If you send you children to a private school when you are on a student visa you have to pay the International student price as there is no subsidy from the government.

Yeah that's the one!

On a Temp Visa you pay for your kids schooling whether State or Private!

State for our's (year 8 & 10 we think) will be $6,800 each.

Private (one we looked at) the fee's were $13,800, but if you have PR the gov fund about half of that. NOT to temp visitors tho! ...

Have SOOO enjoyed your post. We too are going Gold Coast... on a 139 visa and cannot wait - about 3 months to go for Visa Grant.

Just interested with all your investigations on schools if you heard anything about TSS (The Southport School) - they are in Winchester street - apparently they are the brother school to St Hilda's. We have just received a letter from them to let us know that our son has been accepted for next year...

Did you hear anything about the school?

Hi Teri, we only looked at mixed schools, having one of each, so didn't bother with it.

Sorry, I know nothing about the school I'm afraid

Found this thread late last night just before i was gonna go to bed. I could not stop reading it 1 hour later . Glad you all had a great time and hope everything works out for you.
P.S Got a roastin from my other half this morning for gettin up late, of course i blamed you

LOL, so sorry.

I'll karma you for your roasting ...

thanx for the K sent back many thanx again for the entertaining reading

No, thank you for the nice comment

I can get carried away with my posts. My kids think it's hilarious how much I'll type up on posts or msg's on Messenger ...lol, but if I get 1 nice comment, then it was all worth it

At the end of the day EVERYTHING about that holiday was soooo good, I couldn't post anything bad. Ok, one day in Woolworths we wasn't greeted with a "hi, how are you?" or a "Hi, hows things?", the lady just started packing our shopping and didn't even say hello! This is how silly it got as we WAS looking for that illusive 'grumpy Aussie'

9 out of 10 supermarket tills in the UK will give you that exact response, as in none!

Ok, I exaggerate, but many will simply pack your stuff, or just push it thru the checkout without even saying anything more than a "hello"

When your in Oz, EVERYONE seems to be happy and chatty, we did find it quite strange at first, but the other half is very chatty too so by the time we'd been there a week and kinda settled, well a trip to the local store for milk which was prob 2 mins each way would easily take half an hour! ...lol

BUT!!!! ........ am not complaining! ...



Tis just how it is/was!

BRILL PHOTOS Glad I bothered to catch up on my emails would have missed them else

Good to put your faces to names - looks like you had a really fab time m8! Knew you would - its just such a great place isn't it?
Took me back to our holiday earlier this year on the Gold Coast - blue skies, long sandy beaches and clear blue water - awesome or what!

Your piece of heaven, sorry, land. If it would not bother you that you may have 'little friends' visiting you, then there's no problem really m8!
In Cairns, we live in a 'built up' area with no 'Rain Forest' that close to us. We chose this location for many reasons, but the main one being, we did not, like some of our friends, want to live right on the edge of the forsest and have every creepy crawly possible making frequent appearances in our home/garden!!!! Yes, we have had some, but none that has worried us that much, famous last words eh :scared: We've been here 10 months so done well anyway! The worst thing I've seen around where we are living is one small black snake curled up in the middle of the road minding its own business!!! Just as well, as I was out for my late afternoon walk!!! I thought it was dead, but after speaking to my ozzie neighbours they said in no uncertain terms, it would have been very much ALIVE and sleeping in the middle of the road for the warmth of the days sun - boy did I have egg on my face that day, felt really naive I can tell you A lesson learnt I think dont you?? LOL!

So, the moral of this story is, choose where you live carefully, dont moan about the 'wild life' of Australia getting you down if you decide to live near their domain!!!! You will have your little piece of heaven of this I am sure !

Glad you and your family are back safe and sound

Take care
Gill

Thanks Gill, and no, I don't want to come across as moaning about anything in Oz, but at the same time the girls in the house do not like creepies ...lol, so if living close to parkland did encourage em, then it'd be a pretty stupid move I guess ...lol.

