Sally Simpson

Hope you had a good time!

The Flintstones

[[[ Part 4; Conclusion, one year in Oz ]]]


Fantastic We arrived in Oz on Dec 3rd 2008. It was a roller coaster for the first month, no plain sailing by any means, but it felt like a holiday at times due to the environment and everything was so exciting, we got through it very happily overall. Finding 'preferred' work was tough for the first few months and that makes sense. Things generally get easier and improve as time goes on, we are now very happy with what we do and earn.

We spent the first few months traveling the coast, increasingly giving importance to identifying the rough suburbs, there must be area's to avoid right? well, not really, nope, none, not in the UK sense anyway. This is frigging amazing we keep telling ourselves to this day Massive suburbs being constructed, the growth makes us all warm inside, its the way it should be, going forward, not stagnating or dwindling. People want in and I don't blame them. The whole of south east Queensland seems to be booming and its great to be part of it.

Cultural adjustment was easy since it was at our own pace and is also very fascinating in hindsight. It took us around six months to be assimilated, but I think it will last intermittently for many years. At first, we were bothered by the way people acted and how certain things were, but today some of those same things we now love. Society seems more extroverted swaying more to American culture than British, people are more sociable than in the UK, which has been good for us new arrivals. We've made some great friends of many different nationalities and even some Australian Some have been kinder and more welcoming to us than we could have ever expected before moving here.

The heat hasn't been a problem at all. Its a bit cooler on the coast here, but it felt like we acclimatised within one month, we had to wrap up for winter that's for sure. We found the type of property makes a huge difference too.

So if you haven't clicked on yet we're loving it bigtime, far better than the UK for us, without a shadow of a doubt. We have zero plans to return, maybe if we're extremely rich one day we could push six months of living in the UK, we probably won't be fussed doing that either though. I would like to thank our new found friends and BritishExpats for helping make our move a success I leave you with a list of reasons why we love life here;

- OK, I started writing, but it was getting of biblical proportions and this post is already long enough, so thou shall save thy list. Thx for reading!

gere

Thanks for the update.

Good luck

Gere

viviennef

I like caloundra. Moffat beach is nice to live and pelican waters. Its still a small place - more like a small uk town so nothing to be put off by I dont think.

And Buderim is just perfect but of course I would say that!

the only downside about the coast is that it can be a bit quiet but that is also an upside. We love it here (from near Porthcawl originally)