I regret moving (back) to Australia

[GreenestGrass]

DP and I are both Australian. We did the typical young person thing of living in the UK and had the opportunity to extend our stay through work sponsorships and make it a more permanent move. For various reasons we decided to come back home to Australia, but as time goes by both of us feel increasingly regretful of our decision for a few reasons:

-Lower cost of living. I'm not saying living in the UK is cheap but my goodness, Australia is expensive. It really hit home for us when we moved back and were hit with prices for things.
-Lifestyle - we absolutely loved being able to travel easily and the access to different parts of the world. Australia feels so far away from everywhere and again, travelling internationally from here is super expensive. Cities in Australia also feel quite 'samey' and lacking character in comparison to the UK.
-Professional opportunities - with the much smaller population size, professional opportunities here in Australia just can't compare to what we had over there.

These are just a few of the reasons but overall we just preferred living there to here, and now there's not much we can do about it as it's unlikely we'd be able to start over again and also get the work permissions we'd need to legally work in the UK again.

Has anyone ever felt similar regrets? I'm doing my best to enjoy the things life in Australia has to offer but it does feel like we missed our chance a bit here :(

Same in the US in some states - can't walk anywhere. But it might be partly due to warm climate. But having to drive to absolutely everything was annoying (no buses either where I was).

Aussie newspaper says that the average Australian does much less physical activity than average person in UK. Aussie teens are especially inactive.

Aussies are fatter than Brits, too.

so much for 'Good weather makes everyone healthier' narrative*. But don't let those stats trump all the anecdata.

• doesn't work like that in Southern California, either.

There’s definitely a huge difference in levels of activity (and fatness!) away from the main cities! I felt quite skinny in Adelaide and then moved to Sydney and was like I need to do more exercise!

too casually racist "bloody abbos"

As a '70s kid I remember grown-ups saying this and sniggering about it, but no one could say it now without getting either a tongue-lashing or a cold shoulder.

These days it's the polite norm to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land. It's even done on TV -- e.g., the SBS network acknowledges the Cammeraygal people on its Sydney-made programs. About a decade ago a Victorian state premier slagged off this practice as "politically correct" and refused to do it. He got a public slap-down. This is not PC; it is good manners and a nod to the world's oldest continuous culture.

Australia is a bit of a nanny state, in fairness. Sydney absolutely destroyed its night time industry with lockout.

Sydney was always a pissheads' paradise, but too many of them were king-hitting and killing each other, hence the lockout. Kings Cross was nasty and aggressive. Liquor licences in NSW are still so expensive that venues have to pack in the punters and sell huge quantities of grog to survive. No room for a dance floor! Occasionally in the '90s a dance club would pop up in KX, but the Vice Squad would shut it down. Not fun for us danceaholics who just wanted to boogie. Awful for bands who wanted to play to an appreciative audience rather than drunken bogans.

I live in Melbourne now, where music clubs are plentiful and the owners don't have have to pay through the nose for a liquor licence.

To all youse boring, boorish, pissed-off-yer-heads Aussie idiots, just buy yer slab at the bottle-o and stay home. Don't come out and spoil the night life for us clubbers.

Re fat children and activity levels, there’re differences in regional/remote Australia and higher density, often coastal areas.

I think about 1/4 of Australian children 5-14 years are overweight. More are overweight in regional and rural areas.

Not sure how that compares to the UK, but I thought 1/3 of children were overweight.

www.aihw.gov.au/reports/children-youth/australias-children/contents/health/overweight-obesity

The lifestyle of a child in remote Australia will bear little resemblance to that of an Australian child living in a coastal city. A city kid in Australia will have more in common with a city kid in the Uk than a child living in the Australian outback.

I agree people in Sydney all seem model-thin

Kings Cross was nasty and aggressive

I remember bar/pub owners were enraged when the lock-out laws came into effect. Is it still thriving?

I work for State government in Australia. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land at every meeting and every training session. It is (almost) always done with care and respect.

@lljkk

Aussie newspaper says that the average Australian does much less physical activity than average person in UK. Aussie teens are especially inactive.

Aussies are fatter than Brits, too.

so much for 'Good weather makes everyone healthier' narrative*. But don't let those stats trump all the anecdata.

• doesn't work like that in Southern California, either.

Compounded by the fact that in Australia (and in NZ) You. Drive. Everywhere. Nowhere is within walking distance and cycling is considered a bit weird.

