making to move from N.Z

[Guest daveandgeorge]

hello to all, we have decided to give australia a go. if we get our visas we will be moving to adelaide or the surrounding area. we love new zealand and will return one day. working long hours for a poor wage and over inflated house prices are forcing us to look elsewhere for the time being. we have 2 young girls and would like to hear from people that could advise us on which areas and schools would best suit us. i am a bricklayer so any advice on this would be a great help too. i know it is sad but are there any english food shops in adelaide? my partner has just dropped a large jar of marmite that was brought back from england last month and is near suicidal. any advice on the cost of living i.e; rental, local rates, water, power, sky ( i think it might be fox in oz). my partner is worried about the creepy crawlies too, do you know what to expect in this area?

 

thankyou for your time

 

dave, george, hollie and maia

[Guest Django]

Hi D&G and welcome to PIA. There is a lot of building work going on to the north of the city from what I hear and people do say getting work for people in the building trade isn't too difficult. Someone out there though will confirm that I'm sure.

 

my partner has just dropped a large jar of marmite that was brought back from england last month and is near suicidal.

 

I can understand that

 

**Pete goes to his cupboard and gets his Marmite out and pops some bread in the toaster** :biglaugh:

 

Pete

[The Monaghans]

Hi both, welcome to PIA. As with so many of the questions on here, the answer has to be - research, research, research! Could you come over for a few days and do a reccie? It's all very well one of us telling you to move south because it's great but you might get here and hate the south! I can only speak as I find, we live in the south because we like it here, we like the beaches and the open spaces. I can't tell you about schools though, my two are only 3.5 and 2. On the bright side, there are several shops that sell a limited range of English foods, including good old marmite! It's bloody expensive though, $7.95 for a small jar! My two year old dropped a jar a couple of months ago and I almost put him up for adoption....!

[Guest daveandgeorge]

thank you for your reply, where money is a bit tight at the moment we just want to get the visas and come over. we spent loads going to england for a month in august, to then have to fly back for for 2 weeks in october. we are just after a nice area where it is not too expensive. are there plenty of playgroups in your area? our daughters are 4 and 7 months.

[Guest Rob and Clare]

Hi Both,

 

I can only tell you from our experience what i've noticed, but i think most peoples experiences would be different.

 

Most of the work is in the north, Defence Industry, Automotive and Wine, plus most building developments are in the north too New Quays Deleopment, Gepps Cross homemaker centre, and the large residential new building sites. ironically we live up north but work 40km south, and I see the traffic queues heading north and glad I'm going the other way.

 

There are a few english shops but in our experience the on line shops are the best and cheapest. Just google British Shops. Clare has a phobia about the spiders so we spray around the house with Mortein and that keeps them out, we've only seen a few spiders inside, and certainly not the nasty ones, only ever seen one snake and that was dead on the side of the road.

 

The rentals seem more expensive lately but it really depends on where you choose to settle, generally the further away from the city the cheaper the rent will be. Our rates approx $1,000, the electricity is expensive compared to the Uk, and Foxtel (god bless foxtell), we pay approx $80 for everything other than the movies.

 

Hope it helps.

 

Cheers

 

Rob and Clare

[Guest daveandgeorge]

hello, you said about foxtel, is this just the t.v or does this include phone line and broadband? our electricity is normally $100 nz per month so we are used to the price difference. back in england we used to pay about £60 a quarter.

 

thanks for the reply

 

dave, george, hollie and maia

[Guest Rob and Clare]

HI Again,

 

The foxtel is just the foxtel TV, all the packages are listed in www.foxtel.com.au .

 

As for the phones / broadband etc... Not really seen a great deal like you get in the UK, for 15 pounds in the uk you get broadband and free calls to australia, the best package deal I've seen in Oz is with AAPT, there are various options available, but for us we've found the best deal with having a basic home phone rental with Telstra, all our overseas calls then go through a company called Lower Call, and broadband through Adam... http://www.adam.com.au/products_home_adam_direct.php

 

Bit complicated but works for us at the moment.

 

Cheers

 

Rob and Clare

[The Monaghans]

Hi Dave and George, yeah I can understand the money's tight situation! OK, Woodcroft where we live is a nice area, not particularly posh but certainly not grotty either. It's a bit cheaper than some of the new developments further south like Seaford Rise but then it's a couple of miles further inland. Not really sure about playgroups, my two go to nursery (sorry - child care centre) for two mornings a week, they have swimming lessons on a Tuesday morning and my little girl has a ballet class on a Thursday morning. I'm fairly certain there are playgroups round here, I'm just too busy to find them! Seriously, there are plenty of young families round here, and plenty of facilities. Christies Beach is about 15 minutes away (I'm sure Chris O'Brien is going to challenge me on that one...) and there's an indoor playcentre at Christies Beach as well. My best suggestion would be to hit the real estate websites like domain.com.au and realestate.com.au. Compare the prices and pick your area! If I can help in anyway let me know, just pm me.

 

Regards

Liz

[Guest dglamoore]

Hi dave, george, hollie and maia

 

Asking about areas to live over here is always difficult as everyone's taste is so different - what I may love you may hate

 

We moved into the southern suburbs as we wanted to live by the beach. The area we ended up is one we had not looked into before getting here but is perfect for us. We have a 5 year old little girl that has just started full time school after a few terms of kindy and loves it where she goes. The school is fairly small with only a couple hundred students and a great student/teacher ratio.

 

We feel this area is great for us as has everything we need and more. Within walking distance or maximum of 10 mins by car we have plenty of great restaurants, seaford mall and colonnades mall, cinema, ice skating, swimming pools, bowling, gyms, walking and cycling track along the beach, fantastic beaches (moana, southport, port noarlunga and christies) and because we live in an older suburb the houses do not feel squished together

 

We moved over without a reccie from the uk and just spent the first week looking at rentals in the rough area we liked and went from there.

 

We find telephone and foxtel similar to uk, broadband more money and slower, electric and gas is cheaper for us (used to pay £100 a month now just paid $300 gas/electric for a quarter), eating out is cheap and food seems to vary depending on season and what you buy but generally we find the cost of living here slightly less than we paid in the UK.

 

As for work there is massive developement going on all over adelaide - north and south so you should have no trouble getting work at all wherever you choose to live.

 

You do get sopme creepy crawlies but a cupboard full of mortein works wonders Good luck with your visa

 

Lisa

[Guest daveandgeorge]

Thankyou For All Yoir Advice,

 

We Were Glad To Hear About The Ballet Classes As This Was The Way George Met Her First Friends When We Moved To N.z. We Have Started To Do The Visas, We Forgot How Time Consuming They Are. The Skills Assessment People Are Not Helping, Vetasses Are Telling Us To Contact Tra And They Are Telling Us To Contact Vetassess. I Think That This May Be Sorted Now. We Hope To Submit Our Application Before Christmas, Fingers Crossed. We Would Like To Get The Summer Over With Before We Look At Moving, Just So That I Can Work All Those Long Hours For My Tiny Pay Packet, Ha Ha.

 

Thankyou Again

 

Dave, George, Hollie And Maia