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 :(

Well done @GreenestGrass 👏 👏 [slow clap]

You've turned this into a UK v Aus thread where everyone comes out to say how shit Australia is, how racist it is (the irony 🙄),how there's no culture here and they'd miss the history of Europe blah blah (again, the irony 😂)

If you think life is better in the UK - go back! If it's what you really want, and truly think is best for your family, you'll make it happen.

Otherwise, FFS, look at the positives of where you are, and what YOU can do to make it better.

I spent 10 years in London, missed my family most of that time but stuck it out then because it was what was best for my immediate family. I've returned to Aus, mortgage free and just thankful to be able to spend time with my wider family now.

If I'd landed here and knew it wasn't right, then I'd make plans to go back.

Don't waste this life. Do what's best for you and yours, wherever that may be.

@Bringonthebloodydrama

You've never been near or around the Church nightclub in Clapham on Oz day then, which starts at 10am and usually ends up with Aussies rolling about in their own vomit.

Hahaa are you basing your examples of what australia is like on what you see Aussies who’ve moved to Clapham do?! Bona fide. Fortunately I never met anyone in the uk as cringingly embarrassing as the British tourists in morocco - the one group tour I’ve ever been on, never again after that. Somehow I never took that experience and used it to tell people how awful British people are. (I did use to say how awful group tours are)

I've traveled on Melbourne public transport. It trundles along quite charmingly but I wouldn't want to commute on it.

@TomPinch I commuted for years on Melbourne public transport, it was fine. Your choice of language there is really odd, very patronising. Also at one point we lived 12km from the CBD and could walk to everything, several supermarkets, cinema, shops, restaurants, vet, blockbuster (ah, memories), bunnings, target etc, medical centre.

Funnily enough the Australia a lot of people are describing is not the one I lived in - no one surfed or swam before breakfast, I only knew one person in fact who routinely went to the beach, she invited me once to "sunbake" but it's not my thing. We went a few times in winter, we're not beach people though. It may make a difference that at the time we lived there most of our friends were childfree I suppose, but I don't see an awful lot of evidence of them doing those things even now.

What it does go to show though, is that everyone's experiences are different - I'm not doubting the people who go to the beach all the time, just that it's not the only way of life there, and I mean that in a positive way. The things we loved were the food culture in Melbourne - the markets, the cafes, the restaurants. Fantastic. We didn't like summer, and it's a huge factor in us not moving back (I have climate concerns like another poster, but even without change I hated the summer) but we did like warm evenings where you could go for a walk to get gelato, along Southbank or to Flagstaff gardens to see the possums. The evening culture in general, it was easy to be out and about without alcohol being involved. It's hard to articulate though and I know someone will say you can do the same in the UK, but it's not the same. The comedy festival was fab.

We felt constrained by distance I suppose, given aging parents etc. Also, funnily enough I always had this vague thing at the back of my mind about planes being grounded and us not being able to get out, though I never imagined it being due to a pandemic, I think it was climate change I thought would halt that, or a natural disaster or something. I couldn't put my finger on it. We did also struggle to find our groove a bit with friends/lifestyle but I can't chalk that up to Australia, it was a combination of things. On the flip side, I really miss some of the people we met, and wish I could see them much more often than I do. I miss Melbourne in general but not enough currently to move back.

You've turned this into a UK v Aus thread where everyone comes out to say how shit Australia is, how racist it is (the irony 🙄),how there's no culture here and they'd miss the history of Europe blah blah (again, the irony

You're not wrong there - these type of threads always descend into this sort of thing, with inaccurate comments from people who have never been there, spent five minutes there 30 years ago, or "knew someone" who went there and now consider themselves an expert!

