Last day in Perth before heading back home to the UK

Oh well, here we are. Almost three weeks on and we’ll be leaving the beutiful country of Australia to travel back to the UK tomorrow afternoon at 4pm Aussie time.

Well probably spend our last day at Kings Park before heading back home to watch the sunset at about 7pm. Then it’ll be time to eat whats left of the food in the fridge.

We had the brother-in-law, his missus and their son over to stay from Sydney in the past week. They really enjoyed the laid back lifestyle of Western Australia although they were surprised how expensive property had become.

The view from the ‘East side’ seems to be that you can still pick up properties for £50,000.

Now although you may be able to do this in the outback the number of Immigrants moving to the west coast is slowly starting to push prices upwards.

Take Sorrento and Hillarys for example. The number of $1 Million + houses being build and sold is staggering although even for these properties, similar properties in Sydney would cost you 4 to 5 times this amount.

Having said all this, compared to the UK, what you get for your hard earned money over here is significantly better. A house of ‘mansion’ proportions could still be yours for under £200,000 if you had this sort of cash to hand.

I think we’ve made the best of our time here in WA. We’ve got a really good feel for the different suburbs, we’ve identified a school for our son. We’ve got a good feel for house prices and what we’ll get for our cash. From a work perspective I’ve also met with a number of recruiters who’ll I’ll continue to keep contact with when I get back to the UK.

I’ve also taken hundreds of picks which I’ll upload to the site when we get back later in the week.

For now, more updates when we get back to the UK. Just a short 20 hour flight and we’ll be back in Blighty. Oh joy!

I’ve added some pictures of some of the houses we visited so check out this post titled - What will you get for £150k in Australia for more info.

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Choosing a school down under

We had a tour of the school we’ve identified following some good reviews on the web.

Absolutely fantastic is all I can say.

The school is a primary school but more importantly it offers a pre-primary school or kindergarten (kindi)

We were taken on a quick tour by the school principal (headmaster).

Compared to UK schools I’d say its of a similar size but the quality of the facilities is what really gave it the two big thumbs up.

Nice big, colourful, airy classrooms.

We had a walk round some of the classrooms whilst lessons were taking place. I guess we were only there during registration but the rooms seemed to be buzzing with energy.

In the Kindi sections the kids were literally having a song and a dance with the teachers. What was really nice is that the parents were not rushed through the door as soon as registration started and were encouraged to take part. If anything (the principal said) they were encouraged to remain with the kids at this early stage to reduce any anxiety and slip out when they felt the kids were happy.

Each day is started with some form of physical exercise. On the way in we noticed a group of older children doing stretching exercises in the playing fields..I know I’m probably making all this sound like some kind of boot camp but the kids were genuinely enjoying their start to the day and in my mind this is a much better way to start the day then sat in a playground eating chocolate and Crisps.

As a second language the children are taught Japanese which makes some sense with Australia being so close to Japan and the rest of Asia. A little different from the French or Spanish I was taught as a kid.

We saw some of the older children having an IT lesson. One very new looking PC per child with the class size being no more then 15 kids.

In essence it appears to be an excellent school.

Thankfully It also fits into the area where we may or may not eventually settle.

I say this because sorting or at least identifying a good school was near the top of our list for this rekkie.

Having said this some of the schools (similarly to the UK) have quite strict catchment areas meaning that if we selected this school we would have had to find a house to rent within the catchment area.

Fortunately, this particular school does not have this strict policy and although it encourages parents to live in an area close to the school (if anything down to the social aspects of school life) it will accept pupils from outside its ‘local’ area. It is a popular school though so understand why the school requests that our application is lodged a year in advance of the actual school year in which our son will start to attend kindi (bless!)

I’m really pleased that one of our more important tasks appears to be completed. However I would suggest that parents contact prospective schools early by e-mail or phone to understand how much notice they need to register successfully for the more popular schools otherwise they may be disappointed.

Thankfully the Internet is a wonderful thing and you’ll be surprised about the number of Schools have their own very detailed websites providing info about their curriculum, surroundings, culture and all those other great things.

Ok, whats next on the list…

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So much to do

Its funny, but even though it seems to have taken forever to get our permanent Australian residency Visa’s it’s only just starting to dawn on me the amount of stuff still to arrange over here in Australia and back home in the UK.

We’ve continued our rekkie during the last few days with a few more fun activities thrown in to try and keep our 3 year old entertained.

