of armed police at Heathrow airport, like there were none on departure or arrival, security must be sorted here then? A good time to arrive in Britain is about 5:30am as there are no customs officers either!

If anyone has any questions please don't hesitate to ask.


Rich

stevenpoole9

We are going over in January for a look around and to validate the visas. We are having 2 weeks on the Gold Coast and 1 week on the Sunshine Coast. Just a couple of questions, who did you fly with, and what were they like?
Also could you actually just make an appointment to visit the schools and turn up? Or was a more complicated than that. I know that they're not big on school security there so I'm assuming it should be pretty simple to sort out.

Finally, yes I know that's more than a couple but forewarned is forearmed, Did you enjoy it? Big question I know, but, were your overall impressions more or less positive than you expected?

Bet you wish you hadn't said anything now.

Stitch

Cheers for that.

Sounds like you had a good time.

Ginny

rossifumi

Steve, answers to your questions.

Singapore Airlines, they were very good. Plenty to keep you and your kids (if you have kids) occupied. On demand films, music etc.. Nintendo games for the kids.
They ensure kids are fed first and you can board the plane first along with the upper class.
Worth the money.

You can just turn up. Security in the schools we visited is taken seriously. One school we visited, all the staff wore name tags and if you haven't got one, the kids will dob you in immediately to the Principal who then investigates.

Overall we all really enjoyed it. We have come away with a positive attitude, you have to go with an with open mind, it's a totally different lifestyle in all respects.

annqldau

We live just below sunshine coast in outer North Brisbane and find most places around here nice with plenty of free swimming lagoons, water parks and places to go during the day. Around Sunshine Coast main area slightly more to do on a night.

stevenpoole9

Thanks for the answers. We are actually flying with Singapore airlines (24th January) as the re-fueling time is really short, approximately 1 1/2 hours on both legs as apposed to some of the flights which can be up to 9 hours, :scared: And that's the ONLY stop, during the flight.
We have 3 kiddies, aged 3, 6 and 9 which was another reason we chose Singapore Air. We have heard that the in-flight entertainment is really good.
Interesting regarding the schools, we have been told by a friend that the security was very lax, so if anything that sound more reassuring to us. We'd like to go and have a look at a couple of schools while we're there. (I'm sure the kids will be ecstatic )
If I can think of anything else I'll post it if that's OK.
Cheers, Steve and Tracey Poole.

DunRoaminTheUK

What amazed me about Sydney airport is that where the runway juts out into Botany Bay there is absolutely no fencing or security whatsoever. When we were taxiing for takeoff I think that the wing almost passed over two guys fishing at the edge of the taxiway.

Considering the home-grown fatwah-kids of Australia were planning to blow up Sydney's only nuclear reactor, an exposed runway must be an attack waiting to happen?

But the question that I kept asking myself over and over again was "how the f**k did the fishermen expect to catch fish when casting out under a 747's engine?"

rossifumi

Perhaps it was the airport security in disguise.

karenjc

Don't forget that most schools will be on there summer holiday until late january, also you may need to change your accent as they have trouble understanding me (brummie) so god knows how they will cope with a yam yam . We used Singapore airlines and thought that they were great, even let us off with being 30kg's over on our luggage allowance. If your coming direct and have a little time in the airport take your swimming gera as they have a roof top pool. Good luck.

rossifumi

Yam Yam reminded me of some friends of ours.

Also Steve, you can grab a shower in the airport hotel.

Hand luggage: On return at Brisbane airport, we were a little over weight with 1 piece of hand luggage. The Singapore check-in-staff 'said no problem, have a nice flight'. But then we met Gestapo woman downstairs.....waiting to pounce with her set of 1930's scales (pissed my self). She had me, but the silky tongued migrant to be, won the day.

stevenpoole9

I'm a yam yam, am yow a yam yam too?
That should confuse 1 or 2 of the peeps on here eh!!!!
(try putting that through the spell-check!!!!!)

Nice to know we can freshen up in the Airport, would that mean going through imigration or the plane-side of the terminal? I hope that makes sence.

karenjc

Kaz is the yam yam and I'm the brummie, you don't have to go through immigration ,you ( if like our flights are straight through ) just have to walk to the other side of the airport to board your next flight. This was also close to the swimming pool so if we had known about the pool then we would have used it, instead we just used the free internet. We thought that the second leg flew by ( no pun intended ) and was a couple of hours shorter than we were told.

rossifumi

Steve, you just have to find the airport hotel up an escaltor mate. $8 for a shower. As Karenjc said there are plenty of free drop in internet zones, shed loads of shops, places to eat. Go upstairs and find the CHEN FU JIN NOODLE restaurant and order the schezuan chicken, Lynn had it and it's lovely, but then you won't have time I suppose.

Airport Map

Rich