New data by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show Perth’s metropolitan area’s population grew by 3.2 per cent in the year 2008-09, making it the fastest growing metropolis in Australia.

Combined with this, the City of Perth -which includes the CBD, East and West Perth and Northbridge – was the fastest growing local authority area in Australia.

The report Regional Population Growth, Australia 2008-09 showed that 12.8 per cent more people called the 12.7 square kilometre municipality home than the year before.
Most of the state’s growth was due to Australia immigration, followed by natural birth increase, then interstate migration.

Perth was closely followed by Darwin’s 3.1 per cent population growth. Read the full story

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I know I can often be a little romantic about the wonderful weather we receive here in Western Australia.

Perth is the sunniest capital city in the world at the end of the day so it’s often very easy to gloat when the weathers so damn nice all the time.

Yesterday it would seem was payback time for that three years of gloating when the worse weather experienced in Perth in over 10 years hit the CBD and surrounding areas.. VERY hard!! Read the full story

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Phew! What a scorcher.

Yesterday saw the hottest day in Perth for nearly two years with the mercury hitting 42.9C . By 5am, the temperature at Champion Lakes near Armadale were already 30.4C – warmer than in Marble Bar, which is Australia’s hottest town and only 20.6C at that time.
At time of typing the temperatures are just shy of 41C so it looks like it’s going to be another hot one today

The hottest ever recorded temperature in Perth was 46.2 °C (115 °F) on 23 February 1991 and I can imagine, back then it must have been pretty unbearable. Read the full story

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Western Australia job advertisements surged 6% in December which is the strongest monthly growth since May 2007.

Experts say that the renewal of the mining boom could force business to compete ferociously for workers. This isn’t good news for businesses in WA but it could be great news for folks looking to migrate to the state.

Just one day after Western Australia was declared the nations best-performing economy, treasurer Troy Buswell called for a state-based migration scheme as WA businesses were warned to brace themselves for skilled labour shortages. Read the full story

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Here at Getting Down Under HQ we frequently get emailed by various folks and organisations that are looking for our help in promoting their products and services to the many visitors and subscribers who visit our site.

As many of these services aren’t particularly appropriate (or simply smell like a bit of a scam) then in most cases we don’t bother.

Recently however we were contacted by an agency asking us to help promote a competition being run by ‘Tourism Australia’. As the competition tied nicely into the concept of ‘Getting Down Under’ and was being run by the Aussie tourist industry then we thought it seemed worthy of a mention. Read the full story

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An Article that I read on the UK website of the Independent Newspaper made me laugh today.

It talks about the Girona tourist board’s latest attempt to spice up its Mediterranean appeal using an image taken here in good old Perth!

The photo supposedly of the Costa Brava shows a man and a boy gazing out to a deep blue horizon of sea and sky, while gentle waves lap the sand beneath their feet.

The Catalan version tones down the antipodean brilliance of the original, pastes a Costa Brava logo to the man’s T-shirt and adds in Catalan: “Congratulations Costa Brava on 100 years. You really are great.” Read the full story

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It’s two months to the day that we arrived here in Sunny Perth so I thought I’d celebrate the occasion by writing about ten things that I’ve noticed about that fantastic country that we now live in.

I have a feeling that this will not be the last entry I make on this subject matter and as always, please feel free to make a comment:

1. There is not always a red-back or Funnel web spider hiding under your toilet seat.

Neither is there a deadly snake lurking in every crevice or around every corner waiting to jump out at you (that’s if snakes could jump).

We have seen redbacks and snakes and other spiders but in both instances these were safely secured behind glass at Perth zoo. When we see the real things out ˜in the wild’ you’ll read it here first.

2. Parrots are a damn sight louder at 6 am then sparrows and blackbirds.

I remember waking up to the ˜dawn chorus’ in the early hours of the morning back in the UK. Depending on my mood and whether or not I had a hangover it was sometimes a really nice way to wake up.

On the flip side, some UK birds, however much they might try, couldn’t quite grasp the concept of birdsong.

I’ve got to say though, by comparison, even the most annoying UK bird song is positively harmonious compared to the shrieks and squawks made by the local parrots first thing in the morning.

