astonished

woden has the best shops in canberra. of course confusingly like civic, belconnen, gunghalin and tuggerenong its not a suburb but a region.
I lived in Isaacs near woden was great but i think omalley was the pick. garran is also nice actually i cant think of ANY bad woden suburbs but i can offer an opinion if you like. my feel is it will come down to choice of property if you are looking at woden. hang on dont choose lyons if you can help it

samjam

Thankyou for that information!! I will start searching for a home soon, Omalley seems expensive but nice, could afford the other places s i think ill start there, do you mind if we keep in touch for me to be able to pick your brains?? Do you still live in canberra? I wont chose lyons, my problem is that in UK i work as a social worker and there are areas which,...wel...erm I would find a high population of clients... if ya get me drift? I really dont want to end up living in these areas in Canberra with my clients!! Im not a snob or owt just want the best for kids.
Thanks again for taking the time and trouble to post
kelly

wombat42

People in Canberra have one of the highest income levels and lowest unemployment levels in OZ. There are'nt any poor suburbs in Canberra, most of your clients will probably be spoilt rich kids gone bad of wealthy politicans and high ranking public servants.

samjam

cool!! that will make a change!

bondipom

Are you having a wind up?

scutterUK

i am that too! certainly a step yup from donny. sue, stand by for a serious email....

btw omalley is where some of the embassies have their Ambassadorial property. i took a drive round there one night over christmas and the houses are HUAGE! very nice though.

tiredwithtwins

............im waiting...................................

zia

Just an update from us... All our stuff was packed up and loaded into a container last week. Scary to see everything disappearing into a small space (well, rather a large container). Should have left Felixstowe today (Wednesday 6 July) and arrive in Sydney 12 Agust. Then it depends on how long customs are taking with it. We should hopefully have it in Canberra by the end of August. At the moment we are living with inflatables, sleeping bags and garden furniture. But we still have a laptop and internet access. That's important. I would not know how to keep in touch with people otherwise. Oh yes, and we have discovered Skype, so we are calling Oz twice a day for a chat and an update. Hopefully, my husband will have rented a house by the time we get there. Saw some rather nice houses for sale as well. Just wondered how long it might take to buy one. Would save us the renting and the unpacking and repacking. Does anybody have an idea how long it might take to buy a house in Oz? If you are not Australian, but have a permanent residency visa and a job? The kids are getting quite excited. They will finish school on 22 July. We should leave the house on 25 July and spend a week in Germany before leaving for Oz on 6 August. Scary thought?! But there are still thing sto do: fill in holes and repaint, clear out the attic, garage and shed and get rid of the rest of the stuff we still have here. That's all for now...

killamarsh

Hi

notice you are from Donnie, not far from where we are.

Finally i find someone who knows about Canberra.

If you have kids, can you tell me how you worked out where to send them to school.

Also any recommends on suburbs? More so which ones you feel wouldn't be somewhere you would want to live.

thanks

killamarsh

Steve

Let us know how you go with the schools, and any tips you have for finding one would be great.

And if you come across any dire suburbs please let us know as working out what is a good suburb and what isnt is proving difficult.

zia

Yes we have two kids (girls 8 and 10). My husband is already in Canberra and spoke to a few people from work etc. We decided that we would like to live in Nicholls, Amaroo or Palmerston. It's close enough to his work and not too expensive. Houses are nice there. He went to see both Gold Creek (Nicholls) and Amaroo Primary School. I'll ask him to post more info. By the way, I used GB Liners/Grace as removal people. They seemed to be very professional, at least at this end. Our stuff should arrive in the middle of August. Let me know if you need any more info.

killamarsh

check out -all homes.com for second hand stuff and homes for sale and rent, great site.

ps - are all you people moving to canberra working for the same company??


Killamarsh

RockHopper

Hi Everyone, Rockhopper returns to the forum.

