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.