Why Adelaide?

[Guest ali]

I'm getting a state sponsorship visa. on a previous post i noted a 175, I can't seem to find the post and correct it to a 475. It was either Melbourne or Adelaide and SA lodged my application so quickly I didn't have a choice but go with it. Ever since, I've been reading up about Adelaide on poms and any other sources I can get my hands on. Even have an Adelaide map on my IPhone. I'm not sure, but I have a feeling that I'll be all right in Adelaide. Just have to get there and see for myself. A bit worried about me being a foreigner (even though I've lived in many parts of the world, while growing up and as an expat).

[Guest BackToAdelaide]

Well there are certainly a variety of reasons for choosing Adelaide.

I was born and bred on the west coast of SA ( Kyancutta), trained as a nursing Adelaide and then started travelling.

After 13 yrs away I am dragging hubby to Adelaide - purely because it is where my family and friends are, it is closer to Mum and Dad. I have found that I just want to be near them - and yes 6hrs drive is close in Aus!!!

We thought about moving elsewhere in Aus but decided if we were going to come back why go where the family isn't. So Adelaide it is!!

 

Is anyone moving "home" worried about fitting in? I have visited and still love adelaide but worry I wont like it!!!

 

Good luck all.

Bec x

 

We've been here over 5 months now and I certainly feel "back home". I'd been away for over 7 years but managed to maintain a few friendships and it's been great catching up with those people. More particularly it's wonderful being only 1.5 hours drive away from my parents instead of a 24 hour flight. That's not to say I spend lots of time with them but it's just nice to be able to catch up for a meal or something, or even being able to call them at a "normal" time of day!

 

I admit it also helps that it's effectively been summer the whole time we've been here (well, if it was this warm in England it would be summer!) but then I'm not worried about the winter. In fact I remember that I used to look forward to drizzly autumn and winter days as they were more unusual, whereas I'm afraid that kind of weather is probably my abiding memory of the UK. So I reckon I'll be fine.

 

It's also exciting (comforting perhaps?) coming across familiar things. For example, I just love turning on the radio and hearing Aussie songs, the type of songs you grew up with and can sing all the words even if you haven't heard it for years.

 

I don't want to sound like someone who couldn't wait to get away from England because that's not the case and I enjoyed so much of what I experienced while there. But I never quite felt settled and I always knew it wasn't a permanent move (well it was only supposed to be a working holiday!) and at this stage I am certainly happy to be home.

[Anne B]

My other half is Adelaide and born and bred and we returned back in 2009 after more than 12 years in England. He had kept in touch with a lot of his old friends, some we now see quite regularly but others we have only seen once or twice since we've been back, so not all friendships have been resumed, due to a number of reasons such as proximity and whether our kids are of similar ages. He finds it odd that even after over 2 years back, he still occasionally meets people who think he is English (I don't think he has an English accent at all but obviously it has rubbed off a bit).

 

I think once you have spent a long amount of time away from your homeland, you never feel totally part of it again, I didn't when I moved back to England and he doesn't now. You can't change the fact that you've lived elsewhere and looked back at your native land from afar with a different perspective. If you are a cup half empty type of person then you can think that you will never feel at home anywhere, but if your cup is half full then you can feel at home in both places. I feel that England is my home and Adelaide is my second home.

 

As for a Mediterranean climate - dream on! Adelaide does have some lovely weather of the type that is only dreamed about in the UK, but it is not consistent - it can be 35 degrees one day and 20 degrees the next. It is often nice and hot in the suburbs, then when you get to the beach it is blowing a gale and quite chilly (I lived on the seafront for nearly 2 years so I know!). And balmy evenings are not that common - it often cools down quite quickly in the evening in the summer so you wished you'd brought a jacket with you. We had a week's holiday in Goolwa in January and the first evening we went to an outdoor free concert - it was so cold that everyone was sitting rugged up under blankets and we went home early as we were freezing! A few days later it was 36 degrees. And the winters are miserable and cold with no excitement like Bonfire night, Christmas or New Year to liven them up. It is not like Majorca!!

[Guest AngPhil]

We have decided on Adelaide because it is a smallish city. We live in Bingley in West Yorkshire and there is no way we would let our 12 year old son nip into any of the town centres here during the day (leeds, huddersfield, halifax, bradford, keighley). My sister lives in Hereford and it is common to see kids shopping together, but it is a tiny city.