Doesn't most of the population in Oz live near or by the coast? Hence more swimming/beach/outdoor activities and lifestyle.
Culture isn't just about galleries/museums/exhibitions. In the UK and Europe it's in the buildings, the streets, the views, the history, the parks, the shops, etc etc

@tentative3 thanks for posting this - an intelligent comment in among some really ill informed posts.
It is totally bizarre to me how Australia gets absolutely pilloried in these threads and I really can't understand why.
I'm an Australian who absolutely loves living here, despite its problems and faults. I loved my 2 trips to the UK, one for a month and one for 10 days, wonderful place to visit, could see faults too but so what, no country is perfect.
I'm descended from English immigrants, he was a baker and Wesleyan lay preacher, she was a household servant who came here on a boat from Liverpool in 1856. They came from a tiny village in Leicestershire.
Those of you who seem to gleefully trash Australia perhaps forget that the first immigrants were nearly all from the UK.

@Fairyliz

Blimey pick me up off the floor; you do know you are posting on MN don’t you op. One of the rules of MN is that you can’t say the U.K. is better to live than anywhere else in the world. Apparently the U.K. is a dirty racist corrupt country the worst in the world. Yet people will risk their lives to get here funny that.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Seriously though OP I feel for you. I would give it a couple of years and hope that by then you will feel happier and more settled.

Also if you have children you will relish being near your parents and inlaws. I think that will change how you feel, totally.

@Davros

Doesn't most of the population in Oz live near or by the coast? Hence more swimming/beach/outdoor activities and lifestyle. Culture isn't just about galleries/museums/exhibitions. In the UK and Europe it's in the buildings, the streets, the views, the history, the parks, the shops, etc etc

Australia is huge, so that the coastal settlement is relative, so no, most people don't live near the coast in the sense implied.

Culture isn't just about galleries/museums/exhibitions. In the UK and Europe it's in the buildings, the streets, the views, the history, the parks, the shops, etc etc

They have all of those things in Australia. Strangely enough.

@echt - honestly, you are wasting your time on here. According to a large amount of MN posters any part of the world which isn't the UK is sadly lacking in everything, and they can't believe why people would even want to live there.

Meanwhile, many of us who live outside the UK read some of the threads about life there currently in amazement at how awful it sounds (for some people).

Not basing my opinion on Clapham at all, just a vague observation on a subsection of young travellers. Who aren't doing much for popular opinion re. Australian attitudes (used to live there and see it weekly🤷‍♀️)

I see what you mean. A tedious job, but someone has to do it.:o

But also - no, I strongly dislike/could never live in Australia. Not sure why everyone is so worked up over this. Mine is one opinion. Be happy and secure in yours. Defensiveness suggests the opposite..

@SquirrelG honestly, you don’t think it’s the same the other way round? Fortunately not everyone likes or values the same things, what some find amazing about Australia, others will loathe…when you come to realise it’s not a personal dig or vendetta about you it will make life much easier.

@Trixiefirecracker - No, I don't believe it is the other way around. There are people on MN from many countries (believe it or not) and none of them pile on here to criticise the UK. I'm not talking about people liking different lifestyles, I'm talking about the frankly insulting posts I've read on threads where another country is being discussed, often from people who have never even been there.

when you come to realise it’s not a personal dig or vendetta about you it will make life much easier.

I don't even live in Australia, and I would make the same comment if this thread was about any country which isn't in the sainted UK.

@SquirrelG there are plenty of threads, or have been, piling on the U.K. it always happens that these views are polarised. You’ve probably just missed them, I’ve seen plenty. There’s some on this very thread!

[quote SquirrelG]@Trixiefirecracker - No, I don't believe it is the other way around. There are people on MN from many countries (believe it or not) and none of them pile on here to criticise the UK. I'm not talking about people liking different lifestyles, I'm talking about the frankly insulting posts I've read on threads where another country is being discussed, often from people who have never even been there.

when you come to realise it’s not a personal dig or vendetta about you it will make life much easier.

I don't even live in Australia, and I would make the same comment if this thread was about any country which isn't in the sainted UK.[/quote]
Couldn't agree more, SquirrelG.