The 'bit of dirt' as they call it is no longer available, and we are now looking at other pieces that do not back onto tree's. I personally was more worried about further development.

Best bit tho is we have now been assured that if you sat out in this estate for a couple of hours, you WILL see a Koala in the tree's somewhere! ...

Can't moan about that can I! ...lol

Ok, only there for 3 weeks, but DID see this lil fella one afternoon:



I say lil, but he was about 18" long, and his body must've been 2 - 3" thick!

A lil bigger than the ones we used to see in the likes of Cyprus and Spain ...lol

How did I see him, well I was taking a p up some bush ...lol, and have to admit, it was a right shock to see this thing only a foot or so from me! ...rofl

G'day!

LOL! Bet you did get a shock seeing that lovely creature m8! Selves your right for taking a p where you shouldn't have What a great memory though eh - some people have been here for years and not seen one that big

Hope you didn't take offence to my last posting? Was only trying to help, as I always do. Just know from talking to lots of people that, although Koalas are cute, they can make a hell of a noise if they start jumping/playing on your roof Especially in the middle of the night as I think they are nocternal? I was scared sh--less a few weeks ago when in the early hours of the morning - something clamered over our roof - made a hell of a noise - thought the house was caving in!!! We have a 'metal' roof in the house we are renting which made it worse. Cld have been a cat - dont know, but it was a frightening noise to be woken up by! Quite spooky actually! So, I don't think we will ever live that close to 'nature' although like many I do like to see the wildlife of Australia but, in an nature resort! We have both had thoughts of living somewhere with a lot of land around us, you know a few acres but, do not know whether we could tolerate the other stuff! Might find out one day eh!

Anyway, enough of that - good luck with your quest m8!

Take care all the best to you and your family

Gill

Ok, I've been asked by a couple of ppl if I can post some more pics, so here we go.

Pacific Pines was mentioned, so here's a few from there :

This was the view from a part of Pacific Pines. As you'll see, PP is VERY hilly, and this in itself did give us a few reservations. I'm not sure those hills would be too appealing staggering home one night after a few jars! ....lol, and to go down a few, well you'd want your brakes checked often!



This is the central Shopping Mall. it's not massive, but has a good mix of stuff - Woolworth's, Bakers, Estate Agents, Coffee Shop, Chemist, Doctors, Vets, Dentists, a couple of fast food places (Subway was one). I think there was more, but that's all I recall now.



This is the 'famous' Pacific Pines Tavern. We grabbed a swift one in here and it was pleasant ...

I think (not 100%) this is one of the only places out there that has Stella on tap! ...lol



And took this one just to show ppl that Oz DOES have green! ...




Next lot will be houses.

I know we've all seen houses on realestate.com.au, but these are different! ...lol

BBS

can't wait to see the houses, OMG that makes me sound really sad :scared:

Houses.

Ok, build your own ??

Land in Upper Coomera, a 900m 'piece of dirt' as they call it. This'd cost you about $180,000 (£75,000) Room for a pool? ...lol :



Wooden frame is up! :



Inside of the framed house (not a solid wall in sight!!) :



Gettin there!



Close to done! (house like this to build, 4 bed, 2 bathroom, double garage etc $150,000 (£62,000) :



So house £62,000, land £75,000, GOOD air conditioning we was told will cost you £5,000, and a good pool £10,000

Total = £152,000 or $363,000.

Not bad! There is MANY land & house packages avail on the net, but check the size of the 'dirt'. Loads are 600m blocks which if you throw a decent size house on (24 squares and up), you don't have much room for a pool, might be able to fit a wishing well in the corner tho! ...

Next will be a few beauties we see, and still dream of owning one day!

OK, that bit of land looks really big, is it 1 plot of 900sq metres or is it a few plots?
Otherwise it looks like the way to go is buy land a get a new build