What would you take to Oz?

[bamamama]

We're moving to Canberra for a year in August with a 14 month old boy. Any suggestions from those who've done similar about what you'd definately take, definately leave and tips for surviving the journey! I'm approaching this from the "it's just a big holiday" position so am as yet unstressed but it's all going to come round fast and I need to get planning!ta.

Hi Bamamama

We've just come back from a month in Australia with a 2yr old and a 3.5 yr old. Despite the absolute knee-knocking fear that we would be thrown from the plane due to unruly kids it actually went quite smoothly.

For flight I would suggest inflight entertainment (there's usually Dora on a loop) and sticker books. A company called PRIDDY do great ones, available on amazon and probably in good bookshops. Although I didn't do this, I was thinking a piece of string with things tied to it, like an activity station, that can be looped over the armrests....

Longhaul isn't lovely even without kids, but it is manageable. Who are you flying with? And at what times of day? (that's quite important). Our first let was a night flight and we did the wash and pyjama routine on board and made it really comfy and let them drink milk from bottles (soothing) to go to sleep. They slept a good 7 hours. The rest was a bit dodgy, but as I said, manageable.

The give milk on board , which meant that we lugged heaps of the stuff around airports for no reason.

I've got to dash now, but if I think of anything else I'll drop you a line.

Lucky you, by the way. We're hoping to get back out there for good next year sometime. I spent my carefree 20s there so I miss it terribly!!!!

R x

Just Toto and a basket to carry him in.

We are in Sydney for a year, we arrived with an 18 month old daughter so I'm right with you!

First off, I'd buy some kid's clothes if you can buy any winter-ish ones now. We arrived mid-summer and found it was all winter stuff in the shops. We also bought some clothes in advance, ie, some 2-3 year clothes from Next. The kids clothes here aren't as nice but bear in mind they get ruined much more quickly by top-loading washers, suncream and the great outdoors. I'd steer clear of anything white!

The rest of it depends on whether you are renting furnished or unfurnished. We are unfurnished so we brought whatever small, lightweight things we could bring from the UK. We air-freighted 69kg of additional luggage via a freight handler near Manchester Airport. It took a week to arrive in Sydney and then we had to collect it from the airport, clear customs etc. That took about two hours in total.

We brought some kid's toys and books. We also brought the following in air freight:

Pillowcases and pillow protectors
Stapler, scissors, staples
Blu-tack, pens, scissors, alarm clock
Sellotape, cushion covers, table mats
Drugs, plasters, savlon etc (like brufen, you understand!)
Sewing kit
Bags, coats, towels, sheets, cot sheets
Shoes, boots, walking boots
Tea towels, good knives, steak knives
Kid's cutlery/crockery
Photos in frames, photocopies of favorite recipes
Household tools eg screwdrivers
Nail clippers, tweezers

We've been here 4 months now. If I can give you any advice at all, CAT me

I ought to have added that the best thing we bought was a multi-region portable DVD player. We used it on the plane and we now have it connected to the telly. Not only does this mean we haven't had to buy a DVD player, it means we can play our british DVDs here in Australia (they wouldn't work otherwise because different regions have different formats, hence multi-region player).

We bought a spare battery as well, which means we have 6 hours playing time. You little one might not watch it much now but you might be glad of it on the return flight.

thanks so much! It's just a bit daunting as we are the most unorganised people in the world and as yet have nowhere to live and no flights booked . Ah well. Is Airfreighting expensive? We had planned to rent furnished and live out of suitcases for the time we're there but perhaps I'd better be a bit more realistic!

Hi Bamamama,
we are off in 6 weeks time to Perth for a year with 2 DSs age 2 and 4.
Big word of warning, August will be on you in a flash!!!
So can't give you any advice as haven't done it yet. Don't know what rental situation is in Canberra but having looked for a while on the net for WA it seems most places are rented unfurnished. we have been advised by contacts over the doing the same thing as us to get a holiday let for a couple of weeks (leaving this till nearer the time as its off season there and may get offer) and then look for a 12 month contract once you get there.
we are shipping a couple of tea chests over with some towels and toys and general heavy stuff but otherwise hoping to buy a load of furniture from someone we know moving out of a rental as we arrive.
Good luck with the planning anyway

I agree with Flump. Almost all of the property in Sydney is unfurnished. You are therefore going to need a significant amount of money to set up home. I don't want to worry you, but Flump is right. If you are going in August, you need to book the flights right now. It's not exactly peak time, but even so, I've been to Aus three times and I've never seen a flight that didn't have every seat booked up.

You need to hire a car from the airport, I'm assuming. You will need to open bank accounts and credit cards, register with medicare.

You need to sit down and carefully itemise what you need to buy and what it's going to cost. You also need a short-term rental property (we had one for three weeks but had to extend it to five because we couldn't find a place to rent). Preferably one with some storage space like a garage, otherwise where will you put the furniture you buy?

You need a deposit for a flat and you need cash to buy a car and set up the internet (which is expensive).