I’d love to be able to tune myself in to bird talk so I could understand what the hell these little guys were shouting to each other in their own little parrot ways.

At a rough estimate I think it would go something like:

Parrot 1: ‘hey Bruce that’s my branch’
Parrot 2: ‘bollocks to you its mine’
Parrot 1: ‘no it’s MY bloody branch’
Parrot 2: ‘look I’ve been here since last night it’s MY branch’
Parrot 1: ‘Bruce, I’m coming over it’s my branch’
Parrot 3: is anyone sat on this branch?’ etc.

Although a tad annoying, I’m sat here writing about the annoyance of Parrots squawking first thing in the morning. In hindsight it’s actually pretty damn cool.

3. All Aussies do not spend Christmas day on the beach

A very common misconception and if I’m being honest; until I got out here and spoke to ‘home grown’ Australians it was a view shared by me to.

In Perth some of the local Australians do go to the beach but this is normally in the evening (Cottesloe is a popular spot as it’s floodlit in the evening during the Christmas Period). This way they can enjoy the beach without the heat of the sun and without the risk of bumping into too many drunken Poms.

4.  Aussies are the most compliant folks I have seen when it comes to crossing the road.

Folks living in Australia obey the green and red man at pedestrian crossings like their life depends on it (which probably explains the low number of road fatalities on roads where pedestrian crossings are located).

Many a time I have found myself stood at the side of a road, waiting to cross in Perth’s central business district with about 20 people on either side. There is not a car to be seen but the almighty red man god says ‘do not cross’ so everyone remains at the road side until the red man goes green.

I guess I shouldn’t really joke and I must say it certainly helps when it comes to teaching our four year old the ‘green cross code’ with so many obedient people around.

5. Trying to find a house to rent in Perth.

One of the most expensive cities in Australia aparantly and a damn sight harder then I originally thought it would be.

6. Traffic lights do indeed stay red for a very….very…..very long time.

I’d heard and read about this before I came out to Australia but its right, sitting in your car at a traffic light for 2 – 3 minutes isn’t unheard of down under. On the flip side, going the other direction the traffic lights stay green for a very….very….very long time. Worst case scenario is you get an opportunity to appreciate the scenery around you.

7.  Australia daytime TV

I was going to write about how terrible Australian TV was as a whole but now we’ve been here for two months it’s almost bearable. Early morning TV (up to about 9:30am) is good for the Kids, Early evening TV isn’t that bad either.

Daytime TV on the other hand is absolutely terrible. Despite all this, at the end of the day if you need something to encourage you to go out and enjoy everything this beautiful country has to offer, then Australian TV is just that.

One of the main channels, channel 10 has a slogan ‘Sun all day, Ten all night’ so it looks like I’m not alone in my thinking

8.  The benches in Perth’s CBD (city centre) should carry a health warning!

9.  The local animal quarantine station used for pets flying into Perth is about 45 minutes drive from the airport.

In a country with so much spare land I’m still trying to get my head around why Byford Quarantine Station is so damn far away.

10. Australian supermarket check out attendants.

I’ve endured 20 odd years trying to pack bags at the local supermarket whilst the young, earring clad check out assistant tries their hardest to break the Tesco/Asda/Sainsbury’s/Morrisons (delete as appropriate) ‘throw the shopping past the scanner in the fastest possible time’ record.

The check out experience at Australian supermarket is almost a positively relaxing experience. At the main supermarkets run by Woolworths (of all people) and Coles, the check out assistant does something amazing. Yep, they actually pack the shopping for you. That’s right, none of the half arsed ‘do you want any help with your packing?’ question you’ll often be begrudgingly asked back in the UK (if you’re lucky).

The checkouts here in Aus are designed so that the assistant scans the shopping; places the shopping expertly into a bag (grouping fresh, frozen and other stuff as appropriate) and then hands the full bag back to you before you pay.

Even more amazingly, they do this strange thing called…..speaking. Yes, they actually make the effort to talk to you about your day whilst cheerily packing your shopping for you. Amazing!

More observations to come, I have quite a few more up my sleave but I’ll save these for another day.

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Ouch!

As Australia and Perth charges towards the silly and extremely hot summer season, I’m often impressed by the buildings and objects scattered around the city that are designed to help make shopping in such steamy conditions a much more pleasant experience.

