Originally posted by The Tooth Fairy
Name, address and drivers licence number is a requirement for registration of change of ownership and liability.

Originally posted by dmf
Hello all, this is a first report back on what has happened since we left the UK last Thursday. Having "camped" in our house at Gloucester, we were glad to stay in the Holiday Inn for a couple of nights (i.e. in a proper bed!). The hire car going up to Heathrow was jam packed - we could not have got much more in - children could not even put their feet on the floor! We checked in 9 pieces of luggage plus all our hand luggage. We flew with Singapore Airlines who did not even bat an eyelid at the amount of luggage. We did have double allowance but don't believe they added it all up. The flight to Singapore was 12 hours and did not seem that long really - plenty of in-flight entertainment and as the flight was overnight we slept a few hours as well. Plenty of good food and drink.

On arrival at Singapore, it was bedtime and we slept most of the following day as well. We therefore did not see much of Singapore - the little bit we did see gave the impression that it is all trees, greenery and tall buildings, cars everywhere. We did do the night safari which was good - different from a zoo daytime. It was lovely and warm and the food was good there too.

Our next flight was 7 hours again with Singapore Airlines and no complaints. We arrived at Brisbane and were met by the people we are renting the house off for the first month. We were shattered by the time we got to the house but adrenalin was keeping us all going including the kids! Jet lag doesn't seem too bad today - children have recovered better than us sleeping at least 12 hours at night if not more. We seem to be awake by 6am so feeling tired the other end of the day.

We are the first people to rent the house so all the furniture and appliances are new - quite nice. The house has three bedrooms, big lounge, overall a good size with a decent garden, a play area just over the road too - quite handy when Nigel needs to make phone calls for jobs! We are quite handy for various shopping centres too - not a bad choice as it was all organised over the net without any idea of where we were landing! We found the house on Happy Koala Homes website which I found by chance. They are a South African couple, have been here 2 years themselves and have been more than helpful.

We have spent the first two days looking for a car going from garage to garage - have yet to make a decision, looking at some more tomorrow (I am sick of looking at cars now - a car is a car!). The roads are wide and there is no stopping and starting like in the UK - you cover a big distance in a short time. We did get well and truly lost yesterday so ended up calling into a shopping centre to buy a map to get us home! The map is like a telephone directory it is so big but we didn't get lost today thank goodness - I think it will be well worth the price. Whilst driving round we have not seen many houses that we like - they all seem to be wooden sheds (not quite but not my style). Although when looking through today's local paper there are quite a few properties that look nice. We have not had time to think about this aspect yet - this will be next week's job!

The weather here is cold first thing in the morning and in the evening. It is strange not having any heating - you would not even consider sitting here in the cold on an evening in the UK. The daytime temperature is warm similar to UK when we left. It is dark by 6.30pm - this takes some getting used to, it happens very quickly.

Overall so far, it seems the same as France, i.e. the shopping centres, layout of food, the houses etc. We enjoyed our time in France so hopefully this will work out too.

Neither of us have missed work so far. Nigel has started looking at jobs and has seen a couple of interest - we will have to wait and see on that score. Not sure how long it will take to find one, the sooner the better as we can then look for rented accommodation and schools in the same area.

It's early days having been here only 2 days but on a first visit of the place, we think we have made the right choice. It doesn't seem like we are in holiday mode at the moment as there is so much to do what all the paperwork as well as the practicalities - I guess this will set in next week.

Well that's the latest - so far so good. No doubt some people will have different opinions on what we have posted but I know there are plenty of people planning to emigrate in the next few months and from experience it is always interesting reading how people get on on arrival. I would say leaving the UK i.e. all the goodbyes is the hard bit - so much to organise and the heartstrings playing tricks with your emotions. Once you get here, although there is a lot to do, it is like a big stress relief on your shoulders - if anybody can relate to that!

Seem to be rabbling now, time to sign off.

Dawn

Originally posted by PeteY
Can that be the UK licence? Surley you don't need to have an Aussie one to buy a car?

I think my wifes ones expired.....