Originally Posted by KatieLilly

For all who are interested about life in the outback, here is my 6 month update.

First I need to mention that we are actually ping pongers, although not from Britain,but from Germany, We lived in Melbourne from 1997 to 1999 with a 457visa and went back home at the end of 1999 due to the following reasons: homesickness (hadn’t been home for nearly three years), and the wrong advice from an unregistred migration lawyer about a possible permanent residency. Couldn’t adapt anymore at home, and over the last six years we yearned to go back to Oz again, but we needed a sponsor as we didn’t have enough points.

As OH is a civil engineer, but without recent work experience, we were lucky to find an employer sponsoring us for a RSMS visa (they wanted to do 457 at first, but we wanted permanent from the start this time....).

Visa went through within two months, and on September 13 last year we flew out. We went to Melbourne first to stay with friends, as our two cats were in the quarantine station in Melbourne for 30 days. OH had to go up to Queensland after 10 days, and I stayed in Melbourne for a month until the cats were released and flew up to Townsville on October 12.
It was great to see all our friends in Melbourne again and we had a very nice time there, we even checked out the house we built 8 years ago, it still belonged to the guy we sold it to.

After our Melbourne visit it was quite a culture shock coming into our new town, which is situated about halfway between Townsville and Mt. Isa. It is literally in the middle of nowhere, with only two small supermarkets, two butchers, and one post office. About 1500 people live here.

We moved into a 3 br-home, which is owned by the council (OH’s employer), which they renovated beforehand. It has a fairly big backyard, and is in the typical Queenslander style.

Early December we received our container with all our stuff, and felt more at home straight away. The lifestyle is very relaxed here (probably because there is not much to do), and the community spirit is huge. People are very friendly, one neighbour gave us homegrown cucumbers and watermelons, the other ones help with lawn mowing and look after the house when we are away.

OH likes his job a lot, the stress level is not as high, and the hours are great (9 day fortnight).
His colleagues and boss are nice, and it is only a 2 minute drive to work for him ! I’m looking into starting my own business (sales and marketing of dental products) and have enroled in TAFE to study marketing.

The weather so far was sometimes very hot and dry (in November we had often more than 40 C and about 10% humidity), but there has been some rain in the last two months due to the wet season. Can’t wait for it to cool down by the end of this month though.

Just before Christmas one of our cats got really sick, and the local vet is not into cats and dogs, more into cattle and sheep.
So I had to drive to Townsville (4 hours) with the cats. Luckily I could stay in the unit of friends from Hughenden, who happen to have a holiday unit there. It was touch and go for almost six weeks with our cat, and after a couple of operations he was recovering again.
Altogether I spent almost six weeks in Townsville, with Xmas and New Year’s in between, which we couldn’t enjoy obviously. OH was able to spend two weeks with me just after Xmas.

This made us aware of one of the challenges of living in the outback, not being able to have access to facilities which you take for granted normally.

On the other hand, I feel that it also helps us to do things we would have never dreamt of doing before, just because we have to. Like a few weeks ago, when I came back from Townsville by myself from a trip to the vet, and found myself in the middle of quite a bit of flooding on the highway, and this was the only way to get back home. I had a 4WD, but never drove through water before, had to do it four times on the way back home, with water depths between 20 and 50 cm, which was very scary .

Life out here is a great experience and adventure, away from the never-ending possibilties of big cities.It has its advantages and its disadvantages, but it has been a great first step back into Oz. After our two years are over however, we can’t see us staying here and are probably planning to go back to Melbourne.

Hope I haven’t bored you too much with this long story.
Thanks for reading it.

Cheers from Queensland’s outback


Katie

Originally Posted by KatieLilly

For all who are interested about life in the outback, here is my 6 month update.

First I need to mention that we are actually ping pongers, although not from Britain,but from Germany, We lived in Melbourne from 1997 to 1999 with a 457visa and went back home at the end of 1999 due to the following reasons: homesickness (hadn’t been home for nearly three years), and the wrong advice from an unregistred migration lawyer about a possible permanent residency. Couldn’t adapt anymore at home, and over the last six years we yearned to go back to Oz again, but we needed a sponsor as we didn’t have enough points.

As OH is a civil engineer, but without recent work experience, we were lucky to find an employer sponsoring us for a RSMS visa (they wanted to do 457 at first, but we wanted permanent from the start this time....).

Visa went through within two months, and on September 13 last year we flew out. We went to Melbourne first to stay with friends, as our two cats were in the quarantine station in Melbourne for 30 days. OH had to go up to Queensland after 10 days, and I stayed in Melbourne for a month until the cats were released and flew up to Townsville on October 12.
It was great to see all our friends in Melbourne again and we had a very nice time there, we even checked out the house we built 8 years ago, it still belonged to the guy we sold it to.

After our Melbourne visit it was quite a culture shock coming into our new town, which is situated about halfway between Townsville and Mt. Isa. It is literally in the middle of nowhere, with only two small supermarkets, two butchers, and one post office. About 1500 people live here.

We moved into a 3 br-home, which is owned by the council (OH’s employer), which they renovated beforehand. It has a fairly big backyard, and is in the typical Queenslander style.

Early December we received our container with all our stuff, and felt more at home straight away. The lifestyle is very relaxed here (probably because there is not much to do), and the community spirit is huge. People are very friendly, one neighbour gave us homegrown cucumbers and watermelons, the other ones help with lawn mowing and look after the house when we are away.

OH likes his job a lot, the stress level is not as high, and the hours are great (9 day fortnight).
His colleagues and boss are nice, and it is only a 2 minute drive to work for him ! I’m looking into starting my own business (sales and marketing of dental products) and have enroled in TAFE to study marketing.

The weather so far was sometimes very hot and dry (in November we had often more than 40 C and about 10% humidity), but there has been some rain in the last two months due to the wet season. Can’t wait for it to cool down by the end of this month though.

Just before Christmas one of our cats got really sick, and the local vet is not into cats and dogs, more into cattle and sheep.
So I had to drive to Townsville (4 hours) with the cats. Luckily I could stay in the unit of friends from Hughenden, who happen to have a holiday unit there. It was touch and go for almost six weeks with our cat, and after a couple of operations he was recovering again.
Altogether I spent almost six weeks in Townsville, with Xmas and New Year’s in between, which we couldn’t enjoy obviously. OH was able to spend two weeks with me just after Xmas.

This made us aware of one of the challenges of living in the outback, not being able to have access to facilities which you take for granted normally.

On the other hand, I feel that it also helps us to do things we would have never dreamt of doing before, just because we have to. Like a few weeks ago, when I came back from Townsville by myself from a trip to the vet, and found myself in the middle of quite a bit of flooding on the highway, and this was the only way to get back home. I had a 4WD, but never drove through water before, had to do it four times on the way back home, with water depths between 20 and 50 cm, which was very scary .

Life out here is a great experience and adventure, away from the never-ending possibilties of big cities.It has its advantages and its disadvantages, but it has been a great first step back into Oz. After our two years are over however, we can’t see us staying here and are probably planning to go back to Melbourne.

Hope I haven’t bored you too much with this long story.
Thanks for reading it.

Cheers from Queensland’s outback


Katie