Many if not all the shops in the main Malls (Hay Street and Murray Street) have a large overhang which acts as a shade running along the front of the shops.

This effectively means that shoppers can browse for hours, meandering from shop to shop in the comfortable knowledge that they don’t risk picking up third degree burns or sun stroke along the way.

On really hot days, if you find that you’re starting to feel a little hot under the collar, help is at hand in the form of one of the many drinking fountains scattered throughout the CBD.

Wooden benches are also scattered at intervals throughout the CBD so if you’ve meandered around the shops, had a drink from a water fountain and decided that you want to rest you weary feet, help is at hand.

It’s not that straight forward though. I’ve come to the conclusion this afternoon that the people responsible for painting and looking after the benches in Perth’s CBD must have slightly sadistic tendencies.

It’s great that the Perth City council decided to provide places for its patrons to sit and it’s even better that they made the wise decision to use wooden benches instead of metal.

It begs the question though, who made the decision to paint said benches in Dark Brown (for added heat retention) gloss (for added heat reflection) paint.

Here I am, sandwich in hand looking for a spot to perch my weary Yorkshire buttocks.

No problems finding a spare bench but Jeeze I now know why most of the benches were empty.

There’s the saying that when something’s really hot it’s ‘hot enough to fry an egg’.

I’d say the bench I sat on today was beyond that. Trying to save face (just in case some bugger who had done the same thing was watching from afar) I attempted to put up with the heat for about two minutes in the hope that without the direct sunshine the heat would quickly subside.

Unfortunately, even after two minutes of swapping from cheek to cheek my buttocks were entering a medium-rare state and I could handle no more.

And here’s me thinking I’d never have any use for those Damart Thermals, if only I’d have brought them with me.

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Bugger, I’ve just been checking through our Archive and I’ve just realised that last Wednesday the 17th January, Gettingdownunder turned one!

Since making the first post way back then, quite a lot of stuff has happened in my life.

I guess the biggest and most obvious change is the fact that I’m now writing new Blog entries whilst residing in sunny Perth. A little different then Bradford in the UK I must say.

We’ve launched our forums which appear to be getting well used and I hope that some of these Blog entries provide a useful introduction and insight to life down under.

Feel free to post a comment in relation to any of our posts. I love reading your feedback and welcome any suggestions on ways in which I can make this Blog even better. Read the full story

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Not so long ago I wrote a high level overview of Perth’s public transport system.

To be honest, this information was very much gleaned from research I had done on the web so now that I’ve been here for a couple of months and experienced some of Perth’s transport system first hand I thought I’d write a new entry to give you an idea of what to expect from Perth’s transport options if your thinking about coming to this part of Australia.

Since arriving in Perth at the end of December I’ve found myself using Perth’s public transport system a lot more then I’d have ever of imagined.

When we were renting in the Northern Suburb of Mindarie Keys, I think I only drove into the CBD once (on my first day) and to be honest, I was pretty surprised at how busy the freeway was at about 7am.

Many years ago the freeway in Perth was described as a new freeway looking for cars (or something like that) and even now, when driving on the freeway outside of rush hour it’s a positively pleasant place to be and that’s how I remembered it from our time in Perth last February. Read the full story

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OK, its taken an absolute age to find the time to catch up with the Blog but I’ve finally been able to find a spare half an hour so that I can update any folks interested with the details of what’s been going on in the last few weeks since arriving here in Perth on Saturday 23rd November.

I’ve taken quite a few photographs which I will add to the diary entries or our Photographs section but as in the past, I’ll need to add these at a slightly later date when I have a little more time.

I’ll break the next few posts into a few different chunks to make the entries a little more relevant and appropriate. To Start with though, the move down under went very smoothly. Leaving the house for the last time was an extremely strange feeling. My parents are keeping an eye on the house until the sale completes (still ongoing but looking unlikely this side of Christmas) so as we’d already left one set of keys with the folks, we posted our last set so that they could pick them up when they came to check out the house a day later.

