To stay in the UK or move to Oz

[Unsure05]

DH and I are so on the fence here so we need some random strangers on the internets opinions please 😅 we have to DD (nearly 3 and 12 weeks old) and we have an opportunity to move to Australia. I have family in Melbourne and have been a few times and known from a young age I’d love to travel round or experience living there. DH has never been but has always wanted to visit and would be happy to move and try it if that’s what we decide. His job is on the skilled occupation list but until we go further with the migration agent we’ve chatted to we won’t know what are of Australia we could potentially move to but we don’t really mind either way.

Our issue here is that we just can’t get over the guilt of leaving our families here. Mine and DH parents are here and my sister and her DD. We see the grandparents every few weeks and our daughter loves her cousin. We just have never felt settled in the UK and know we would love the Aussie way of life. Plus with everything just going downhill in the UK it’s not getting much better and we aren’t bothered about staying, it would only be for family. But that’s a big thing! Financially we only really have this big move in us or buy a house here. Also need to add that the last time my mum went to visit her sister in Oz she said it would maybe be one of the last times she could do the trip with how long and gruelling it can be. My dad would probably not be able to do it and my DHs dad would defiantly not as he’s not very well so it would be down to us to come see them and it’s so expensive so we would hardly see them I think! I’m just so torn! What would you guys do?

[weareallout]

I've travelled in Oz. Really enjoyed Darwin & Alice Springs but you'd never hear of people heading there.
Much of the landscape is desert or quite barren. Mates that live in Sydney don't travel much or visit beaches in reality as working

[echt]

@weareallout

I've travelled in Oz. Really enjoyed Darwin & Alice Springs but you'd never hear of people heading there.
Much of the landscape is desert or quite barren. Mates that live in Sydney don't travel much or visit beaches in reality as working

Australia is a continent as well as a country, and the landscape is very varied. Obviously there's the big brown bit in the middle, but the "edges" are huge. Barren ?

[Unexpectedlysinglemum]

Why don't you just go for a couple of years for an adventure?

[User93993993]

@Snoken

I don’t think people realise just how much it rains in the UK and what it does to peoples moods. I go out in all weathers but it is a lot less intriguing when it’s pouring down. I just did a comparison between where I live now versus where I lived before and millimetres of precipitation was more than twice as much where I lived in England compared to where I live now in Sweden in 2022. It is a lot more likely that the OP will be able to do a bigger variety of outdoorsy activities in a drier climate, so I don’t think you can achieve the same lifestyle in England at all.

I used to live in Sydney, and the average annual rainfall there is about double what it is in Edinburgh, which is my closest big city now.

[soberfabulous]

@Snoken

I don’t think people realise just how much it rains in the UK and what it does to peoples moods. I go out in all weathers but it is a lot less intriguing when it’s pouring down. I just did a comparison between where I live now versus where I lived before and millimetres of precipitation was more than twice as much where I lived in England compared to where I live now in Sweden in 2022. It is a lot more likely that the OP will be able to do a bigger variety of outdoorsy activities in a drier climate, so I don’t think you can achieve the same lifestyle in England at all.

Precisely! The January of the year I left the UK (2008) it had rained so much it was a joke on the local radio station "day 26 of rain" type thing.

Since I moved somewhere with great weather my whole outlook and mindset has changed for the better.

[IntoDeepBlueSea]

I looked up the rain, because I've been aware that the rain in Sydney seems, to me, wetter than when I lived in London This is exactly proved by the stats (used in an article on The Conversation)

"London's rain is about half of the annual average of Sydney (1,222mm) or Orlando or New York (1,175mm and 1,059mm respectively). Britain tends to get more light rain and drizzle.16 Nov 2022"

[cassiatwenty]

Stay in the UK

[SummerCyclist98]

My cousin went for 6years and is married to an Ozzie so they all now have dual nationality but they have lived in UK for last 8yrs. He prefers it to his native Sydney. They live in SW England. We looked at it seriously when our children were very young, spent 5weeks out there with our “could we live here” heads on. We decided our work/life balance was better in the UK living in the SW including work commute, housing costs and as the impacts of climate change ramp up the extreme weather heat and wild fires, storms were the deciding factor. I’d go for a few years in your shoes to try it or try a different location in the UK.