Yesterday consisted of a visit to the Western Australia Aquarium. An excellent place to spend a good hour or so. Reasonable prices to, $46 which equates to approx £20 for the three of us.

The aquarium of Western Australia has the largest underwater walkway in Australia apparently. You walk through a 100 meter long perspex tunnel whilst large sharks, rays, turtles and sundry other fish swim over your head. I’ve always wondered what would happen if one of the sharks had a really bad day and the aquarium staff came in one morning to be confronted with a large empty fish tank with one very large (and full) shark swimming in the corner with a guilty look on its face..

Anyway, I digress. After the shark fest we then had a drive around Duncraig which is slowly becoming one of our favorite ‘potentials’.

We also popped into a local primary school to pick up some info and to make an appointment to look around later in the week.

We were told in order to enroll our three year old for the 2007 term we would need to register before September this year.

Registrations are done a year in advance for the primary schools (or at least the one we saw) so it looks like we’ll need to get our skates on.

We also popped into one of the local estate agents yesterday to pick up a few property magazines. The houses are still very cheap. In some areas you can buy a 4 bed detached for under £70,000 although prices are still increasing very quickly.

In some of the more desirable areas house prices have increased by 30 - 40 % in the last 12 months, another reason to get our skates on.

So, all we have to do is find our preferred top 3 areas with decent schools. Get back to the UK. Sell the house, rent a house, ID a house to rent in one of our preferred areas, register our 3 year old in the school, Ship the stuff out, ship the cats out, pack in the jobs, fly to Australia, move in to our new house, get a new job…..and were sorted…Oh yes, must remember to pick up the cats..

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The beaches - they are calling!

Oh, times are hard.

I must say, the quality of the beaches here in Western Australia are fantastic.

We spent quite a bit of time on the beach next to Hillarys boat harbor yesterday. What a great beach!

For families its ideal. Being enclosed within the harbour, the sea is almost lake like in its calmness. There is also an area on the beach specifically set aside for famalies with no smoking zones, plenty of large tent like beach shades and a decent sized play area for the kids.

There seemed to be lots of Britts on the beach yesterday although we were there during the hottest time of the day.

Between 10am and 2pm is the hottest time of the day during the summer months in Western Australia when the UV index seems to hover around the ‘extreme’ levels.

I guess most local Aussies will be a little more sensible during this time of the day whilst the Brits like me are just extra intent on getting that tan. Read more

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The Australian lifestyle starts at 5am - keeping fit in Australia

Ok, blatant sweeping statement but the jet lag over the last couple of days has meant I’ve had insight into the world of the folks who wake up and get going before 8am. Well actually. Lets go for 5am!

Over here in Perth its just starting to get nice and light at 5am and renting a house which looks out onto the main strip of Sorrento beach, its amazing the numbers of people having a quick run or ‘power walk’ prior to a starting work.

Were talking between 5 and 6am here! Yesterday was the most impressive. We were woken, just before 6 to the words.

“Right guys, are you ready….3….2…..1…..go!”

Wiping the sleep out of my eyes I looked out of the window to see a group of approx 20 people, skipping, running on the spot and throwing medicine balls at each other whilst the personal trainer walked back and forth barking out the next motivational order. Read more

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G’day from down under

Well g’day from down under

I was hoping that I may still be able to post small updates and it looks like, due to the wonders of technology I can.

Well, actually, thanks to the wonders of smartphone technology.. For anyone remotely interested. I’m currently using my SPV M2000 to post updates to getting down under (google SPV M2000 for more info).

I had roaming activated on the phone so I’ll be posting via the Vodafone Australia network. I wasn’t sure if the roaming had been activated in time as I never got the SIM update I was promised but thankfully it appears to have worked.

Not sure how much the GPRS roaming costs will be but the posts won’t be that big since using the small thumb keypad on the m2000 isn’t particularly conjusive to typing massive entries.

Anyway, here I am in Sorrento Perth. Its 6:50 am which is a whole 2 hours later then it was when I woke up yesterday morning. Jet lag is a curious thing but I slowly appear to be getting over it.

Staying at the London Heathrow Hilton was an interesting experience. Nice hotel but damn, very expensive. The plan was to use the Hilton to reduce the stress of rushing to the airport first thing in the morning. The hotel links directly to terminal 4 at Heathrow airport so you can stroll over from your room, check in and then stroll back to your hotel room to relax until about an hour before departure where you can then wonder on back to your departure gate for your flight.

Only problem was, Singapore Airlines departs from Terminal 3 at Heathrow airport. Doh!

