Relocation: Phil down under - Hmm Looks familiar!

Relocation: Phil down under follows “relocation, relocation” TV host Phil Spencer as he helps British people who want to emigrate and buy a property for a new life Down Under.

I’m not too sure if this program has already aired in the UK (or is being aired as I type) however last night I watched the first episode on the Lifestyle channel which is one of the Channels available on the Australian Satellite network; Foxtel.

The best thing is that the first episode of Phil down under followed a couple (Lee and Bronagh) who were looking to move from the UK to Western Australia. Not Only that but they choose Quinn’s Rocks as their final destination.

Whilst Phil was doing his stuff I noticed that some of the streets looked familiar. Then when he took the couple on a four minute walk down to their future local beach I said to the missus. “Hey; that’s our beach!!!!” Read the full story

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The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has revealed its sponsorship criteria for workers wanting to emigrate to the state. The changes will have repercussions on Australian immigration for that area as some migrants choose to look towards other states for work.

Each state or territory of Australia have their own skilled occupations in demand lists according to the particular needs of that area. So whereas Western Australia’s critical skills in demand have focused largely on mining and engineering professions, the ACT has traditionally focused on white collar work such as business analysts and IT professionals, many of whom are based out of the states capital in Canberra 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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Almost 90 per cent of temporary skilled migrants who were granted Subclass 457 visas in 2009-10 to date are managers and professional workers, new figures show.

The average total salary package for all new Australian temporary skilled migrant workers is almost $100,000 – an increase of $10,000 on the same time last year.

The highest paid workers on a Subclass 457 Australia visa were in the mining industry, with an average total remuneration of $169,000, followed by the financial and insurance services sector at $127,600.

Temporary skilled overseas workers in Western Australia were the highest paid with an average total remuneration of $114 800, followed by New South Wales ($101,100), Queensland ($97,900), Victoria ($94,200), Tasmania ($94,100), Northern Territory ($85,500), ACT ($83,600) and South Australia ($81,700). 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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So I’m sat on the train on my way to work this morning and it’s not going to be a typical day.

Sure, the suns still shining, the sky is still blue but today I’ll find out whether or not my job has been made redundant.

Like many large organisations, the company I work for is finding times a little tough. Despite posting some healthy profits our cost income ratios (the number of dollars we have to spend to make more dollars) are deemed a little on the unhealthy side.

This means that over the last two weeks the sinking ship I work for has been busily bailing hundreds of members of staff equating to approx 10% of it’s total work force.

I feel a little numb about the whole situation if I’m being honest. Read the full story

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I thought I would save the last entry in the recent series of Blog entries following our Western Australia Road trip to Shell Beach.

Shell beach, just a few Kilometres south of Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort is an amazing place.

From a distance the beach looks like any other ‘amazingly beautiful’ tropical beach with clean white sands and the glimmer of the warm turquoise green Indian Ocean on the horizon.   A sight pretty typical to the area.

The thing that makes Shell beach different is the fact that it’s not sand that makes the beach so white but shells!

Shell beach gets its name from the Billions of tiny white ‘Coquina Bivalve‘ sea shells also known as Cardiid Cockles which form a snow white stretch of beach approximately 110km long.

An amazing and very unusual occurrence and apparently one of only two such beaches in the world.

The shells are mined under special license nowadays for production of calcium for poultry feed and exotic mulch for gardens and planters (there’s plenty going spare) In the early years of Denham, blocks of the solidified shell deposits were also mined and used as materials in building constructions. Read the full story

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Since arriving down under I’ve already written about the wonders of the bird life here in Western Australia.

Coming from Northern England, the most exotic birds we saw were the pigeons we’d often see waddling around. The poor things normally had a toe missing or stumpy foot due to a close call with a piece of rubbish thrown away by one of the local yobs to!

I was pretty surprised to see this little collection of Birds sat in a couple of trees near one of the petrol stations we pulled into during our road trip.

If you were a pet store owner with a large net I’m sure you could have a field day. There were literally hundreds of Budgerigars and Zebra Finches.   Birds I’d only ever seen before in a Pet store back home.

The Budgies here in their natural-habitats of Australia are noticeably smaller than those in captivity. Whether that’s down to diet, breeding or what I’m not to sure but they all seemed pretty happy chilling out in the shade of this tree. Read the full story

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As I mentioned yesterday, we travelled quite some distance during our road trip, 4449 kilometres to be exact and I have to say, I have never been so awe struck by the vastness of the place that we now call home.

The reality of the sheer size of Australia first struck home when I had to fly from Sydney to Perth on Business a year or so ago. The flight takes you from one side of the country to the other and (dependent on which way the wind is blowing) takes in the region of five hours

Yes, five hours people! Five hours flying in a plane over the same vast landscape. Absolutely amazing!

