trevski_1965

Dear All

My wife and I have finally settled on Victoria as our intended home, has any one got any comments about the place? would be happy to live anywhere just got to be near a beach!

Anyone have any recommendations?

What about the weather, how cold does it really get in the winter?

Regional or Metro for IT job's?

Anyone used STNI sponsorship via victoria? Was it a good experience?

Best Wishes
TC & DC & DC (Aged 9 and a bit)

Badge

Not for nothing does it get referred to as 4 seasons in one day.
They say:

"Queensland - beautiful 1 day - perfect the next.....
melbourne - beautiful 1 day ..........we hope(!)... :-)"

It gets bloody cold at night in the winter - even more than Sydney. a friend said it even snows. Not as bad as Tassy.

The weather is very changable - like here - but add - to some extents quite a bit - to the English av temperatures and you have it.

I got there in early summer and it was 40 degrees. The next day it clouded over and was grey and drizzly for a week. Felt almost depressed.

People INCREDIBLY friendly. I only had to stop people in the street and ask for directions and it was
"Hi how U going?......yadda yadda" and was practically offered an escort.

v european in feel. Lots of wogs. (AUSTRALIAN word for greeks. ) more there than any other place outside athens.
You know where to flame now.)

v expensive but not as bad as Sydney. hasn't quite got the good old 'Aussie' lifestyle that Sydney has - bit more subdued - but esp good for those of us who are kippers.

AFL!! if you like it. Victorians are mad on it. There are at least 6 (can't be bothered to count) teams alone in melborne - not for nothing was the AFL originally called the Victorian Football League. 1 NRL league team called the Storms. A mate of my mates plays for them.

very cultural for the cultural types. I would recommend M if you are very concerned about Oz being a cultural oasis, or hate scorchin' hot temps.



badgers

karawara88

Now that sounds interesting.

Teliko19

Are you specialised in 1 area of IT because I've been reading posts about that causing problems for ppl applying in VIC.


Melb is a great city, more foreigners than Australians tho it seems Its pretty cold here at the moment, I even went out and bought myself a thick coat last week and a friend of mine knitted me a scarf. Had alot of rain in the last few weeks as well so if you are trying to get away from the English rain then Melb probably isn't the city for you as it rains more here than in most English cities. I much prefer the rural parts of VIC, very pretty scenery and of course native animals!

Lots to do tho

poggle

Hi Trevski!

We ve been here in Melbourne just over 4 mths and are loving every minute of it.

I got Vic STNI [see austimeline] i found them to be really helpful and when we arrived in Melbourne we met the person that dealt with our case and she was lovely! I was lucky and had a job to come to and we had arranged our house over the internet so we didnt need any help from Stni Re work and accomation but they do give you help and info about settlement if you need it.

We wanted to be by the beach and have moved to Brighton. This is in the Bayside area just down the coast from St Kilda.
there are a lot of nice suburbs in bayside, as you go further down the coast, sandringham, Blackrock, Beaumaris, Mentone, these are all nice places to live and on the beach. The beaches are lovely here.

We have settled really well, i like my job, weve both nade lots of new friends, and have a great social life. The weather is getting a bit colder now, averaging about 18 daytime, but is often sunny with it. its true about the '4 seasons in one day' that does often happen.

I honestly feel that Mebourne has Everything going for it! it is quick and easy to travel anywhere [compared to London, where we came from] there is so much to do here for everyone, whatever you like to do in your free time! so much sport and outdoor activities, loads of theatres and cinemas, thousands of good restaurants! i could go on for pages about how great it is here in Melbourne, so if you want to know anything specific please email or pm if you want.

Hope this helps

Cheers!

Wilf

Do you mind me asking what you and your partner do for a living in Melbourne?

terryg

Kaff - We're all jealous now..........

Uncle Tee

poggle

Uncle T!

Not long to go now mate! you'll be here to see how lovely Melbourne is for yourself!!

Alan Collett

What is all this nonsense about it raining more here than in England? We're suffering from a lack of rainfall here, not an abundance of it.

And as for it being cold in Melbourne ... well the lowest daytime maximum I've experienced in 2+ years is about 11 or 12 degrees C. A couple of days ago in Geelong it was 21 - and we're now officially in winter. I still remember the cold days in the UK scraping the frost off the windscreen ... there's nothing like that here - not since we arrived anyway. I dare say it gets colder inland though.

The temperatures in Melbourne are more like the Mediterranean than the UK, even if they do hop up and down during the summer months.

Best regards.

Wilf

Impartial advice from an emigration wallah?
I've seen it all now.

Megalania

Impartial flea shedding by a TPP, seen it before.

kerrylm

Hi
We have just decided on Melbourne too. We deliberated for adges and have now made the final (we hope) decision. Be interesting to know why you made the choice. All comes down to finding work though at the end of he day. Husband is Graphic Designer, going for it under skilled independant pre-press tradesperson. Apllied TRA 2.05.03. Waiting, does you head in! We liked the thought of the seasons - must get chilly, but surely not cold like here! Also the ski-ing, beaches, eating out, etc etc. Won't know about whether its the right choice for us until we live it.

denhim

what i didnt like about melbourne was the european arcitechture. all these house with swirls all over them, very dated i thought. loved clubbing in the casino tower tho. and i found it hot there to, fell asleep on st kilda beach and my brow got burnt even tho it was dead cloudy.

Bella

www.visitvictoria.com

should answer alot of your questions

dogged

hi trevski, the IT market in australia is really flat at the moment.. after the y2k bug, dot.com booms ect most companies have slashed their IT budget. melbourne and sydeny have the biggest IT sector, followed by brissy..

browsing through this forum it is disturbing to see the number of IT people coming down here. bloody imigrants stealing jobs off australians!!


the only regional IT work you would ever find is would be doing support for gov departments.. but most of that is contracted out. just recently telstra (the semi-privatised telco) slashed 2500 jobs, a lot went from their comms department (eng, serivce ect)..

for an entry level position(answering the phone at an ISP ect) you need at least 2 years of experience and MSCE at minimum (MSCE is not really worth the bit of paper you get since every man and his dog has one, same goes for CCNA)

simply put the market is flooded.. a true buyers market..

there are some niche areas (ERP, security, linux support, Oracle, Lotus Notes / Domino, Citrix) which some people are doing very nicely in..

take a look at this forum ( http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-threads.cfm?f=80 ) for an idea of the market you are coming into. the above site is also a very good resource for anything else technology related.

also have a look at http://it.seek.com.au

im not trying to put you off, but it is definitely not all roses over here!



ps, australians in other states say when they want to go on an overseas holiday all they have to do is come down to melbourne! off the top of my head i think atleast 70% of victorians were either born overseas or one of their parents was born overseas!

about 1/3 of melbournians are asain (mostly from SE asia and china) - we refer to people from the sub continant as indian or pakistani, hence when aussies hear of the 'asain race riots' in england we wonder what all those indians are doing..

as stated above there are almost as many greeks here than in greece, along with italians, turks and other europeans. the catch phrase for this of cource is multiculturalism. i find it makes for a great mix of people and great food