Life in Australia. A few questions

[Thunderduck]

I'm asking on behalf of my partner, who has gotten it into his head that we should move to Australia once we've both finished our degrees/PHDs.

I'll admit I'm not at all fond of the idea of moving so far from home. However I promised I'd ask a few questions on his behalf.

For anyone who moved to Australia. Did it live up to your expectations? Was culture shock an issue for you? And how long did it take to go through the process of being granted permission to move there?

Where's Astrophe when you need her, she's native, and just spent 4 years over here, she'll give you some good advice.

TY. I'll keep an eye out for her.

Hi, It depends what your expectations are? I'm Australian and live in Sydney and love it, though we are just about to move to the UK for work. As for the culture, I don't think that it will be a shock at all, we are not too dissimilar to the English, perhaps a blend somewhere between the UK and the US. If you have any more specific questions I'd be glad to try and help.

Have a hunt through the archives - there was a thread of a similar ilk a few months ago that turned into a giant I-hate-Australia-and-all-Australians bunfight. It wasn't in the slightest balanced, but it could give you some pointers to the sort of things that immigrants have found disappointing or hard to adjust to.

Distilled, I think it came down to bluntness (the radio stations warn you to switch off if you've got children in earshot, but it tends to be only if the song contains the word "cunt". "Fuck" appears to be completely fine), the heat, the cost of flying home (especially if you have a couple of children) and alleged racism (which personally I think was like judging the whole of the UK from a brush with the BNP).

Homesickness is a killer. I have just moved home to Sydney after 14 years abroad and if my beloved DH said he wanted to move overseas again, I'd divorce him. But always bear in mind that you're an immigrant, not a refugee, and if you don't like it you can always go home.

Regarding immigration, there has been talk of tweaking the quotas. Too many of the skilled work visas have gone to hairdressers and chefs, and I think the government is keen to move up the food chain in terms of what exactly constitutes a skilled migrant. What are your subjects?

Stick your head into the Aussie round-up thread - there are quite a few expat Brits who will be happy to help.

Here is the old thread, but please do us a favour and don't bump it or it'll all kick off again.

It got really quite offensive in places, but there are some sensible replies amongst the "I met some Australians in a youth hostel in Greece 20 years ago and they were awful so I haven't set foot over the equator since" bollocks. The sensible replies tended to come from the people who actually live here.

We have been in Melbourne for nearly three years, having emigrated from Northern England.
The past few years have been a blast, as we did not move here with rose-tinted glasses....we never thought that we would be here forever. We are now entitled to apply for citizenship for us and the children.
HOWEVER, I think I want to come home. I love Australia (although there are some bits of the culture that make me want to smash my head into a pane of glass ) but then there was tonnes I did not like about Manchester.

The way I look at it is that, if we come back to England, so what? We have had such a good adventure. And if we stay, great. We'll carry on with the journey. I think that it is a mistake to emigrate feeling that it is a "Forever" decision as that leaves you open to perceived failure on your part.
Check out British Expats.com as they have a "Moving back to the UK" forum for Expats that want to come home. It might be worth checking out the emotions and the facts that make expats return home before you make the decision to move. Most people on there agree that they could have moved half and hour down the road in the UK and had a fab life than upping sticks to the other end of the world.
Aus is great but right now I feel so far away from my family and friends, and Christmas time will always hi-light this fact.

In answer to your question about timelines, we were granted our PR visa in Jan and moved to Aus three months later.
There is also a website (can't link as I'm djunk!!) about Australian timelines so perhaps google it, as I think that people are waiting AGGEEESSSSS at the moment. Will go and google and post if I can find it.

timeline to Aus

This is a good forum for seeing how long other people are waiting for their visas.

Oi You!

My dp is planning on being either a chemical engineer or a biomedical engineer, once he finishes his PHD.

I'm hoping to become a forensic toxicologist, but also do some teacher training to keep my options open.

We also have a business idea, not sure if it's viable or not, just a small scale business but that's something we may look into once we've both qualified.

Personally I can't imagine emigrating to Australia and spending the rest of my life there. I hate the heat for a start. I'm not very good with it. And I love Scotland so much, however I've agreed to look into it for him.

He likes Scotland too, but seems to think Australia will be uptopia. He spent a year there when he was a teen and fell in love with it, but hasn't been back since and he's now 26, so I suspect that he's looking through the proverbial rose tinted glasses.

You would be high on the list of priority skills, but if you love Scotland in all honesty this is probably not the place for you.

When I moved from here to the UK I felt like someone had replaced all the 100-watt bulbs with 15-watt ones. The light and the colours are SO different. If you like soft grey misty mornings and long cold nights you will be miserable under searing blue skies. It's hard to imagine two more different places. You could look at Tasmania but really, I don't think anywhere else in Australia would be your cup of tea.

Could you do it for a year, to humour him? I suppose then the danger is that he wants to stay at the end of it and you have to choose between the man and the place you love.

I agree, nothing I've read about Australia so far makes me think that it's the place for me.

He's quite an outdoorsy type, I can be too at times. We both enjoy falconry and walking. He loves most sports, so I think he'd thrive there, while I wouldn't.

I'd have to be somewhere where I could have access to the theatre and to concerts. I'd really miss that part.

We could possibly do it for a year, I'd consider that. I wonder if NZ would be a better fit for us, or if we'd have the same issues there.