We bought all second hand stuff and some new stuff from Ikea. the main things we bought were:-

Two cars (and then you need to register and insure them)

Fridge freezer, washer, TV, toaster, kettle, iron, phone, lamps, ironing board, TV table

Sofas, rugs, table and chairs, bed, bedside tables, cushions, cotbed, laundry baskets, side table, shelving unit, books, maps, baby changing mat, high chair, linen basket, steamer, microwave

Crockery, pans, cutlery, oven-ware, tupperware, glasses, cutlery tray, brushes, toilet brushes, towels, clock, toys, radio/CD player, patio table, BBQ, BBQ tools, coolbox, radiator, duvet, pillows, desk, printer, draining racks, clothes horse.

We brought £16,000 and we've spent it. It's a difficult thing to achieve, especially with a small child, so I think you should start planning!!!

Just thinking on my feet.

Before you go, get your mobile phones unlocked so you can buy an Australian sim card and just swap them.

Bring every piece of documentation you can get your hands on.

Have a look at rental property on domain.com.au and also on realestate.com.au.

This can't be used as a guide to find something you want in advance because it will probably get rented out between now and then, but you can get an idea.

Other useful websites include britishexpats.com and gumtree - I don't know whether there's a canberra version though

We went for a year and took two suitcases - one for me, one for DD - shipped nothing. It was 10 days before Xmas when we flew so my case was half full of DD's pressies from rellies here in the UK.

We rented furnished for a while then when we had unfurnished we rented most furniture inc beds, sofas, TV, washing machine, fridge, bbq, through pabs . Their site makes them look expensive but we went into the shop and there was loads of much cheaper stuff hidden away upstairs. Also meant that when people came to stay we just rang them and ordered bed, bedlinen, bedside cabinets and lamps for the duration of our visitors' stay!

I bought crockery, cutlery, pans etc on one trip to Ikea.

We sold almost everything except the nice towels, bedlinen, etc before we came home by having a yard/garage sale. We flew back with double the amount of luggage we'd left with but we were still within our luggage limits (even if we had to have two cars to get us to the airport!)

We didn't buy a car whilst we were there, relying entirely on public transport so that narrowed where we could choose to rent but only once or twice would I really have liked to have had a car.

Trust Mogwai bamamama, she knows what she's talking about!
I am here for a year with older kids.
Unless you are so chilled that you can spend a year with whatever, you do really need a lot of forethought. If money is not an issue, then fine, but a lot of things cost more here in Oz than they do at home so you need to be prepared. There's no point coming here and wasting gorgeous weather having to buy all sorts of things you could have brought.

1. Fly via the states to bring more luggage
2. Bring clothes to fit your ds for the next twelve months. Bring a few things to make him feel at home in his bedroom.
3. Bring toys and little book- public libraries are appalingly resourced here.
4. Make sure you have internet access at home as soon as possible.
5. Make sure you have cash that is easily accessible at the beginning when your set up costs are high.

You may also need more medical cover than medicare provide. Dental cover is not included.
Do you have your visa already?

Why Canberra?

Bloody hell! not feeling quite as laid back as I was . It's Canberra as my dh has a research post at the University so I've been emailing madly today about uni accommodation (which should be furnished and pretty well set up for those travelling from overseas). Still trying to approach the whole thing from a "it's just a big holiday" perspective and frankly since I had ds I've been living in a (vomit stained) capsule wardrobe anyway so I think we can travel light! Mogwai, thanks for all the advice, you're right - some planning is needed (just need to pin down absent minded academic of a dh...)

If you can get some furnished accomodation, this will save you an enomous amount of stress. My husband is a hospital doctor and I foolishly assumed we'd get some help with accomodation, perhaps a short-term flat in the hospital grounds, but they didn't help us with anything at all. The university of new south wales has student accomodation but it was all in shared houses. Let's hope there's a better set-up in Canberra. It's not such a competitive place to live.

We spent five weeks accruing furniture through attending garage sales in the sweltering heat with a crying toddler. I can honestly say it was even more stressful than the period immediately after you have your first baby. We planned and planned for six months (I'm a person who pays lots of attention to detail) but it was still incredibly hard.

Sorry, didn't answer your query about the cost of air-freighting. We paid about £160 for our 69kg (one-way). we decided what could go in according to weight and cost of replacement, so coats and walking boots were a big priority, that sort of thing. When the air-freight arrives at the airport, the handler phones you up. You have to go to their offices and sign some forms, then you go to the customs house at the airport and sign some more (we also had to pay more money at that point, not sure how much). After that, you can go back to the original office and collect the freight. You can employ someone to do it on your behalf, but it's expensive.

Doing all that with an 18 month old wasn't easy either. God, actually, the whole thing was a bloody nightmare, the whole first five or six weeks. I drank a lot of wine and vodka and we were so knackered we literally fell asleep on the sofa watching telly every night.

we returned to live in Aus and decided to freight three boxes of things we could not bear to lose. We did it through excess baggage company that had a door to door service - they dropped the boxes to you - you packed them and filled in the inventory etc and signed forms.

The boxes were then picked up and taken - delivered to our door ( well my mum's actually) a few weeks later - they do all the getting through customs etc - we found that so much easier as we had a 2yo with sn and all the running around etc that we could get out of doing we did.

there are also companies here in Aus that rent furniture etc so that may be an option.