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9:14 PM Monday 22 September 2008 -
1 comments
Since arriving in Australia I have come across about 8 brown snakes, all of which are very poisonous! My latest encounter was on Sunday 21 September 2008, I spotted it on our patio outside our bedroom, luckily I was inside! I quickly called my husband who with his quick thinking ran upstairs and dropped a few heavy planks of wood on it from above. He had a great shot and the snake was dead! We just couldn't have the snake wondering the garden with us having young children and it was instinct, although there is a fine for killing snakes (see photo attached). September is early for snakes but the weather has been warmer than normal for this time of year and they are coming out of hibernation looking for water and food. My first encounter with a snake was on a hot February day whilst I was bringing the shopping into the house from the internal garage. Heading back for more bags, I nearly stepped on it coming up the hallway into the house! I had startled it and it was coming towards me! Once again a Eastern Brown, very venomous! Luckily at the end of the corridor was our bedroom and I ran out through the patio doors and left it inside whilst I went to a neighbour for help. We called a snake catcher who arrived 15 mins later. Luckily we located the snake, which had gone behind our bed and he managed to catch it in a brown bag, how brave! Although the snake was small is size he did say it had as much venon as a larger brown snake! The snake catcher charged $45 and then took it away to release it in the bush. As you can imagine I am freaked out again! It is always me who sees the snakes and yet some Aussies have never seen them! My husband says I am looking out for them, which is probably true but after my first encounter I am completely paranoid about them! I have seen them on the golf course, on our drive in our new home and along the pathways and of course the odd few killed on the roads! As I mentioned earlier, snakes are rare to be seen in and around the housing communities, I have only seen them due to the fact that we live backing onto a golf course with bushland closeby. If snakes are left alone they do not attack, they only bite if trodden on or threatened, they are more frightened of us than the other way around! Well I don't know about that one, but I am certainly going to be keeping my doors and windows closed from now on!!!! Despite the above I still would not move back to the UK and am enjoying the wonderful lifestyle that the Sunshine Coast has to offer! |
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10:55 PM Thursday 11 September 2008 -
0 comments
Medicare is the Australian Health Service which seems to work pretty well. Application forms can be obtained from any Medicare Office and pretty straight forward to complete, although from arriving in Australia it takes at least two weeks until the computers are updated with entry into Australia and applications cannot be made until the computers are up to date with visa entry details.
Most doctor surgeries, xray companies etc bulk bill and there is no charge to the patient. Although for adults some doctors take a small percentage of the total charge (you have to pay the bill upfront) and the remainder of the charge has to be claimed back from Medicare offices around Australia (generally one in every suburb). This can be immediate, or you can elect for it to be transferred electronically.
Our own experience with doctors has been very good. My husband suffers from kidney stones and he was sent to an Xray diagnostic company immediately after seeing the doctor and his results were known within an hour. The doctors tend to telephone the results through once received, no waiting around!
Since arriving in AustraliaI required an Xray and CT scan having been to the doctors and again, just a phone call and within the hour both had been done. For Xrays and CT Scans, these can be carried out through many of the private companies, who again bulk bill, so there is no charge. I am still amazed that you can walk into a clinic and have a CT scan or Xray and get the result the same day!
A UK friend of mine, informed me that her in laws arrived end of August 08 (first time ever in Oz) and the father in law suffered a heart attack whilst digging! An ambulance was with them within 7 minutes and he was taken to a Brisbane hospital for further treatment and diagnosis. Within 6 hours he had received all the necessary checks and surgery, which 8 mths ago, in England it took 10 days for the same treatment! Due to the speed of this emergency and the following treatment given I am happy to say the father in law is only spending a few days in hospital having had a stent inserted! Amazing, but true!
Therefore, from our experiences (plus many more I can quote on), I feel the health service is excellent here in Australia.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
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10:35 PM Thursday 11 September 2008 -
0 comments
Having rented a furnished holiday apartment in a hotel, we then spent many week's researching schools, jobs and suburbs. This was a very challenging time for us as our boys had had 6 wks off from the UK school (summer holidays) and by the time we had settled on an area, it was the Australian schools holidays (early September ) for 2 wks. Therefore we visited schools, private and state and decided on a new school Caloundra City School, Pelican Waters. It is a fresh, vibrate technology school and all children from Year 5 upwards get their own laptop to use at home and school. All classrooms are air conditioned and the majority of parents were new to the community ,which is just what we needed having emigrated! Schools vary but generally the private schools have more discipline in them, therefore as school fees are so much lower than the UK (approx $8,000 dollars per year, per child), it certainly is a good investment. The boys soon made friends as we the parents. Everyone we have come across in Qld, are friendly and very helpful.