Again, probably a big difference between regional towns and the cities. Plenty of people walk and cycle and use public transport near me, probably a lot fewer if it’s 30k (or more!) to the nearest shop!

I think the issue is that both countries are fantastic (but obviously not without their faults!)
However they offer the exact opposite of each other, which is why you see so many expats in each country. The UK is a dynamic economy with great opportunities, culturally one of the most exciting places to live in the world, right in the mix of things in terms of travel.
Australia offers that outdoor lifestyle that you just can't replicate in the UK.
Perhaps turn your way round of thinking on this one. How lucky are you to have lived in two countries with the kinds of freedoms and opportunities lots of people in the world will simply never experience.
(That's not to say I don't feel for you a bit. I so love living in the UK, this government aside).

My main worry for moving back now is climate problems, where I want to live would either be in flames or under water…one or the other. ☹️

I wouldn’t worry about that - most of the place doesn’t burn or flood. Even when we had the big fires in 2019/20 it was only a pretty small area, about the size of Belgium, that burned in total. There are farms bigger than that. It never felt worrying at all in the city, and I live on the edge of the bush.

@Ozgirl75 unfortunately where my family are it happens very regularly.

I would think that Adelaide and Perth at 1.5 degrees hotter will be almost inhabitable. Cliff side houses are subsiding into the sea. 1 in 500 year floods are happening every year. Bushfires are regular occurrences. It's worth taking into consideration.

[quote Trixiefirecracker]@Ozgirl75 unfortunately where my family are it happens very regularly.[/quote]
Ah, well, yeah that’s a bummer then. Sorry to hear that your folks have had such a rough time.

There is strong evidence to suggest that the capital cities will hit 50° by 2030 that’s not gonna be pleasant.

The UK is not immune to climate issues, though. If the Gulf stream shuts down, paradoxically, the UK will freeze.

@nolongersurprised

Re fat children and activity levels, there’re differences in regional/remote Australia and higher density, often coastal areas.

I think about 1/4 of Australian children 5-14 years are overweight. More are overweight in regional and rural areas.

Not sure how that compares to the UK, but I thought 1/3 of children were overweight.

www.aihw.gov.au/reports/children-youth/australias-children/contents/health/overweight-obesity

The lifestyle of a child in remote Australia will bear little resemblance to that of an Australian child living in a coastal city. A city kid in Australia will have more in common with a city kid in the Uk than a child living in the Australian outback.

I agree people in Sydney all seem model-thin

My ExSIL and the children she had with my brother are obese in Sydney. They look very obese here so if Sydney is all model thin I can't imagine how out of place they must look.

Given the proportion who live in cities rather than in remote areas ie it is highly urbanised I’d say the obesity rate must be prevalent across many places not just remote

If you are in a part of Sydney that feels different it’s probably not unlike wealthy parts of other major cities where obesity is generally lower

Aren't rates of obesity in a population strongly correlated with inequalities of income and wealth? And Australia, (like the UK and the US) scores relatively high on the Gini co-efficient i.e. strongly pronounced inequalities (although it used to score better than either the US and the UK on social mobility, don't know where it stands now).

I imagine, in all Australian cities and towns, a really coastal location comes very expensive indeed. So you need leisure and transport to get to the beach and participate in the outdoor activities.

I’ve seen this happen to friends it’s very hard when you get itchy feet
I’ve known friends that have moved her form another country
Then after good five years went home
But when they went back they didn’t go back to what they had left yes they had their familiar closer
But alotnof of friends had really moved on
And after 18 months came back to the U.K.

Seem happier back here but it also like they are not truly settled anywhere

Wow. This thread has been a real eye opener for me. Who knew that people would regret leaving the UK? Most of the city centres here are pretty grim and houses closely packed in. Not toention the lousy depressing weather. That said, I do find the style and gardens of Australian gardens to be a bit bland. From my own experience in my twenties, it took me a very long time to settle back into being in the UK after two years abroad. I loathed being back. But I moved around until I found a city that I liked and since having children I feel settled. I think that it can be disconcerting moving back to a place that you have previously lived.

Compounded by the fact that in Australia (and in NZ) You. Drive. Everywhere. Nowhere is within walking distance and cycling is considered a bit weird

Simple not true, especially the bit about cycling.

Australia is a bit of a nanny state, in fairness

No such thing as Australia as you describe here, it's states and territories, so what happened in Sydney, and came so close to happening in Melbourne is down to states, sometimes cities.