Well we have been in Perth for a year already, how time flies!

I wont bore you with too much as our 3 month and 6 months updates are already here

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=536148

and

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=555873

but what I will say is that today ive put in our application for PR. I had a positive skills assessment result through from AIM on Tuesday and as my 1 year of working in Aus passed yesterday im finally eligible to go for Skilled Migration and get off this 457

Work and life is going great for myself and my wife out here, we were hoping to get a house around now but as we are on a 457 missing out on the buyers grant and having to pay stamp duty means we are going to have to wait until our PR is through.

Perth is lovely, some very strange and annoying bits about living here but on a whole this has been a fantastic move for us and we are now looking forward to getting PR and then following that up with citizenship.

We have met some great freinds out here, most of them Poms, but they have helped us settle in really well and get through the tough times of which there have been a few.

Anyway im not going to gush too much, we love Perth and are looking forward to staying in Australia for a long time to come

Another lovely read - glad you've settled in now.

Wishing you continued success.

Jan

Hi Ian

Great to read your updates and good luck to you. My wife and I will hopefully be in Perth from May and were just wondering what the issues you refer to are.

Cheers

A

:[/QUOTE]

Well done Hutch !

Dam ian you have gone through a awful loss but keep hold of the memories dude
Glad lifes treating you and your wife good and hope alls well

jase

I wouldnt worry im really just nitpicking, Perth has a very "small town" attitude which is great on one hand but quite frustrating on the other, the people here dont like "change" and seem to resist anything which is a bit out of the ordinary instead of embracing it and trying to stay at the cutting edge of things.

Certain things can be quite expensive as well (we are paying $160 a month for decent internet access ) and it can also be quite difficult to buy some things, im a gadget freak and im not used to waiting for things but that should teach me to stop being so impatient

Apart from that its a great place and the majority of people here are great, we are both a million times more relaxed than we were when we left the UK and our quality of life is immeasurably better.

$160 a month, is your modem gold plated!!

Hi Ian

Thanks for the response. I'll buy you a beer when we get out there!!

Cheers

A

Its nice to read a thread like this and reassuring to epecially when alot in the update forum mentions going back home.

Slightly off topic, but I was a "downloader" in the UK, I used to manage to drag down not much short of a terrabytes worth of data a fortnight, BT eventually started throttling me.

Here in OZ though, I am using Three Pre Pay mobile broadband shared between 2 people, we have surfed the net constantly for 3 weeks now and have only used about 2.5gb's worth of data that cost me $49.

I have no reason to download if I am honest and only did it because I could, $49 a month is fine to me and it is more than quick enough to use for everyday emails, downloading, phone calls and webcam etc. I think it is around 7mbps HSDPA.