What should I know about Australia that I might not

[overthesea]

Hi

I was just wondering if any Aussie based MN could give me tips on what has surprised you about living in Oz.

We are coming over in a few weeks to visit with a view to moving over in six months. I keep thinking it'll be just like the UK (well except wildlife/accents) but are there things that weren't as you expected? Do I need to investigate anything that I might not obviously think about?

Thanks

I thought of another good one - the public loos are much nicer than in the uk, and the parent & child rooms are AMAZING

well. Yes. Except the ones in the bush, (which we obviously don't have in the UK) which are terrifying pits of doom with a looseat. They look innocuous enough, a bit whiffy, until you lift the lid - blech. releases the flies and stench. Quite often find Interesting Wildlife in there too.
[bugrin]

Ooh no wouldn't want to get bitten on the bum by a redback!

Another one that tickled Pommy DH when we moved here was the practice of street shopping.

If you have something you no longer use that's in good condition, you just put it outside your house with a note saying "free, please take". It's polite to leave remote controls, instruction manuals, spare screws etc neatly taped to the top. Someone will snaffle it in moments.

Much of our furniture, some of our crockery, DD's excellent dolls' house, puppet theatre and Playmobil castle and more books than I could count all come from street shopping. Equally I got rid of a spare Esky and fruit bowl this way on Wednesday.

I haven't seen any notes on the stuff outside houses here - but it only seems to really go out when the council are planning to collect, which only happens twice a year. It is jolly useful though!

we have a lunch break at schools
public transport is great where we are (rockingham 45km south of perth)
buying book lists
food seems more expensive but we get paid in dollars so don't compare all the time to UK or it'll always seem expensive
we spend alot of time outside in the summer by the beach and under shadey trees by the beach in the parks
aussies are bad drivers

wouldn't move back to the UK

Jaffas and Violet Crumbles make the cost of the airfare worth it. I don't eat sweets as a rule but they are amazing.

Parks have gas bbqs. You take your meat along and cook it while the children run around.

Compulsory voting for all Australian citizens. Weird but I think that plus AV means people are quite engaged in politics.

People are really friendly.
Australians aren't any more racist than British people, they are just more open about it!
The sun shines a lot which makes me feel happy.
You don't have to be mega rich to afford private education.
You have choices when it comes to your medical care.
Australian children all seem to love school.
Lots of restaurants are BYO which makes eating out affordable.
The Australian bush is breathtakingly beautiful.

It is different, if you want to come and live here you need to accept that. You can spend your life moaning about all the things you miss or embrace your new life for all it offers.

Everything is bigger. (Insects, chicken breasts, shampoo bottles....)

People you have never met before, like shop assistants and call centre staff, will start conversations with "Hello, how are you?"

The conveyor belts at the tills in supermarkets are ridiculously short BUT the checkout operator will pack your bags for you.

Speed trapping on the roads is a lot more common (especially in QLD). You get used to driving more slowly and then, when you come back to the UK you think that you are going to die because the person who has come to pick you up from the airport drives so fast (although this could just be my FIL).

Apostrophes are missing from many shop signs and printed materials.

'Bring a plate' means that you need to take along a plate of food to share.

Depending on what state you are in, you may need to get insurance for 'ambulance cover'.

Oh, and if you have a permanent visa and you do not take up the option of becoming a citizen, your visa will expire after about 5 years. You will then need a Returning Resident Visa (which costs the same as citizenship) before you can leave and reenter Australia. Apparently EVERYONE knows this except for DH and myself. We only found out that our visas had expired at the airport when we left Australia for a visit to the UK. Cue a lot of panic and calls to the Australian embassy while we were in the UK!

I came to Australia 6 years ago and it has been one of the best things I ever did. I have moved around a lot and lived in all sorts of places from Melbourne to rural Queensland and have met some amazing people along the way. Just set your family up with Skype, throw yourself into it and enjoy the experience.

eselle you mention that you can't get decent gravy and you have Bisto sent over do you know if they sell Colmans sauce mixes in Australia??? Don't know that I could live without them

Q.......do you think that the primary school education system is worse than the UK?

beanlet.. dd goes to the grace primary at caboolture and will go to grace at caboolture campus in year 7... amazing school!
not at north lakes tho... just off bibie island.
Ive found greens gravy tastes as good as bisto and just as easy. also bisto can be bought from uk food stores in aus...
no need for calpol? i just buy panadol? liquid or drops... same stuff..different name!