Once we decided on a school my husband found a job 40 mins drive away , which wasn't ideal but we needed to get a reference for a mortgage, therefore he needed a job. Local jobs are pretty difficult to come by as we are in such a popular area. Many people who live around the Sunshine Coast, commute to Brisbane (about an hour's drive).
We purchased a nice house with pool, close to the boys school and 15 mins drive to the local beach, just two months before our first Christmas in Australia.
3 months after arriving in Australia we had confirmation that our container had arrived in Brisbane, although their was customs problems integrating a new system, which led the processing of our belongings being delayed. This delay caused unecessary expenditure to be incurred by the removal company, who offset it to ourselves. As you can imagine we were not happy with this and followed it up, to to no avail with the company. In the end we contacted the Australian Customs and after many months, received some compensation.
Advice for anyone packing up their own shipment, please clean, powerwash items such as golf shoes, golf trolleys, bikes, outdoor furniture and machinery. Be careful with bringing wooden items into the country to, as these usually end up having to be sprayed, which leads to extra charges before goods can be collected, as well as the delay in the items being realeased. In our case we only had bikes to be cleaned and from memory it was about $90 each for the cleaning! I have heard of families paying upto $1,000 for wooden furniture, so be warned!
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to send a message.
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12:01 AM Wednesday 10 September 2008 -
2 comments
Applying for our Australia Permanent Residency Visa took 18 months as we were on the old system, I believe the process is much quicker these days, although I will explain our process for those who may be interested. We started the process in August 2003. We decided to use an agent, Ian Harrop and Associates as applying for an Australian visa was a time consuming task and it was so important to get all the paperwork right first time. As our agent had contacts in Australia and had worked in Australia House, we felt we had a better chance of having our application accepted. Since arriving in Australia we have met other families who used the same agent successfully and with a far complex entry criteria than ourselves. We never met our agent, the whole process was by email and phone, but we would certainly recommend them. Our visa was a sponsored skilled visa as my husband had many years experience of being a diesel mechanic. Unfortunately on deciding to apply for our visa he had been in a completely different job and his service time as a diesel mechanic fell short in hours, therefore we had a difficult decision to go back into the same line of work and leave the current office job or find a second diesel mechanic job working 20 hours a week (all above board). For 8 months my husband gained his extra hours in a second job as a diesel mechanic and the skilled part of our application was accepted. His hard work paid off! Putting together all the necessary paperwork, requesting police checks, obtaining ALL company references (even if a company had been taken over, merged or liquidated), all education certificates, personal certificates (marriage and birth) for ourselves and immediate family members had to be located, which in some cases were difficult to obtain. Once all this information had been supplied to our agent the application was lodged and we were charged including fees approx $2,000, but well worth it. The following months were agonising as we really didn't know whether our application would be accepted and we were in limbo. Apart from our immediate family we did not inform our friends or employers of our intentions just in case we were rejected. This was difficult; as we knew once our visa was accepted we had only a 12 month period to enter into Australia to have our passports stamps to validate our visas. We did not research Australia as we did not want to get our hopes up; therefore once our application was accepted we had a very busy time selling our home in the UK and organising flights, shipment of our goods etc. We decided only to ship out our personal belongings, some toys, bikes and a conservatory suite, but this still took half a container! In hindsight we had wished we had brought most of our furniture with us as purchasing from new we found expensive, plus time consuming when trying to set up schools, work and of course find a home. Most of our furniture and white goods we sold at car boot sales and practically gave away! So my advice to anyone would be bring everything, even the old pans! In my next blog I will inform you the saga we had regarding our container of goods arriving at Brisbane during a dispute on the docks and the cost of cleaning certain items. If anyone has any questions regarding the visa process, please do not hesitate to ask. |
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11:22 PM Sunday 24 August 2008 -
1 comments
I arrived in Australia 3 years ago with my husband and two boys aged 11 years and 9 years old.
We initially stayed with a cousin for two weeks and researched / visited the following areas, Springfiled, Brookwater, Wynnum, Cleveland, Gold Coast surrounding suburbs, North Lakes, Redcliffe and Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast. We decided that Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast was the place for us and organised a 7 week holiday apartment rental in a hotel at Golden Beach. This was a great decision as most house rentals are unfurnished and are for 6 months or more. Our possessions were still in a container somewhere across the sea, therefore this was a good option for us.
We faced a difficult decision where to buy a house as we had to research schools and jobs having chosen the Sunshine Coast as the location we wanted to raise our boys. We looked into rental properties but good ones were hard to come by and high on demand. Therefore we purchased a low set home with a pool before it went to auction in Pelican Waters near the golf course. 12 months later we sold the home realising it was too small and bought a larger home a few streets away, with golf course views.
We have no plans to move and would certainly recommend Caloundra and the surrounding suburbs as a location to migrate to.
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