Driving through Western Australia was an altogether different and frankly, more amazing experience. I’d read stories about the remoteness of Australia’s roads but never fully appreciated how vast and remote some of these roads would actually be, some of them appeared to go on forever.

During our journeys, it wasn’t unusual to not see another single car or vehicle for 10 – 15 minutes at a time. There was just nothing else but mile after mile of endless tarmac. Read the full story

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It’s been a while since we arrived in Australia and even though we have been living down under for over two years now we have still to undertake any kind of extensive travelling.

We have always been very busy since the day we arrived down under. To begin with we had to find somewhere to live, then we became pregnant, and bought a house. Add to the mix a small thing called work and you’re not left with very much free time. That was until now!

During the past week we’ve spent over six days travelling around Western Australia.

We left our home at Quinns Rocks and travel north to a place called Geraldton, then from there we travel to Carnarvon, Monkey Mia, Kalbarri with a final stop in a beautiful little coastal town called Dongara.

If I’m being honest, the distance was a lot more then I ever anticipated. After all we were travelling across only a small section of Western Australia but somehow managed to cover nearly 4500 km within this time!

Over the next few days I’ll be posting a few Blog entries covering some of the things we saw and some of the places we’ve been to. To begin with though, lets look at our mode of transport. Read the full story

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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 the full story

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A little while ago I added a poll (which is displayed on the left hand side of every page) to the site to try and get an indication of where folks would be heading to once they move down under.

I’m not sure if the poll is a little bias towards Western Australia because that’s what I’m writing about most of the time and will therefore be the kind of stuff people might stumble upon when searching for Western Australia on the internet.

Still, at time of typing its good to see that its not all about Western Australia.

The rankings for most popular Australia destinations for new migrants (according to our extensive poll of 84 people ) are as follows:

1. Western Australia (yay!)
2. South Australia (that’ll be Adelaide then).
3. Queensland (aka Brisbane)
4. Victoria (Melbourne)
5. New South Wales (aka Sydney)
6. Northern Territory

Ok! Its only a bit of fun but the results are still kinda interesting. I’m surprised to see New South Wales down in fifth Spot but its good to see the West and South taking some healthy pickings of new migrants.

If you’ve not taken our poll yet then go ahead You’ll find it in the side bar to the left of this post. Read the full story

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I’ve just been watching a story on the news this afternoon about the influx of migrants into Western Australia.

According to figures produced by the clever statistitions at the Federal Department of Immigration and Citizenship; Western Australia accounted for 14.1 percent of all new settler arrivals in Australia.

It seems Western Australias ‘booming economy and lifestyle’ are the big draws and out of the 160,000 migrants expected to come to Australia in the current financial year, a large portion are expected to call Western Oz their home. Read the full story

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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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Traditionally, Perth and Perth’s Swan River have usually been viewed and photographed from Kings Park, situated on a hill to the south-west of the city or from the South Perth foreshore. The historical record of the view shows clear river banks close to the city and a low skyline through to the 1960s. Since then, the filling in of the northern side of Perth Water and crowding of the skyline have continued unabated.

Perth’s city skyline displays the economic prosperity the city currently enjoys. Its tallest building, Central Park, is by some measures the sixth tallest building in Australia.

Perth is a relatively small city in comparison with Sydney and Melbourne, the capitals of New South Wales and Victoria respectively, but it is still the fourth largest city in Australia.

The Central Business District is the financial centre of Perth, and while a hive of activity during the work week, is relatively quiet and deserted during weekends. Despite Perth’s CBD being quite small Perth has many large suburbs which have shopping centres, supermarkets, cinemas, takeaways and many other amenities.

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One of the (more obvious I guess) reasons why I love Australia is down to the fantastic climate, to at least attempt to personify this I thought I’d chuck up a couple of photos that I took when we took our rekkie to Perth earlier this year.

Western Australia must have some of the best sunsets in the world, you have to be quick though as I’ve never known the sun to set so quickly anywhere. You can literally see the sun setting, slowly falling under the line of the horizon (or the ocean on our case for this photo).

The second picture is one that I took whilst enjoying some quality family time in a park right next to the Swan River in Perth.

The thumbnail may look just like a blue blob but this is actually a pic of the sky… You’ll never realise how blue the sky can be until your sat on a nice grassy bank looking….err…skywards Click it, I know you want to.

It was a beautiful day and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky (apart from the miniscule wisps you may see in the top left of the photo)

Feel free to save these as your desktop wallpaper. Click the image (opens on a new page) Click the image again (to maximise it) and right click with your mouse.

You’ll be presented with an option to save the image as your desktop background (or similar depending on the browser you’re using).

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