[HansInep]

@IntoDeepBlueSea

I looked up the rain, because I've been aware that the rain in Sydney seems, to me, wetter than when I lived in London This is exactly proved by the stats (used in an article on The Conversation)

"London's rain is about half of the annual average of Sydney (1,222mm) or Orlando or New York (1,175mm and 1,059mm respectively). Britain tends to get more light rain and drizzle.16 Nov 2022"

Whenever it rained in Sydney all the Aussies said to me ‘reminds you of home I bet’. Well no it reminds me of Sydney because it rains so much there. I was actually quite shocked by the amount it rained when I lived there!

[LotsOfBalloons]

Ha yes typical of the comments English people get!

[LotsOfBalloons]

I got constant shock that out beaches have sand... I think some Australian text book says birtish beaches are pebbles...

[Catsmere]

@LotsOfBalloons

I got constant shock that out beaches have sand... I think some Australian text book says birtish beaches are pebbles...

Blame British telly for that! 😄

[echt]

YY to the "this must remind you of home" when it rains. Some students I taught also had the pebbly beach conviction.

Another one, again among students, was that all UK houses are, in the Australian phrase "joined on", i.e not detached. The bit that made me was that there are plenty of terraced houses in Melbourne. It used to be much older properties, but now squeezing multiple town house units onto blocks that used to have one house is common, so it's not as if the evidence isn't out there. Now I think of it, houses aren't described as detached or semi-detached in the estate agents' blurb. In the latter case, it's as if the other house doesn't exist.

I've just Googled the rainfall so will triumphantly remind the rain bores that it rains more in Melbourne than London. Ha!

[LotsOfBalloons]

@catsmere I'm trying to think which British telly goes to a pebbly beach? I never even heard of pebbly beaches growing up- it wasnt until I went to Brighton. And can't think of a show set in Brighton on the beach!

We're an island so much of our coastline is lovely beaches! I love the coves and inlets around Cornwall and Wales. And some lovely stretched of beach in Dorset.

[LotsOfBalloons]

Echt- have you had the British people don't know about proper coffee yet...

[CherryRipe1]

@LotsOfBalloons

@catsmere I'm trying to think which British telly goes to a pebbly beach? I never even heard of pebbly beaches growing up- it wasnt until I went to Brighton. And can't think of a show set in Brighton on the beach!

We're an island so much of our coastline is lovely beaches! I love the coves and inlets around Cornwall and Wales. And some lovely stretched of beach in Dorset.

I can only think of films, Quadrophenia or maybe Brighton Rock.

[Catsmere]

@LotsOfBalloons ones I watched years ago, it’ll take a while to remember them! Maybe the were all filmed at Brighton … :P

[LotsOfBalloons]

There must be something a lot of aussies have watched with a pebbly beach (maybe how England was obsessed with neighbours and our views of aussie life was influenced by that!)

As I say I grew up in England, with English TV and my when I went to Brighton as an young adult was rather shocked at the "beach" being pebbles as all my experiences to date in Welsh, Cornish, Isle of Wight and Dorset beaches had been sand! I thought beach = sand... and you're never all that far from a beach in England, at most 2-3 hours I think if you're very inland.

[Catsmere]

It was interesting googling it, a lot of people must be under the impression it’s all pebble/shingle beaches going by the results.

[echt]

OMG!!!

You're right. Climate change will not affect anywhere else. Wait until the Gulf Stream turns off.

[echt]

@LotsOfBalloons

Echt- have you had the British people don't know about proper coffee yet...

No, but I can imagine. But then I do not like shop-bought coffee here at all. What a fuss. I only like the coffee I make in my Bialetti at home, not the overpriced cup of hot milk that passes for coffee here. Oh, and try to buy a cup of tea - kill me now.
I'm pretty sure my citizenship will be taken away for this heresy.

[EatingWormsMichael]

I couldn't do that to my family, so I'd stay. Kids are little for such a short time, if the grandparents are involved in their lives it would be heartbreaking to move them so far away

[Inyournewdress]

@MrsSkylerWhite

We would stay here, simply because of climate change.

That’s something that would really worry me about Oz too, I am already thinking of trying to move somewhere cooler than the UK. Somewhere that is already hot and struggles with drought, fires etc seems even more daunting. I hope that I’m wrong.