ExSmoggie

The Background

I first came to Australia in July 2001 as a backpacker fresh out of uni on a WHV. I came for a year and had an absolute ball. During that year, I met Aaron (my now husband) an Aussie living in Far North QLD. When my WHV expired, I returned back to the UK, worked for 5 months and then came back on a six month visitor visa – which I had no problem in getting but I did get fully interrogated in Cairns airport on the way back in!

When that visa expired, OH came back to the UK with me and got a 2 year WHV. As the time on that visa ended, we planned to come back to Australia and I applied for a De Facto Spouse visa. We wanted to go through a migration agent as so much depended on me getting the visa and we were a bit clueless about the process. 90% of the agents I called advised I would have no chance. Although, we had lived together for over a year, it had been in a family member’s house. As such, we had no joint tenancy agreements, no joint bills and no joint bank account. However, we found a great agent, got together what we did have, wrote detailed personal statements and the visa application was approved without incident! This was a huge relief!

The Next Chapter
So, we came back to Australia together in May 2005. We had 6000 pounds in the bank. OH had left school at 16 but had a few years experience driving an excavator and I had 2 years experience of working in a banking call centre. We weren’t exactly rich or highly skilled!

First we lived in Townsville. We stayed in a caravan park while we looked for a property to rent. We ended up with small part furnished unit which we didn’t have too much trouble getting. We did have to pay 2 months rent upfront as we didn’t have any rental references etc. It wasn’t glamorous and had one aircon in the bedroom….which we spent a lot of time sitting next to! We both got jobs really easily. I worked in a customer service position and OH for a construction company. However, after about 8 months… to be honest we got a bit bored. I might do Townsville an injustice here, but we found it a bit isolated (not too many places to go for a day trip/weekend) and too hot! I found I was spending a lot of time inside or sitting in the shade keeping cool and it felt that for me in my mid twenties - that wasn’t exciting enough and life was passing us by.

So, we upped sticks and moved……to Melbourne! We knew absolutely no-one there! We had no problem in finding a rental property (in 2006…I think it is different now) and little difficulty in finding jobs - we were prepared to do anything at the start to make ends meet and slowly upgraded our jobs as opportunities came up. I continued in the banking industry and Aaron in construction. We worked long hours. Aaron worked six days a week (10 hours a day) and I worked five days with similar hours including the commute for relatively low wages ($60k and $40k respectively).

We loved Melbourne, still do and made a lot of good friends there. However, in 2007 after the loss of a close family member, we re-assessed out lifestyle and realised that we didn’t want to continue living like we were – with no time for ourselves or each other – one day off a week …and we weren’t even thirty yet!

So…we read up on the mining industry. We had seen the reports on A Current Affair etc. of people making big money and with OH having machine operating experience, we wanted to see if he could do that. So, he (well.. I write the letters and resumes) started applying for operator positions. We found despite all the ‘hype’ such advertised positions were fairly few and far between and the chance of them taking ‘clean skins’ (the mining term for someone with no mining experience) was even less likely. However, after perseverance, Aaron was offered a job in Blackwater (Central QLD) We had serious reservations about going back to QLD but decided it was a ‘way in’ ….so off we went. By this time, we had accumulated significant furniture so had to arrange for all that to be moved to.

We spent just over a year up there. OH loved the industry….and the money made a huge change in lifestyle for us. I found it difficult to find full time work but decided to do a Diploma in Accounting thru the TAFE system.

However, we wanted to be somewhere a bit closer to ‘civilisation’ so we literally looked at a map of Australia….picked out the mining areas and chose the Hunter Valley, NSW on the basis that you could easily get to the coast and to Sydney….and the wine helped the choice to! Again, we started applying for jobs, were eventually successful and moved down to Singleton in Aug 08.

OH now works for one of the big mining companies and I am continuing my studies and now work as an accountant. OH works 12 in 21 days so we have plenty of time off together and a really good lifestyle. We got married last year over in the UK and bought our first home last January….complete with swimming pool, 4 bedrooms, bar and huge garden – a bit more than we could have afforded back home!

Admittedly this lifestyle isn’t for everyone….Singo isn’t the most happening place in the world…but it is a compromise we happily make for the lifestyle the mining industry provides us with. We figure we can easily do it for about 10-15 years, raise young children comfortably on one wage and set ourselves up financially to then be able to live where we want.

Obviously, we have had age on outside and no children to consider in all of this but I just wanted to illustrate what we have achieved in 4 ½ years when we started with very little. I certainly believe Australia is a fantastic country and really is still a land of opportunity – you just sometimes need to go looking for it and not be afraid to make changes if you don’t find what you want at first!

Alfresco

Life's a journey and you're making the most of it. Excellent update.

MrsE

An inspiring read! Good luck to you!

Wendy66

Agree with both the above posters, well done

Roni

Nice update. Good luck!

wannabe in oz

great read.

painter man

Great post, may i wish you and yours all the best for the future

moneypenny20

I love reading posts like this. Really get stuck in and get around and actually experience the country and make it work for you. Brilliant. So many of us up sticks from the UK, settle on a coast and get back to life and it continues in much the same way. Nothing wrong with that (we're doing it ) but I take my hat off to anyone who's prepared to go beyond that and make it work.

BadgeIsBack

Well said!

painter man

Ditto

Sherro

great post, there is so much more adventure to be had when you are both young and dont have a family, big decisions can be made over a cold beer and then you run with it, thats what I love.

I came over at 24 and like you took me a while to find the right thing so good for you, I still dont have the house and pool but actually feeling settled is worth the price of admission.

Good luck to you both.

comet555

My husband is in mining and that's exactly what I did before we moved here. The Hunter Valley was really the only decent place where there was open pit mining. Strangely we ended up in Brisbane which I never even considered because there aren't mines here, but he's got an office job (mining engineer) so all my research was not helpful at all!

Nice to hear everything has worked out for you

Too Easy Mate

Cool update ,i admire your perserverance and pleased life is good.

Gems

Wow fantastic update.

I love reading updates of people who started with very little and with hard work have achieved a lot.

Well done, its a great story.

Gems

Kingseat

Yeah, what Dorothy said!