It's been just over 2 months since posting on this forum, as we left sunny UK (not so sunny then) for Australia on 12 May 05. A lot has happened in the last 2 months and I will try to write some of it down. We left the UK with our house still going through being sold, fortunately we left the day of the exchange of contracts, so it was all legally bound as we flew of to Singapore. We decided to have a stop over of 3 nights to break the journey, we were fortunate as only Brenda and myself travelled, Louise our daughter stayed with our neighbours to finish her A level exams. We were very impressed with Singapore Air who did everything to make the journey as comfortable as possible. We stayed at the Raffles the Plaza, a very nice hotel and in a good location. We were very impressed with Singapore and plan to go back in a few years. A word of warning for those that expect to bring their 40K allowance on Singapore Air, get something in writing, email from their customer support is easiest. No problem getting the baggage on in London but when we returned to get on the flight in Singapore the handler informed us we were over the allowance, lucky I took a copy of my email and he allowed us to proceed without being charged excess baggage. We arrived at Sydney airport around 18:30 and were very lucky as the airport was not busy at all. Customs was a breeze and we stopped the night at the Holiday Inn (rather dated rooms) before heading to Canberra the next day.
We hired a one way rental from Budget at the Airport, got one of their specials 4 days rental for what turned out to be £75. Book it from the Australian web site, it states you should do it from your own country but it was far more expensive. Before we went to Canberra we travelled to Western Creek Quarantine Centre to see our Cat. I must say we did not enjoy travelling around the suburbs of Sydney, so much traffic and it took forever before we reached the motorway. Anyhow the cat was fine, they do look after them and although the accommodation is basic it was nice and clean and had a nice heated pad for the cold evenings. The only thing we did not like was leaving the cat; it was upsetting to listen to her as we left.
The journey down to Canberra was great and although it took about 3 hours the time passed very quickly. When you come into Canberra from the North and head to the City you will find the Visitors Centre clearly marked along the highway. Its worth stopping off and getting yourself some maps and papers, best to get the fold out map at first, it gives a better idea of how to get to all the suburbs. We were fortunate to have accommodation booked by my employer, we stayed in the Manuka Park Apartments, these are serviced apartments and ours came with 2 bedrooms a basic kitchen a living area, they also have washing machine, tumble dryer. It is sufficient for a week or so but by 3 weeks we found that it was great to get something a bit more modern, as the apartments could do with being updated.
We found sorting out the Bank, Medicare, Driving Licence (we did not have to do any tick test, just fill in the forms show your UK licence, do a simple eye test and pay the fee) straight forward, but make sure you have plenty of identification and proof of where you are living.
Finding rental accommodation in Canberra was a bit stressful, we wanted a 3/4 bed newish style house, but found that to get one you had to be quick of the mark. We found a house advertised privately it’s great, located in Jerrabomberra a suburb just on the edge on ACT located in NSW, the reason we chose this area is due to my work which is at HMAS Harman, only 10 mins drive away. Although Jerra is outside ACT it still only takes 20 mins to the City and with Canberra having a fantastic road infrastructure you can travel all over the area with ease, except for rush hour (15 Mins) when you could add on a little longer. Anyhow the house is 2 years old has a double garage, granite worktops in the kitchen and fantastic powerful showers. The rent is higher than we wanted to pay but we thought that if it makes us feel better during the initial months its well worth that bit extra.
We moved in to the house after our 3 weeks in the apartment and had to do a bit of shopping, we purchased a new bed (yes they are expensive over here, but we managed to get one on special offer) fridge freezer, probably a bit more expensive than the UK but it is bigger and I would say seems to be a better quality and a leather settee, cheaper than the UK, although it has an Italian name and flag on the side its made in China. Forgot to say earlier but we bought a car in our first week, there are plenty of dealers all over Canberra and if your good a haggling you can get a few thousand off the price of a car.
The food shops around Canberra are mostly Coles or Woolworth and the quality and choice of products are good. We have found that the fruit, veg, meat, fish seems to taste better than in the UK and there is far more choice. The best thing is that from Thursday – Sunday there are markets both North and South of Canberra and you can get all your fruit, veg, meat, fish for the week at a very good price. 75 cents for 1kg of banana’s, 99 cent 1kg of mandarins. That type of shopping seems to be far better value than the UK, other items are about the same in value, but we believe over all it is cheaper food costs in Australia than the UK, if you shop around.
Getting broadband installed has taken some time, those coming to Canberra will find you have heaps to chose from and to get good speed and download capability the cost will range from $40 - $60 a month, don’t expect installation within days, it can take 2 weeks as ours did, expect to pay installation charges if you don’t sign up to a long contract, that can be the same as Foxtel, Australia’s equivalent to Sky, although its in its infancy.
Well we picked our cat up after her prison sentence, she was fine and has settled in really well, same cat as we said goodbye to in the UK, so no ill effects.
We have a house full of furniture, we went with Crown and could not fault the UK packers, excellent service and from door to door it took 7 weeks costs £4000 for sole use 20 ft container. The only thing that we have found broken was a mug.
2 months on we now have a complete family, as our daughter has finally arrived and we are beginning to settle in to our new life. Do we regret the move, not a chance, so far we are very impressed with Australia and especially Canberra. All those heading this way should not be disappointed. For those that travel through Canberra they may think there is nothing here, but once you look a bit closer Canberra has a lot to offer. There are no problems travelling around, the air is clean and there is so much to do and see.
We are so impressed with the area that we have already begun the process of buying a house, all being well we should own it at the beginning of September. If anyone that intends to come to Canberra has any questions, feel free to ask, the only thing to remember is we do not have any young children, so we no nothing concerning schools and alike. Good luck for all those making the move soon.