So, one train ride to terminal 3, a taxi back to the hotel to check out and a second train ride back to terminal 3 later, we were checked in.

Then we had to wait 45 minutes to get through security (due to some increased security checks…cue increased stress levels) culminating in a 1 mile run to the gate (literally).

The gate was displayed as ‘closing’ as we made our final dash and we could only run so fast due the the limited sprinting abilities of our 3 year old little boy. .

It reminded me a little of an old TV program that I used to watch called ‘treasure hunt’ presented by Anika Rice (spelling!) where she had a set amount of time to find clues which she would do before shouting ’stop the clock, stop the clock!’ But we made it, and theres nothing like getting yourself, hot, bothered and sweaty in preperation for a 17 hour plane journey!

The flight itself was excellent. We have flown with Singapore Airlines 6 times now and I would highly recommend them. The inflight entertainment is excellent although with a three year old to look after, we didn’t see that much of it.

The flight time was a little shorter then I was expecting. Just over 12 hours from London to Singapore and then 5 hours flat from Singapore to Perth. It’s longer by about 2 and a half hours on the return (something to due with jet streams apparently).Our little boy slept for approx 4 hours of the first leg and 2 hours of the second which really helped us with the flight. Last year when he was just over 2 he didn’t sleep at all! Saying that, neither myself or the missus slept this time, however, reduced inflight stress made this flight a much better one and we were both really proud of how well our little boy did this time around

So, we’ve landing in Perth, go though immigration and get our visa’s stamped. Two years of blood sweat and tears and we’ve made it. We are now officially Australian Residents!!

I actually thought our Visa’s (the sticker they insert in your passport) would be stamped. However the lady in immigration just stamped our passports as normal.

She explained it’s the date on the stamp which is this important thing. The paper Perminant residency Visa is the Actual Visa but the date on the stamp in our passports validates the visa as it was dated within 12 months of issue.

We now have a further 5 years to settle perminantly in Australia although we know it will be much sooner.

So, the perminant residents pick up the hire car from Hertz and drive the 45 minutes north from Perth Airport to the beautiful town of Sorrento.

The drive was great and we were thankful for the aircon. It was 32 degrees C when we arrive at 2:30pm but who’s complaining. After the miserable weather we’e had in the UK of late it was a seriouisly refreshing change.

The layout of the highway network in and around Perth seems really well organised and pretty logical, almost modular. With my co-driver/primary navigator at the side of me, it wasn’t long before we came over the brow of a hill and caught our first glimpse of the Indian Ocean and Hillarys boat harbor…Stunning!

Off to the estate agents to pick up the keys for the house were renting here in Sorrento. Get to the houe (nice!) drop the bags off, back in the car again to find a shop for some grub (it was getting near dinner time) and some wine of course! Back to the house and time to finally sit down and relax.

First impressions of Sorrento? Fantastic. Compared to the East Coast of Australia Sorrento seems so much more chilled out. Lots of people chatting and walking along the beaches. There are mainly residential areas lining the beaches in Sorrento. Dee Why beach near Sydney where we stayed last year by comparison seemed alot more commercial. More cafes and shops.

I know there will be places more like Dee Why in Western Australia to, but for the time being I’m liking what I’m seeing.

Time to check out now, typing on this small ‘thumb board’ is going to leave my thumbs permanently deformed if I’m not careful. However I’ll post further updates as our Aussie adventure continues.

Small sidenote: My roaming charges came to over £100! Next time I’ll get an Australian SIM card

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OK, were off.

Ok, bags are packed and we travel down to London Heathrow tonight, flying out to Perth via Singapore.

We’ve decided to stay overnight in the Hilton next to the airport and fly out early tomorrow morning. The plan being that this will reduce stress… Ha!!

So….no more posts from me for just over 3 weeks. Well..unless I can find a cyber caffe anyway

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Theres deals to be had on flights when emigrating to Australia

Some interesting snippets of information that I found out in preperation for our rekkie to Perth is the discounts and additional allowances airlines will offer travellers when they make their final, one way, emigration flight down under.

Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines and Qantas all offer new migrants discounts on one-way airfares for flights departing from the UK to Australia. Singapore Airlines also offers the discount on flights departing fron Amsterdam.

Qantas and Singapore Airlines provide an extra 20kg baggage allowance per person when emigrating. This should prove useful when waiting for the rest of your possessions to arrive. Something tells me we’ll need two trollies at the airport though!

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