Sleepy, I don't think they can be hummingbirds - they're probably a variety of honeyeater (likely Eastern spinebills), but yer actual hummingbirds aren't generally found in Australia.

We found a rather lovely stick insect on our back screen door the other week - it stayed for about a week before disappearing!

The flies.

sleepywombat

You can get mersyndol at chemists - I assume its the same? Contains paracetamol, codein and doxylamine IIRC :)

Funny hwat others have said about drivers here. Although I do think drivers are aften rude here, I don't remember people letting me in more in the UK (although maybe I've forgotton?). I do, however, remember how terrifying it was to drive on the UK motorways, and how fast and turious it was, how much more traffic, and how often and how suddenly people would change lanes there.

Sleepy, snap! Except DH does know about the birds, that's his hobby so he should. He'd never heard of a pademelon though...

Astrophe - I think in reality the biggest difference is the volume of traffic on the motorways in the UK - so very many cars and lorries in comparison to here! - and yes, they speed more.
But on urban roads, I have definitely found the Aussies (including DH!) to be more worrisome, especially a seeming unwillingness to use the brakes, eSPECially on roundabouts! DH used to assume that someone would just let him on if he kept going (wrong in the UK) and nearly caused a few accidents before DS turned up. But when we got here, I understood - most people do it! just dribble onto a roundabout in the hopes that people will just let them in. Very disconcerting. And very few people indicate to come off a roundabout, they indicate they're going round, but don't indicate left to come off (although there is a town in NSW where they TELL you to indicate left to come off at roundabouts, I can't remember which, it might be Port Macquarie)

They are the most racist people I have ever met.

And I mean shockingly racist comments in public with no shame at all

I would say that red neck southern americans were more racist then the bogans from cronulla. There is racism everywhere. Yes there are racist people here but no more then anywhere else.

thumb - yes you are probably right. I seem to remember that a law was introduced maybe 10 years ago, saying that you had to indicate as you left a roundabout - ie, it was a new law then...and then a couple of years later they scrapped it. So IIRC, you are not actually required to indicate when leaving a roundabout here! I guess as most roundabouts here are small and single lane its not a huge issue, but on the few multilane ones its a nightmare.

As for racism, I think the older generation are often quite racist and sexist in the way they talk, but generally don't mean too much harm by it (I know that sounds wring - because of course there is no excusable racism, but I hope you get my meaning). I have often heard 60 and 70 year old men make some 'joke' about 'towel heads' or something totally inappropriate, and then seen the same old men speak to Indians with respect, almost as though they don't connect the two. Which is bonkers and wrong, but seems to be a generational thing.

As for younger folk, I haven't noticed any difference at all between here and the UK - some people are appalling racist, but most are not at all.

iPhone, that's exactly what my Australian sister said about the middle-class white English after working for 6 months in the NHS. Pot, kettle, black.

The racism is as said earlier elderly Aussie and English pensioners. I worked in a community hospital in Melbourne with a guy from etheopia. I personally didn't like him but that was nothing to do with his skin colour just his lack of ability to do his job. Anyway back on the subject I was looking after an elderly man who after talking to said nurse said.... 'he's ok for a wog'. I was literally gob smacked, but he had no idea he had said anything offensive.
These are the things that you have to get used to.

That said the beaches are great. We spent Anzac day on the beach in Adelaide in the glorious sun loving it. Space, no one hundred thousand people scrappling for one tiny piece of sand. As the aussies would say, AWESOME

Where in Aus are you going? we moved to Perth in Nov 2010 and overall I'm loving it but i still have moments of being SO homesick. The weather is amazing and i will never moan about how hot it is (it's one of the reasons we came here!). But lots of things are very expensive which was a real shock to me. other things I found odd:
The cost of petrol depends on the day of the week (it's more expensive on sundays and cheaper on tuesdays!)
The government refunds you half your nursery costs so we end up paying equiv to about £18 a day (up to 12 hours) in a really good nursery.
The adverts on TV are horrendous both in terms of quality and quantity. it's impossible to watch a film as there are ad breaks every 8 minutes lasting 3 minutes (yep we timed it!). But we have dvds delivered from a film club like we used to in the Uk and that's great.
Shopping isn't great, esp clothes. i get stuff sent from the UK!
Going out for breakfast is a really popular and social thing to do and great when at a beachside cafe followed by a swim in the sea - it's why we moved here and why we'll stay...
Good luck and if you are coming to perth let me know as i'm still looking for friends (anyone else out there let me know!)