As the company car had been picked up earlier in the day, posting the keys left us…well….keyless. For the first time since I was a young lad, I had no keys to my name. No house keys, no car keys, in fact the only keys we had were the padlock keys for the 6 suitcases which represented all of our worldly possessions for the next few months. Pretty heavy stuff when you think about it (the circumstances and the suitcases) but it also left us with a flutter of excitement as our journey had finally begun.

The fight over with Singapore Airlines was great as always, I can whole heartily recommend these guys and even though we had previously used our Visas when we validated them in February, there were no questions asked about our double baggage allowance when we checked in. It may be down to the fact that the pages with our visa’s in were not physically stamped when we entered the country (they were stamped on another page) but it was pretty obvious, being a family of three with 6 massive suitcases that this wasn’t going to be just a normal holiday visit.

In the end we probably got more then the double baggage allowance, we had quite a few cases well over 30kg, but they were all checked in with no issues. I think I put that down to the charm offensive the little lad had with the check in assistant – we taught him well.

Fast forward 24 hours, a family of three from West Yorkshire lands in our new home. It was great to be back in Australia. Even waiting an hour to get through Australian immigration didn’t bother us to much. I’m sure all of the Australian Passport Holders really appreciated having the Aussie Immi guys ferry none Australia passport holders through their ‘fasttrack’ but we all got ther ein the end.

Hire car picked up from Hertz and off we drove, tired but happy, up the Mitchell Freeway to Mindarie Keys (Via a bottle shop of course).

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OK, the time has come to move to the other side of the world.

This will probably be my last time online for a while, we say goodbye to our house tomorrow for the last time and check ourselves into a swish hotel for the night in Manchester.

We then fly to Perth (via Singapore) in the early hours of Friday Morning.

I can’t believe this time has finally come. We stayed over with my parents last night for a nice meal and spent most of the time reminiscing. I also found myself doing a very good job as an Australian tourist official spending about an hour (after a couple of bottles of wine) raving about how fantastic Australia is.

I don’t think the folks needed much convincing, a son, daughter-in-law and the most amazing 4 year old grandson in the world is encouragement enough for them to get onto a plane.

Saying goodbye was harder then I’d ever anticipated. I guess I’d be putting things to the back of my mind. I’m pretty tough when it comes to emotional stuff a but I don’t mind admitting that this morning, me a 34 year old northern bloke cried when he had to say bye to his mum and dad.

Not big sobbing girly tears mind you, but a tear or two was still shed all the same.

I’ve spoken to the folks since and things appear to be OK now. Just time to pack! Yeh I know! Moving to the other side of the world, taxi picking us up in less then 24 hours and I’ve still to cram about a rooms full of stuff into two suitcases. That’s going to be interesting.

In other news, my company car is being picked up tomorrow. I’m bsolutely gutted but I’ve been lucky to keep hold of it keeping in mind that I left the bank I worked for over a month ago.

I guess that’s a benefit of working closely with the people who look after the fleet.

Anyway, I’ll see you at some point when I get to the ‘other side’

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Australia, according to the 2005 IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook, is the best place in the world to live in! That is probably why the application for migration to Australia annually is extremely competitive as many people dream of starting a new life down under.

There are numerous factors attracting people to live in Australia – the quality of life easily achievable, abundant employment prospects, world-class education and good health care facilities. However, it can be very tricky to achieve permanent residence status in Australia because the competition for the limited number of visas given each year is intensive.

There are a number of ways for those who are serious on starting a new life in Australia to apply for residency.

You can apply for immigration for your whole family with the Skilled Visa Program if you have a specific skill set that is in demand in Australia. But, there are little people that applied for immigration under this particular scheme despite the intense demand for visas to live, study and work in Australia.

There are those who were put off at the thought of having to prove experience in their profession and demonstrate their skills should actually take this scheme if they truly possessed the skill and if their profession is listed in the Skilled Program List of in-demand skills, because they can stand a great chance of acceptance.

For those who find filling in millions of forms and turn up for lots of interview to be accepted for immigration horrifying, they need to be well prepared. Because, you will have to go through a series of interview, fill up plenty of paperwork no matter which program you apply for but in the end, if you are granted a visa, all these will be worthwhile.

A trip to Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane, Perth or Cairns will perk up your desire to immigrate to Australia if you are serious of starting a new life there. Cities like Sydney and Melbourne in Australia are considered some of the most appealing, interesting and enjoyable cities in the whole world.

