Away we go

[SurferMan]

@JonathanR ITs massive mate,

 

I am looking for over 100 SAP experts for work I have coming up.

[JonathanR]

So Its been a while since my last update here and since then a lot has happened. We sold our house, received our grants and now as of an hour ago, hold one way tickets. I feel like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland running around looking at his single handed watch muttering, "so much to do, must not dawdle, hurry, hurry, hurry, no time to waste"

[JonathanR]

T-Minus Min Dae. Today is my last day of work (unofficially because my employer wants me to take unpaid leave rather than resign while they find my replacement. Long story but I will only resign between 1-3 months from now probably). I cannot believe I am here at this point, moving out of my house this weekend and staying in a BnB till we fly next week Sunday the 26th. So many emotions mixed into one boiling pot and every now and then one bubble pops and that emotion takes the front seat.

[RedPanda]

Remember to breathe...slowly.

[Husky]

Wow. Time has flown. Looking forward to your updates from Oz. Sure all will go well 

[JonathanR]

So, we are here....

Flight was interesting, it started out well with the boys (5yr old and 2.5yr old) when they realised they had their own "tv", and they watched quite long until falling asleep. Which made them tired during the layover in Dubai. The Airport staff did not make things easy for us by changing the gate twice, to opposite ends of the airport each time, meaning we had to drag two tired kids around the airport more than once, that was fun :-)

The second flight was better until 10 hours into the 13 hour flight the kids decided they had had enough. They had slept most of that 10 hours and now were awake, and this plane thing was not fun anymore.

But we are here by God's grace and now we are trying to get admin done and figure out the Melbourne public transport system. So far it seems very expensive but once I get a job I am sure we will not feel it as much. The boys have been over energised while my wife and myself have been under energised. I am thinking that the jet lag had an opposite affect on them, but maybe its just they recovered faster and we have not fully recovered yet.

But yeah our first few days we have been chilling a bit, Tuesday we arrived, slept a bit and went for a walk to the shops to get some food, bought too much and had to carry it back to the hotel :-(

Wednesday we focused on getting sim cards and then started getting a bank account sorted (We have a Standard bank AUD account so are not too worried, we also wanted a ME bank account which does not support opening it from overseas) . Thursday we went to do Centrelink and Medicare which took a good part of the day, then today we chilled, went to the shops and then spent a couple of hours job hunting.

Tomorrow I am going to dip my toes into the open houses and next week is in earnest job hunting.

 

To all those yet to arrive, I wish you great journeys.

[Mara]

@JonathanR Welcome to Melbourne. if I can assist, please call, I have sent you my contact details by PM.

[Husky]

Great to hear your update @JonathanR

Not easy with little ones, but I'm sure all worth it in the end.

Where are you looking at settling? We have Mount Waverley, Ashwood, Macleod and Doncaster at the top of our list.... So far.

Sure the job hunt will go well.

[JonathanR]

Hi @Husky, we are looking at Pakenham at the moment because we have friends there. I know its far from the city but they have offered help so we want to be close to them.  At least there is a direct train to Flinders street (when there is no construction, cause I went there yesterday and had to get on a bus at Dandenong due to rail works. That was a long journey :-( )

 We would also love to get a 3 bedroom so each boy can have his own room, and the prices are not too bad in Pakenham, around the 320-340 per week mark for a 3-4 bedroom. We are probably going to put in an offer for one I saw yesterday but I don't know if they will accept considering that we could only move in towards the end of April.

[Kevin]

It sounds like you're making a good start, @JonathanR. I'm interested that you chose to hold out and create a ME Bank₁ Account after arriving when some of the other banks allow you to create an account before arriving. Is there a value proposition that ME offers above the other main banks? I ask because I have not yet made any firm decision regarding banks.

 

^₁ ME Bank is the Members Equity Bank.

[JonathanR]

Hi @Kevin, We decided on ME bank because the everyday transaction account is free if you swipe your transaction card daily. Also we already had an Optimum account with Standard Bank which were were transferring funds into so as soon as we landed we had money to spend using the card we got there. Thirdly ME bank is totally online and I like the idea of a bank that simply cannot find an excuse to make you go into a branch

 

I will say though that the downside to the Standard Bank Optimum account is that the card registers as a credit card on this side and some places want to charge extra fees for a credit card. So take that into account as well. Also if you go for the ME bank rather than print the form they tell you to during the application process, use the identity validation form you can download from their website. This is because the form they give you during application requires two forms of ID but the other form says if you use a passport, you get 100 points straight away.

 

 

[RedPanda]

Sounds like you had an ok landing.  

