Ta2Bryan Posted July 23, 2018 Report Share Posted July 23, 2018 So 2 weeks after arrival a few reflections. All in all, after deciding to make the move in April 2017, after an armed robbery at our home, everything happened pretty quickly. It didn't feel like it while we were waiting for our Visa, but after the face, we have come to realise how smoothly everything went for us. It started with an email from my wife to an Australian based recruitment agency specialising in placements in the Health sector (she is a Sonographer), they were keen to assist and away we went. First step was to get accredited with the Australian Radiographic authorities which involved a huge stack of paperwork from universities, employers past and present and more paperwork, everything certified. All paperwork was posted across (no e-mail copies accepted). Then we waited, and waited, and.... During this time we decised to sell our house and were very lucky with a quick cash sale. A few months later we got the good news, Sarah was accredited, and we were away. Next step was to gather all necessary info for our EOI. We enlisted the services of an Immigration agent linked to the Recruitment agency. More paperwork and we submitted, 7 days later we received a positive response to apply for a 189 visa, that was quick. Problem is, it got our hopes up for a speedy visa grant, that was not to be the case. We submitted all necessary documentation for the Visa application and submitted on 21 December 2017. The next few months wait was the worse, there is nobody to call and follow up. You just keep an eye on the forum tables, celebrate when somebody gets their Visa, and calculate when you should expect a response based on their waiting time, this becomes a daily ritual. The waiting is the worst, your immagination plays tricks on you. Like the majority of people on this journey, we had only one throw at the dice, due to the costs involved, and a rejection would put us back a few years. Luckily I was asked to stay on at work after my initial resignation notice period, and we had secured a month to month rental. On 24 May we got the awesome news that we would be off to Aus. The initial excitement was quickly replaced with most of the emotions on the emoji menu, and that didn't stop until we arrived, in fact, it still hasn't stopped. Over the next 6 weeks we sold off everything, gave notice to service providers, cancelled policies, booked air tickets, accomodation for the first week, booked car rental, packed and then the farewells. We had a party for our friends at home in Gauteng, then did a farewell tour of Sarah's and my families in PE and Cape Town. 3500km of driving in 6 days, not fun. Back home for a night and then onto a Jet plane to learn to speak funny. To be continued.... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LM17 Posted July 23, 2018 Report Share Posted July 23, 2018 Well done, we are leaving for Sydney on 9 Aug , and its all a bit of a blur as well so far. Keep us posted -- just a practical question... did you "prebook" a rental car , or just get one when you got there? (we have booked flights, container , AirBnb, just the car to go) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justyna Posted July 23, 2018 Report Share Posted July 23, 2018 Thanks for sharing your experiences @Ta2Bryan ! Looking forward to your future posts! Good luck with everything! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vitchie Posted July 23, 2018 Report Share Posted July 23, 2018 14 hours ago, LM17 said: Well done, we are leaving for Sydney on 9 Aug , and its all a bit of a blur as well so far. Keep us posted -- just a practical question... did you "prebook" a rental car , or just get one when you got there? (we have booked flights, container , AirBnb, just the car to go) We used this company, I just booked the day before I wanted the car. https://www.bayswatercarrental.com.au/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ta2Bryan Posted July 24, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2018 16 hours ago, LM17 said: Well done, we are leaving for Sydney on 9 Aug , and its all a bit of a blur as well so far. Keep us posted -- just a practical question... did you "prebook" a rental car , or just get one when you got there? (we have booked flights, container , AirBnb, just the car to go) We booked our car when booking our air tickets through Qantas. Book the station wagon if you are a family, you won't regret it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ta2Bryan Posted July 24, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2018 ...Part 2 We flew Qantas, Jhb to Sydney, then on to Melbourne. We booked directly through the Qantas website. We chose the 3 hour layover option, 2 hrs may of been enough, but 1 hr would of been too little. We arrived in Melbourne at abot 10pm local time, collected our hire car from budget and drove 4km to Quest hotel. We decided not to attempt to drive on unknown roads, in the middle of the night, the 80km to Geelong. I did not sleep at all on the plane and ensured I stayed awake until midnight Aus time, this ensured that I had zero jet lag, I highly recommend this, as it took Sarah and my daughter , Tatum (12 yo), about 8 days to get over the jet lag. My son seemed to take it in his stride and was all good after a day. The next day we were off to Geelong. Approaching Geelong everything felt very familiar, we could of been driving into PE. We checked into our furnished apartment that we have pre booked for a week, and set off to explore. Geelong is a smallish coastal city with none of the mad