I lived in the UK for 50 years, 25+years in London, before moving to Australia, so know what I'm on about in a different way. I don't critique the UK on MN, and rarely make comparisons at all, as they're mostly not helpful.

I'm always amused/irritated by the way in which the very real racism in Australia is brought up every every time, yet not when someone say, wants to come to live in the UK, or the USA.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3921068-Tell-me-the-bad-things-about-living-in-the-UK

@Trixiefirecracker - I know there are plenty of threads about how bad life is in the UK, but the posters on those are mostly from the UK, not other countries. Can you really not see the difference between someone criticising their own country and criticising one where they don't live (and often have never even been to)?

Another way to look at it in the light of Ukraine and other countries in states of disaster is that it is possible to have a safe and good life in either Australia or UK, with reasonable health and education. For anyone lucky enough to have a choice, it comes down to where family is and which one feels more like home.

I’ve really enjoyed visiting Australia, but I’d find it too far from anywhere to live there, and I have a few Aussie friends who say they are in the UK for good.

Are you sure you’d find it hard to get permits to return?? If it’s what you both want I’d really try and make it happen.

Talking about how expensive everything in Australia is…

I’m in the U.S. While visiting friends in Perth once, we were at a very nice department store. A tiny bottle of a brand-name perfume that cost $25 in the U.S. cost $75 in Australia!
$50 more! Good grief but that’s a lot of money.
I’ll never forget that.

I grew up in Perth, lived in the UK for more than a decade, and now live in Melbourne with my British DH and DC. My DH was never keen on Australia, but was offered a job in Melbourne that was just too good to turn down. We've been here about seven years now and I have been back to the UK recently. While we often think of the life path we didn't follow, I'm generally very happy in Melbourne - but I could ONLY live in Melbourne. I travel a lot with my job, and spend time in each major Australian city several times a year. Melbourne is genuinely the one place I know is a good fit for us - it's the only place which feels vaguely European, has a brilliant cultural scene, amazing food, and some open-minded people. Perth is an insular, parochial, conservative place (although very beautiful!). Sydney is likewise socially conservative - actually, I think the same can be said for all Australian cities. Sure, they each have a little pocket of progressive, forward-thinking, worldly folk, but on the whole you're surrounded by blandness and people whose opinions are shaped by the (terrible!) local media rather than by travel and reading.
Our Melbourne neighbourhood is truly fantastic and I feel like I've found 'my people'; interestingly, most of our friends have lived overseas and all hold similar political and social views. Really feels like home. Melbourne's weather suits us more than Perth or Sydney, and the food scene is better than anywhere. We've both had recent contact with the health system and it just can't be compared to the frustration and confusion of dealing with the NHS. Our salaries are several times larger than they were in the UK; we are very financially comfortable whereas we were only ever 'okay' in the UK. The one big downside of inner Melbourne is the property prices. Our tiny two bedroom townhouse with no garden cost $1.5 million.
OP: I hear you, and I agree with all your points. If I hadn't found out brilliant Melbourne neighbourhood I suspect I would also be yearning to return to London.

I’d love to go to Australia but apparently I’m too old as they’ve reduced the age to 45. It’s because I love the beach and actually would like to be far away from everything. I’d earn more and you get more for your money with property. Aside from my fear of spiders it would be perfect.
Can you take any comfort that for now you’re further away from a war zone? The thing is you know from experience you prefer it here but surely it’s not impossible to come back?

I think moving anywhere from a place you felt you fitted in will always require a huge degree of readjustment. I live in a market town which often pops up in the papers as somewhere really desirable to live, I don’t feel at all settled here despite having been here 10 years. It might mean you need to move about Oz to find somewhere that works for you.

Each country has their benefits. And I suppose to a degree it is what you make it.

@SquirrelG there are definitely posters from other countries criticising the U.K. Dont panic.