Yea, the public transport gets cheaper once you have work (everything does, actually...) And yes, the Level Crossing Removal Project has been inconveniencing people all over Melbourne for quite some time now. But it's all improvement, never mind maintenance, so I can live with it. They were working on our line late last year. The bus replacement (although free, is no fun)

We were told that many of the banks will give you a transaction account for free if your salary gets deposited there each month. So that might open up some options for you later? So far we've tried CommBank, and Bank of Melbourne, no complaints at either. What I can tell you though, is that the Aussie promotional rates for 'first time account holders' is nothing to be sniffed at, so if you know you are going to have money on the bank waiting for something, like buying a house, it's good to be able to shop around and look at the promotional rates. They are only available the first time you have that kind of account... so we kinda 'saved them' and only opened accounts at a different bank when we had need of the rate. Anyway....I digress...

Welcome to Melbourne! (also, this is kinda wintery weather, just so you know)

[JonathanR]

Thanks @RedPanda, we are slowly getting there. Struggling with My Gov to link everything we have registered for together but each day bring small victories. Now just need that big one that is an offer of employment then the war will be pretty much settled.

[RedPanda]

Yea, the MyGov linking doesn't work very well. I still have one or two things that aren't quite right.

You'll get there.

[JonathanR]

21 hours ago, RedPanda said:

Yea, the MyGov linking doesn't work very well. I still have one or two things that aren't quite right.

I went back to the Medicare/Centrelink service centre today and they had left out a pertinent piece of info, when using the linking code and asked to type in your reference number (which I only figured out using Google is your medicare card number), you need to include your dependent ID immediately after the card number with no spaces. Even Google did not know to include that little number next to my name

All linked now

 

Onto the next thing...

[JonathanR]

So it has been an interesting few weeks. I almost think the visa application process is the hors d’oeuvres and the rental application process is the main course. I found this process really tough, and stressful. We wanted to be close to Pakenham but were staying in a hotel in Preston so had to travel regularly to view houses. This involved taking the train sometimes and renting a car sometimes and generally was an expensive and tiring exercise, only to have multiple application turned down.

 

But happy to say we have now been in our new house for just over a week and are loving it. Our application was accepted 2 days before we had to be out of the hotel so that was cutting it really close. We found a nice little house in Pakenham which is low maintenance (no grass to mow and minimal gardens). We were also blessed with wonderfully helpful neighbors (to the point of last night we got a knock on the door, and the neighbor said "my wife is not using her car tomorrow and rain is forecast so here's the keys, you can use the car to get around and do some shopping and stuff, we just need it back by 5PM")

 

The job search also proved more difficult than planned with interviews only starting 2-3 weeks after arriving, and some of those going to 2 stages before getting turned down. I am glad to say though that after a stage 3 interview I have been made an offer which is only dependent on my reference checks. These should have been completed today so hopefully tomorrow I will get the official offer and information of when I can start.

 

All in all we are still loving it in Australia and looking forward to settling in further. 

[Husky]

Great update @JonathanR

How wonderful to have helpful neighbours. Sure that job will come through. 

Must admit that the whole securing a rental thing is keeping me awake at night .... 

[RYLC]

33 minutes ago, JonathanR said:

to the point of last night we got a knock on the door, and the neighbor said "my wife is not using her car tomorrow and rain is forecast so here's the keys, you can use the car to get around and do some shopping and stuff, we just need it back by 5PM

 

This is what I love most about Australia - the sense of community and mateship ♥

[rozellem]

Wonderful news all around.  Must say, the helpful neighbour thing has been our experience too. Ladders, tools, bakkies (utes), child minding and borrowing of cooking ingredients (one woman sends her kids round for an onion almost weekly).  Remember to return the favour one day.   We are still friendly with neighbours from our last 4 properties. Just a suggestion on the kids rooms thing, think outside the RSA box.  Many people we know here have given the kids the larger bedroom to share and sleep in a smaller room themselves. We have done this in our current house and it works very well.  My kids have been sharing since they were a few months old and we are only now (7 and 5) planning to move them apart soon.  We bought two single beds that can be used independently or stacked to make bunks.  So, we have had them in various configurations for different houses.  We decided that we only sleep in our bedroom, where as the kids spend much more time playing in their room, so it made sense that they had more space. 

[RedPanda]

On 02/05/2017 at 10:43 PM, JonathanR said:

We were also blessed with wonderfully helpful neighbors (to the point of last night we got a knock on the door, and the neighbor said "my wife is not using her car tomorrow and rain is forecast so here's the keys, you can use the car to get around and do some shopping and stuff, we just need it back by 5PM")

 

Sounds like the offer we got from our AirBnb host to come and pick us up from the airport. We regarded it as highly unusual at the time, but have come to see is as more 'normal' now. I love it.