rush of our cities in RSA. The first thing you realise is how clean everything is, hardly any litter anywhere. Foe a 'police state' I am still to see any police members anywhere. People know the rules and abide by it, very strange people. The malls are similar, but just different names. The groceries are similar, with many familiar brand. It's funny, you think that everything will be different and foreign in a new country, but not so. The people look and dress the same, every now and again you spot someone and think "I'm sure I know that person", then realise "Nope!" Everything is comfortable very quickly. Almost every Australian we have interacted with has been friendly and welcoming. We opened a bank account with Commonwealth Bank online just before we left, and all it a took was a quick visit and we had our Master cards, 2 junior accounts and a savings account. The junior accounts are linked to a scheme with some schools where the kids bring their deposit books to school every Friday and the school facilitates the deposits. The kids then earn point for saving, and maintaining a savings balance, with pretty good prizes on offer. Easy and effective way to teach kids to save. We also sorted our Medicare cards, Drivers licence conversion (You don't have to do this, but it acts as a good source of Identification when trying to do other things), tax numbers etc. This was all pretty painless and quick. Just know that everything is by the book, so check online what documents you need and everything goes smoothly. We started the hunt for a car, house and school. The car was quickest, with many good deals on Gumtree. Our budget was $10 000 for the car, but we decided to half that and buy something that could carry bigger loads, with a tow bar in case we needed to hire a trailer. We also want to explore later, so we settles on a Ford Explorer, with 180 000km on the clock for $3 500. It is in excellent condition. I have since paid $220 for a service, $1000 for the mandatory repairs needed for roadworthy, $120 for the roadworthy and $180 for the change of ownership. The car still has Rego (registration) till Feb next year. All in all, a V6 4x4 for just over R50k, not bad. Next was the house. We used online resources and booked viewing. We ensured we had all paperwork filled in before the viewing, with copies of all necessary documents, and if we liked everything we handed everything over there and then. Geelong is a growing city with many new houses being built and many new residential areas. We managed to secure a rental in an older area, but a new house, first tenants. Next was the school. We have a school about 400m from the house so made an appointment for day 1 of the new school term and Bob's your uncle. The school only has 180 student from Prep (grade R) to Grade 6, with classes being joined (Gr 1&2, Gr 3&4, Gr 5&6). The school has a very different approach to learning than what we are used to. School hours are from 09:00 to 15:15. The school concentrates on Maths, Science and the Arts. Student from the local University come once a week for practical experiments that the kids participate in, very cool. Both kids love it and have assimilated very quickly. Kids bounce. Our initial plan was to furnish the house with 2nd hand good from Gumtree, but we decided that since it is a new house, we would splash a bit with new furnishings (part of the reason for the reduced car budget). We were fortunate that we arrived during the financial year end and everybody has a sale. We purchased all furniture from AMart. They have package deals for each area of the house. Warning, everything arrives flat packed in boxes, so 2 days are required for assembly. We purchased all appliances from the Good Guys, and all small household goods and linen from KMart. Do not be afraid to ask for extra discount, most times you can squeeze a bit more. We managed to furnish the house for around $10 000 (R100 000). When it comes to cost of living we have noted the following: Cars are cheaper, with 2nd hand cars being much cheaper, however any repairs and servicing is expensive, as well as registration and licencing. Insurance is slightly cheaper. Rent is more expensive, however this is relative. We figure that if we had rented a similar house in the outer suburbs of Cape Town we would not be paying a hell of a lot less ($430 week), especially if you build in all the extra costs of security etc. Groceries are up and down, depending on what you buy. The specials are very good. Meat prices range from $7/kg to $35/kg. We are still trying to figure this our. General groceries are about the same. Sweets and cold drinks are double the price. Take aways are very expensive (about $12 per person), but nothing in comparison to alcohol, and that is from the bottle store, expect much higher prices at the pub. I don't smoke, but a pack of 20 will set you back $20 plus. I have not noticed too many smokers here, I don't blame them. Government schools are cheap (we only pay $200 for the year, this includes all books and stationary).School uniform is about the same, but you are allowed to buy from teh cheaper shopping outlets and sow on the badges yourself. Data is very cheap. We paid $35 for a vodaphone card that has 35GB data and unlimited Australian calls and messages. WhatsApp is not used much here. We have signed on for uncapped ADSL fro $60 a month, but are still waiting for them to come install. Sarah started work on Monday, so I am officially the house husband for now. I will give it a few more weeks then start job hunting, for now I am enjoying the peace and solitude of household chores (and Netflix). The weather has been quite bad, so we have not done much exploring yet, I will update later once I have. Any questions, fire away and I will do my best to assist. Keep in mind that different states have different rules and ways of doing things, so all of the above is especially relevant to Victoria. Cheers for now. Ta2 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vitchie Posted July 24, 2018 Report Share Posted July 24, 2018 Wow. that is a lot achieved for two weeks. Well done! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swannie2309 Posted July 24, 2018 Report Share Posted July 24, 2018 Thank you for the update. We are flying out on the 7th going to point Cook initially. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LM17 Posted July 31, 2018 Report Share Posted July 31, 2018 @Ta2Bryan thanks for the posts, very helpful, we will be in Sydney in 2 weeks , do you have a list of docs you needed on hand for Rentals, car , schools etc, I just want to double check I have everything printed and ready to go thanks 😉 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ta2Bryan Posted August 6, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2018 On 7/31/2018 at 10:38 AM, LM17 said: @Ta2Bryan thanks for the posts, very helpful, we will be in Sydney in 2 weeks , do you have a list of docs you needed on hand for Rentals, car , schools etc, I just want to double check I have everything printed and ready to go thanks 😉 An address is critical. Either work, friend, air bnb etc. Nothing proceeds here without an address. Passports and copies. The SA ID and drivers licence don't hold much water as proof. Transfer you drivers as soon as possible, the licence card is a fairly strong proof of ID. Another strong proof is a medicare card, but only if you have PR. Also, get a bank account , and go in and get the card as soon as possible. Ensure you have copies of the kids vaccination certificates, visa docs, birth certificates and reports. Once you are on Medicare, ensure that you get the kids vaccinations transferred onto the system, we didn't know about it and have since hit a major road bump in getting the kids into after school care, but it has been remedied in a few days. That's the other thing, flow with the bureaucracy, it's generally by the book or nothing, don't fight it, just get your stuff in order and go back, pretty smooth if you have all your ducks in a row. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ta2Bryan Posted August 6, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2018 4 weeks in and I started work today. Decided to list myself on seek last week Monday, and quite literally had an interview lined up within an hour and a job offer the next day, as an Estimator for a structural steel company in Melbourne. The stars seemed to line up just right. I am astounded at how quickly we have felt at home. I know it is early days yet, but this move was the best decision we ever made. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Husky Posted August 13, 2018 Report Share Posted August 13, 2018 Welcome to Victoria. So pleased to hear things are going so well for you. A great attitude goes a long way. Geelong is lovely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TamLovesRic Posted August 20, 2018 Report Share Posted August 20, 2018 Hi! Glad to hear you guys are doing so so well. I am drinking up your posts! Just some advice regarding medicare. What is needed to start this? I'm finding the Website rather useless. I need to cancel the 'ol discovery sometime, but not sure for which date - as I obviously want to be covered should something happen. We land in Melbourne on the 9th of October, spend a few nights there to collect bank cards etc, but will be taking a road trip up the coast for 6 weeks before we find somewhere to settle in Queensland. I am wondering if it will be possible to enrol for Medicare while in Melbourne, without an address. We do have a friend on the Gold Coast, I am sure he would let us use his if this is absolutely neccesary? I was thinking last day with Discovery should be 31 October? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TamTam Posted August 22, 2018 Report Share Posted August 22, 2018 On 8/20/2018 at 5:07 PM, TamLovesRic said: Hi! Glad to hear you guys are doing so so well. I am drinking up your posts! Just some advice regarding medicare. What is needed to start this? I'm finding the Website rather useless. I need to cancel the 'ol discovery sometime, but not sure for which date - as I obviously want to be covered should something happen. We land in Melbourne on the 9th of October, spend a few nights there to collect bank cards etc, but will be taking a road trip up the coast for 6 weeks before we find somewhere to settle in Queensland. I am wondering if it will be possible to enrol for Medicare while in Melbourne, without an address. We do have a friend on the Gold Coast, I am sure he would let us use his if this is absolutely neccesary? I was thinking last day with Discovery should be 31 October? I went to a Centrelink (Medicare and Centrelink are at the same place) and simply showed them my passport. Your visa details will be on the system already. In situations where you need an address it has to be an address where post has been addressed to you. What you can do is apply for your TFN online and get it sent to your friend's place and presto you have post at an address. I agree about your dates to stay with Discovery. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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