One year in Australia - Time flys when your having fun!

I can’t believe that it’s been one year today since we first set foot on Aussie soil.

It only seems like two minutes since we were saying our goodbyes and leaving the UK.

So much has gone on in the last twelve months. We’ve struggled to find rental accommodation, we’ve bought a car for the missus and for me, we’ve had a beautiful baby girl and we’ve bought a house!

To say the last 12 months has been busy would be an understatement but what a fantastic and exciting 12 months it has been.

I really can’t even begin to explain how at home we now feel here in Australia.

Anyways; I’m going to write a more substantial Blog entry about the good and bad of living in Australia in the coming weeks.

Now we’ve been here 12 months I recon we’ve all learnt quite a bit about living here in Aus although the next entry will need to wait for another day as I’m away in Sydney on business all next week and I need to pack Read more

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Our Swimming pool - Hydrochloric acid anyone!?

Chemistry never was one of my strongest subjects at school and since buying our new house I’ve not got to involved with our new swimming pool other then poking a stick in the water or getting to grips with the ‘creepy crawly’, pool vac thing!

The pool is still pretty new, being installed only 6 months ago and if I’m being honest the folks who installed it did a really good job.

It’s just over 8 meters long by 4 meters wide, its not massive by any stretch of the imagination but is still big enough to have a decent wallow. Something we’ll probably be doing over the next few days as the temperatures are forecast to hit the high thirties.

It’s starts at 1 meter deep in the shallow end down to about 2 meters deep in the deep end. Theres also a safety ledge around the whole of the pool so Junior has somewhere to stand if he gets a little to tired from practicing his swimming.

Thankfully, after just over a dozen lessons Junior can now swim although the fence and gate around the pool keeps the water out of bounds unless mum or dad are around to supervise. Read more

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Extra 400,000 workers needed for Western Australia

I’ve just read an interesting article posted by the Australian Newspaper about the number of extra workers required if Western Australia is going to continue to grow at its current rates.

Apparently an extra 400,000 workers will be needed in Western Australia over the next 10 years if the state is to reap the full benefits of the economic boom.

Despite an increase in the Skilled Migration quota for the 2007 - 2008 year, I’m really not sure where WA is going to find all these people.

Despite the fact that there are “770 people flooding into the State each week” its only a matter of time before this influx of new migrants starts to have a counter productive effect. Read more

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Quinns rocks beach - check out the ocean!

At the beginning of September I mentioned how gorgeous the local beach was near our new house.

I also spoke about how the Indian Ocean was starting to turn that really nice turquoise blue colour.

I’m not sure why the colour seems to change. It may be the calmer oceans or the difference in the angle of the sun or some other strange thing going on but hey, who cares?

Driving back home yesterday I went the coast route and what I saw took my breath away. I literally had to get out of my car and take a picture to show you guys as trying to describe the scene just wouldn’t have cut the mustard.

The sea was stunning, it wasn’t just going a nice turquoise blue colour, it was almost green! Read more

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Aussie Tourist? All your questions answered.

A friend of mine in the UK sent me this joke and as its been a little while since I last posted a funny at GDU, I thought I’d share this one with you.

The story goes that these were posted on an Australian Tourism Website and the answers are the actual responses by the website officials, who obviously have a sense of humor.

Somehow I think this is kinda unlikely, still, if the Aussie tourism officials could give these kind of answers whilst getting away with it I’m sure they would.

Apologies in advance to our American readers

Q: Does it ever get windy in Australia? I have never seen it rain on TV, how do the plants grow? (UK).
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die.

Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? (USA)
A: Depends how much you’ve been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from Perth to Sydney - can I follow the railroad tracks? (Sweden)
A: Sure, it’s only three thousand miles, take lots of water.

Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Australia? (Sweden)
A: So it’s true what they say about Swedes.

Q: Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in Australia? Can you send me a list of them in Brisbane, Cairns, Townsville and Hervey Bay? (UK)
A: What did your last slave die of? Read more

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Finally we’ve moved into our new home

Jeeze, what an absolutely knackering weekend! We’ve finally moved into our new house after what seems like a lifetime of packing and preparation.

All of our boxes which we packed up in the UK are now sat in the garage waiting to be unpacked.

Despite this, it’s amazing how much crap we we’ve managed to collect in less then a year living down under.

Although its nothing like it was back in the UK, I think we’ll need to do a bit of a sort out whilst finding a perminant home for all of our stuff.

We’ve got most of the jobs done to our house that we wanted to get done before moving in. A monitored burglar alarm was fitted last weekend and the refrigerated reverse cycle ducted air conditioning went in on Thursday, something that will really make a difference as temperatures continue to rise. Read more

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Amendments to the Work and Holiday Visa program

The dudes over at Immi have announced a number of very minor amendments to the Work and Holiday Visa program.

Nothing major, just a correction of ‘a minor typographical error’. Seems like the Immi folks must have been having a few to many stubbies when writing these particular guidelines

Anyway, any one interested can find full details of the here. I told you it wasn’t very interesting

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Current Australian Immigration processing lead time as of November 2007

Hi folks, please find below the latest time lines from the ASPC. Any comments or questions please post in the appropriate thread made in our forums here

As of November 2007 the ASPC admin section is processing as follows:

Applications lodged on or before the dates shown below have been allocated to case officers for further processing.

Student/Graduate applications – Class DD and DE visas

Paper based applications: 3 May 2007 (subclass 880), 9 March 2007 (subclass 881) and 9 March 2007 (subclass 882)

E-lodged (on-line) applications: 7 July 2007 (subclass 880) and 26 July 2007 (subclass 881) and 26 July 2007 (subclass 882)

Onshore Skilled Independent Regional (Provisional) (SIR) – Class UX visas

Paper based applications: 7 August 2007
eSIR (on-line) applications: 23 April 2007 Read more

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Broadband in Australia - Yes they have it!

Yay! Well, I’m writing this Blog entry from our new house.

We got Broadband installed this weekend so we finally have a decent Internet connection.

For the techs amongst you I’m currently getting download speeds of just under 10 megabits per second.

Even by UK standards thats incredibly fast (we had a 2 megabit connection back home) and may be due to the fact that the ISP I’m using here in Australia has a pretty extensive ADSL2 network.

ADS2 What?

Oh, its very technical… OK, it’s not really Here’s a half decent definition that I found on my ISP’s website: Read more

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