The lifestyle is languid and carefree and yet the cities are modern and fashionable. Blessed with fine weathers and fun people, Australia is a country with so much fun and attraction.

You can apply for a visa to reside in Australia permanently with the Partner, Child, Parent or Other Family Migration schemes if you already have family living in Australia.

Those who already have a business and intended to relocate to Australia or those who wish to start a new business there and employ the locals have other alternatives available for them. There is a special visa available for refugees and last but not least, the option available to any one with lots of money is to invest a sum of money into a bank in Australia for a period of time.

Whichever scheme that suits your situation best, be sure to put in everything within your power to make your dream of starting a new life come true. As Australia has been voted to be the best country to live in, demand for residency there will increase significantly as we all move to Australia to get the best quality of life possible!

Article Source : emigration-center.com

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Well, dare I say it but things almost appear to be happening.

Spoke to the Halifax yesterday who are still beyond useless (not giving us the promised updates resulting in a number of ignored call-back requests). However it seems that we are now progressing with our latest buyers which is the best bit of positive news we’ve had from the Halifax for some time.

All of the mortgage paperwork has now been completed and the survey fee’s have been paid. The surveyors will not be instructed by the Halifax until the Mr of the buying party has his employees reference back. This is pretty standard practice apparently and is expected to be back by early next week.

The SOLD sign has been ordered and is expected any day. Daft though this may sound, this is probably one of the things we’ve been longing for the most.

I know getting the sold sign doesn’t make everything legally binding and it doesn’t mean the house is really going to see. Its just psychological I guess.

Driving around the corner every day when I get home from work to be confronted by our ‘For Sale’ really gets you down after a while. Being presented by a nice SOLD sign will really give us the boost we need to get us to the next level

The fact that the survey fees have already been paid is a good sign as this represents quite a big sum of money. As our home is just under 10 years old I hope that the survey doesn’t show anything up. If it does we’ll need to fork out the cash to get everything sorted. If its structural it should still be covered by our NHBC certificate but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

In other news, we’ve had a quote from a company (which appears quite reputable) called airpets for our two cats. It looks like all in all its going to cost us just over £2k to fly the cats out to Perth and house them for the 30 days they’ll need to remain in quarantine. Its a lot of money but we couldn’t leave the boys in Blighty, they are part of the family after all.

Anyway, fingers crossed and lets see what the next few days bring.

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Well, its been nearly a month now since the house first went on the Market

I’ve been reading some horror stories posted in our forums about folks who have spent months and months before they managed to sell their house.

The thing that concerns me the most I guess is that every month we remain in the UK, the Aussie house prices are starting to rise. Fair enough you still get a lot of house for your Money in Perth but even so, I’d much rather be out there now. Looking at the market whilst starting to plan our future.

Patience is a virtue I guess. In the back of my mind I always knew that it might take a while to find a buyer for our house.

It was in the local paper again last night so I hope this may bring with it some additional interest over the weekend. Heres hoping anyway

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Perths Transport System

Perth is served by Perth Airport in the city’s east for domestic and international flights and Jandakot Airport in the city’s southern suburbs for light aviation.

Perth has a road network with three freeways, nine metropolitan highways and no toll roads.

Perth metropolitan public transport, including trains, buses and ferries, are provided by Transperth, with links to rural areas provided by Transwa. There are 59 railway stations and 15 bus stations in the metropolitan area.

The Government of Western Australia has significantly increased metropolitan public transport funding in recent years. Initiatives include progressive replacement of the bus fleet and the SmartRider contactless smartcard ticketing system. Additionally, the rail network has been expanded in the northern and southern suburbs as part of the New MetroRail project.

The Indian Pacific passenger rail service connects Perth with Adelaide and Sydney via Kalgoorlie. The Transwa Prospector passenger rail service connects Perth with Kalgoorlie via several wheatbelt towns.

Rail freight terminates at the Kewdale Rail Terminal, 15 kilometres south-east of the city centre.

Perth’s main container and passenger port is at Fremantle, 19 kilometres south west at the mouth of the Swan River .A second port complex is being developed in Cockburn Sound primarily for the export of bulk commodities.

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