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Hi from Gladstone Queensland


Pat

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:D Hi - I am Pat and my husband is Peter. we are not your average young immigrants - we are both in our 60's so can be stand in grandparents if needed!!!

We left SA in 2001 and went to the UK and then on to New Zealand. We got our New Zealand Citizenship in 2005 and I was then teaching in Hong Kong. We did a tour of Australia in the July of that year and decided that we wanted to live here! In fact, had we been able to we would have come to Australia in preference to New Zealand but we couldnt get in.

In the February of last year, I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and life took on a whole different meaning. Peter had set in motion the wheels to purchase a business here in Gladstone and we held off until we felt that I was on a recovery road. He came over in May last year and I arrived at the end of July. We may not have all the answers and from trolling the forum I can see many others have pretty up to date information. BUT we have done this country moving thing 3 times over and have a fair amount of stored information which we are very willing to share.

Here in Gladstone there are more than a few SAs - mainly headhunted from Richards Bay for the smelting works here.

PLease feel free to get in touch - we love to make new friends!!!!

Pat

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Hi Pat, and welcome

It's always great to see new faces, especially ones with loads of experience to share with others. I was wondering: does the grandparent offer include babysitting? Not that I have kids, but some of our members might be interested!

I'm reading Ken Wilber's book "Grace and Grit, spirituality and healing in the life and death of Treya Killam Wilber" which is astounding. Have you read it / heard of it?

see you around and about

Cindylou

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Hi Pat,

Good to hear you are on the road to recovery!!!

We left SAfrica in 1999 and also did the rounds in New Zealand (Auckland) first before coming to Australia (Sydney) as Kiwi citizens.

We are also 'oldies' late forties and early fifties. We are happy to make new friends too - pity you are so far away!

SAS

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Hi Pat and Peter

Trust this finds you both in good health. I am Debra and my Hubby is Schalk. We live In Roodepoort Gauteng SA. We have 4 kids (2 each) of which only 1 lives with us (lennard). He is 16 When we started talking about wanting to move to Oz he did not want to hear a single thing about it, well now he is the one that is seeing us through this waiting period.

We wanted to stay in Adelaide as my folks have a friend staying there and our hearts were set, but as life has it's moments, thing were taken out of our hands and it's Gladstone. There must be a reason... Who Knows? Of course i am dcared of flying and this is much further.

We have weighed up the pro's and con's, the fact that we have no one there and many other thing but have decided that we will sacrifice a lot for our families safety and well being.

In Feb 2007 my hubby had a colleague leave for Oz and we asked him to keep an eye out for us, this he did well as Schalk was offered a job in March and by Shawn's brother-in-law. There were many othere changes at home but he decided that we should give this one a go. If not for our sake then for Lennard's.(we are very fortunate as he is really a good kid - not a mall rat like 90% of those around here. ) He loves his pets, rugby and guitar. We accepted Brians offer (although we are not sure that the salary will see us through) and completed all the papers online. Brian is sponsoring us to a certain degree. Long stay visa - not sure who this all works and we don't want to move back to SA after the contract expires.

We are now in the waiting phase and this is scary as we do not know what to do. We will have to sell our cars,caravan and home. What about our pets. Far to many questions for me.

Schalk is a fitter by trade but has worked on stradel carriers in Saudi, El Salvador and Richardsbay harbours. He is at present a srenior supervissor-mechanised mining for a big mining company. So he will be going down a peg or 2.(back to fitter, just to get in)

We have looked at houses to rent on the net, but it all seems so expensive verses his income. Don't know what jobs there are for me. as you can see i am nurotic at this stage and don't know if i should just stop this whole process now.

Let us know what Gladstone is like.

Thanks for the chat

Regards and best wish's

Debra

debracloete@yahoo.com

:ilikeit: Hi - I am Pat and my husband is Peter. we are not your average young immigrants - we are both in our 60's so can be stand in grandparents if needed!!!

We left SA in 2001 and went to the UK and then on to New Zealand. We got our New Zealand Citizenship in 2005 and I was then teaching in Hong Kong. We did a tour of Australia in the July of that year and decided that we wanted to live here! In fact, had we been able to we would have come to Australia in preference to New Zealand but we couldnt get in.

In the February of last year, I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and life took on a whole different meaning. Peter had set in motion the wheels to purchase a business here in Gladstone and we held off until we felt that I was on a recovery road. He came over in May last year and I arrived at the end of July. We may not have all the answers and from trolling the forum I can see many others have pretty up to date information. BUT we have done this country moving thing 3 times over and have a fair amount of stored information which we are very willing to share.

Here in Gladstone there are more than a few SAs - mainly headhunted from Richards Bay for the smelting works here.

PLease feel free to get in touch - we love to make new friends!!!!

Pat

and Peter

Trust this finds you both in good health. I am Debra and my Hubby is Schalk. We live In Roodepoort Gauteng SA. We have 4 kids (2 each) of which only 1 lives with us (lennard). He is 16 When we started talking about wanting to move to Oz he did not want to hear a single thing about it, well now he is the one that is seeing us through this waiting period.

We wanted to stay in Adelaide as my folks have a friend staying there and our hearts were set, but as life has it's moments, thing were taken out of our hands and it's Gladstone. There must be a reason... Who Knows? Of course i am dcared of flying and this is much further.

We have weighed up the pro's and con's, the fact that we have no one there and many other thing but have decided that we will sacrifice a lot for our families safety and well being.

In Feb 2007 my hubby had a colleague leave for Oz and we asked him to keep an eye out for us, this he did well as Schalk was offered a job in March and by Shawn's brother-in-law. There were many othere changes at home but he decided that we should give this one a go. If not for our sake then for Lennard's.(we are very fortunate as he is really a good kid - not a mall rat like 90% of those around here. ) He loves his pets, rugby and guitar. We accepted Brians offer (although we are not sure that the salary will see us through) and completed all the papers online. Brian is sponsoring us to a certain degree. Long stay visa - not sure who this all works and we don't want to move back to SA after the contract expires.

We are now in the waiting phase and this is scary as we do not know what to do. We will have to sell our cars,caravan and home. What about our pets. Far to many questions for me.

Schalk is a fitter by trade but has worked on stradel carriers in Saudi, El Salvador and Richardsbay harbours. He is at present a srenior supervissor-mechanised mining for a big mining company. So he will be going down a peg or 2.(back to fitter, just to get in)

We have looked at houses to rent on the net, but it all seems so expensive verses his income. Don't know what jobs there are for me. as you can see i am nurotic at this stage and don't know if i should just stop this whole process now.

Let us know what Gladstone is like.

Thanks for the chat

Regards and best wish's

Debra

debracloete@yahoo.com

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