The only place I've ever considered emigrating to before this is Munich,Germany.

BTW. Is there much anti-English sentiment in Australia? Or is it mostly restricted to teasing.

DP is English and has survived in a Scotland for a few years,so should be fine, though he's had very little trouble here, and I'm just curious.

We moved from the uk to Perth Western australia 5 yrs ago...and love it.
From start to finish...the application took a year...and we got permanent residency...
Australia was never a place I ever saw myself living...but i knew we couldnt stay in the area where we were(in the uk)...it was going downhill so fast...and the violence and crime increasing...we knew we wanted a better lifestyle and safer environment for our kids.
Our lifestyle here...is so much better.
Of course I miss family and friends...but there is always someone coming for a holiday...and its about day to day living for us....what we have here...far outweighs what we had in the uk...and Im not talking about possesions...its about the nature...the outdoors...and what we do in our sparetime...
How my kids are more free...for instance...my now 8 yr old...playing out for most of the year...running barefoot in th park and on the beach...just wonderful.

TY all for the advice, it's very helpful, please keep it coming.

DP has just returned with a copy of ''Living and Working In Australia''

He seems to be pretty serious about this, and once he has an idea in his head he doesn't let go of it.

The more I read up on this, the more I feel but I'm trying to keep an open mind, though it sounds like the opposite of everything I love.

I do think the key to emigrating is going with an open mind, intending to enjoy it and not having a negative attitude that will get the local's backs up.

I know a couple who have moved there 3 times and back again after at most 18 months, they can't seem to stay there. But I suspect that's their problem, they aren't giving it a chance.

It's true that one can always return, and the thought pleases me, however as Ghosty mentioned, perhaps it;s best not to think of it in that way, as you'll spend all of your time counting down the days until you return home and find yourself unable to enjoy life there.

I'll check out the expat forum that was recommended.

New Zealand might be a better bet. I have friends and family there who all adore it, and it is a lot closer to a Northern European climate.

Are you young enough to get the working holiday visas and take a sort of gap year after your studies?

Anti-Brit feeling is just teasing about the cricket. The exception is the thankfully rare Brits who come out and moan about everything - the Marmite is different, Top Gear is a season behind, they can't stand the accents. That kind of rudeness will get anyone pretty short shrift, and rightly too. I absolutely hated living in China but never, ever said anything negative about it to a local.

I'm 24 and dp is 26 so perhaps not.

I do agree that it's wrong to be rude about the country to locals, and I don't want to go there with that kind of attitude. I want to go there with the desire to enjoy my stay there and to make the most of it.

Dp isn't much of a complainer,he's very laid back,so that shouldn't be a problem. I wish I could say the same.

I am feeling slightly better about it now, than I was earlier when I thought WTF are you trying to do to me?

I am still slightly concerned about his reasons for wanting to make the move, but I'm encouraging him to research it, to see if the reality of it lives up to his expectations. And I'm doing the same.

If you are worried about the heat and the weather then look at Melbourne. It does get stinkingly hot here in the summer but it isn't for months on end ... it can hit 40 degrees but that only lasts a few days before we have a 'cool change' and the temp plummets back to a nice cool 25 degrees.
We haven't had a 40 degree day yet though - this week has been perfect for me at 27.
Weatherwise NZ may be more your thing. It rains A LOT there and is lovely and green all year round. I find the Aussie landscape quite sparse with the constant drought and brownness.
No massive Anti Britness - although I will say that I think the Kiwis love the Brits more than the Aussies do. It is always really based around good natured ribbing about sport. I still throw Jonny Wilkinson into conversation if some of our Aussie mates get a big too big for their boots

Is Melbourne relatively green? I love rain now and again, and the smell of everything when it's been raining.

I think I'd go mad if I lived somewhere that wasn't very green. Even being in Majorca for a mere week depressed me before due to the lack of green plants.

I think the limit for the working holiday visa is either 28 or 30, so you might be able to investigate that.

Sydney and Melbourne are both very green. It was one of the first things that struck me on my return from Shanghai (which is grey, grey, grey concrete everywhere). There are mature trees squeezed in everywhere and it's actually very hard to get council permission to chop down a tree - it has to have roots that are lifting your foundations or getting into your sewer line before most councils will consider it.

TY. That's very reassuring to hear that it's so green.

DP favours Brisbane, but I think I'd prefer Melbourne or Adelaide.

I sound like a tree fanatic, but how green is Adelaide?

I have never been there, but I understand that it's more affected by drought than the east coast cities. There is a poster called ClaudiaSchiffer who is there, and will be able to tell you more about it. She's on the Antipodean roll-call thread.

Brisbane is tropical so less European-looking than either Sydney or Melbourne. The greenery comes from giant palms and bananas and so on, rather than gums (Sydney) or a mixture of gums and European trees like plane trees (Melbourne).

We've been back in Sydney for five weeks now and it's rained heavily about five times. You don't tend to get drizzle in Sydney - it's either sunny or stormy.

It sounds like Melbourne would be ideal. Though I find myself admiring photos of NZ, I think I'd prefer there above the other options, but Melbourne would probably be my first choice of city in Australia.

Yeah, I think if you're good enough to go to Australia for your partner, you get to choose the city.

Ghosty will probably throw a brick at my head for saying this, but Melbourne reminds me of what Manchester would be like if it were nice.

Do look at Hobart, though.

I will have a look at Hobart too. And also Sydney.