 

When we visited Adelaide we saw many older children walking round the town with shopping with their friends and both OH and I thought we'd be happy for our son to do the same. We also visited Perth and Melbourne, but we would not have felt comfortable letting a youngster go into the city centre. Having two children, it is important for us to be able to feel that we will be able to give them some freedom in the future.

 

I hope we feel the same when we arrive in August.

[Guest Watkinsfamily]

We have just been granted a 176 visa state sponsored by SA so looking at Adelaide on our visit but actually hope to be in a small community town or village some distance from Adelaide as hubby and I are both from the countryside in the UK and hate big cities. Will go wherever I can get work but that is our ideal situation. Hope to be there in July 2013, visitng for 4 weeks this August. X

[Guest Dr Scotland]

Does anyone else concur with Anne B's post about the inconsistent weather? Looking at the climatology for the past 12 months on Weatherzone (looking at the daily summaries), there is only once or twice where there seems to be big changes from one day to the next.

[jim and adel]

Yep, I fully agree with Anne about the weather. Been here four and a half years and first two were similar (fairly reliable in summer, much cooler evenings than anywhere I've been to in the Med during summer and more rain than I'd expected in winter - especially for a place with its worst draught in decades!) The last two and a half years have been far more unreliable - summers (imho) have been naff, although the last month has been a fantastic start to autumn. Perhaps it's selective memory, but I don't recall any winter days where the temperature hits 20 degrees. The last two winters have seemed long and wet.

 

Jim

[Northern Mick]

Yep, I fully agree with Anne about the weather. Been here four and a half years and first two were similar (fairly reliable in summer, much cooler evenings than anywhere I've been to in the Med during summer and more rain than I'd expected in winter - especially for a place with its worst draught in decades!) The last two and a half years have been far more unreliable - summers (imho) have been naff, although the last month has been a fantastic start to autumn. Perhaps it's selective memory, but I don't recall any winter days where the temperature hits 20 degrees. The last two winters have seemed long and wet.

 

Jim

 

Yeah the last 2 years (until this summer) have been pretty crappy. Not much of a Summer and long, cold, wet winters. I've been here 6 years and the weather in my first 3 years was great. My first winter here was sunny all the time although that meant we had a drought! Here's hoping that it is on a cycle and the next 2 years are a lot better. I would guess that migrants who've only been here for 2 years would be pretty underwhelmed with the weather so far?

[HEAPS GOOD !!!]

Summer not great but i aint going to knock this autumn weather 31 degrees...lovely...

 

HG

[Misplaced]

Bloody British and their weather!! That's all you lot talk about ;-)

 

In my humble opinion the weather is cyclic and nature has way of balancing itself out.

[Anne B]

To explain further, don't get me wrong - Adelaide weather is much better than the UK, a lot less rain and clouds and a lot more sun and heat. However it is not like weather I have experienced in the Mediterranean, on many summer holidays. I know that "Mediterranean" is a meteorological category and Adelaide obviously fits this (plenty of lemons, grapes, olives etc grown), but there are a number of differences that people should be aware of. The summer weather is not consistent and the evenings are often chilly. It is early autumn now and we have had some beautiful weather recently, but today it reached 35 degrees and Saturday the forecast is for 20 degrees (19 on Sunday). 20 degrees in the low humidity here feels much colder than it does in the UK.

 

One reason for the erraticness of Adelaide weather is I believe, because unlike the Med, which as its name implies is a sea in the middle of the land, Adelaide is on the edge of a continent. It is about the same distance from the equator as the coast of North Africa in the Northern hemisphere (Morocco, Tunisia etc), they are also on the edge of a continent (Africa) with desert regions inland. Imagine that the whole continent of Europe does not exist, that there is only sea right up to the Arctic. Well that is the situation that Adelaide is in - a huge continent on one side and a vast cold ocean on the other. If the wind is from the north, then you can get a really hot dry wind, it's quite lovely but very energy sapping. If the wind is from the south and has travelled over the ocean from the south pole, then it can be pretty chilly. So maybe unpredictable is the wrong word, as the weather forecasts are usually pretty good, but certainly very variable!

 

Add to this local differences - the Adelaide Hills are cooler and have a lot more rain and clouds. The coast is cooler than the city, with the sea breezes. The south coast (Victor Harbor) is usually a few degrees cooler than Adelaide, the Riverland is hotter in the summer and colder in the winter being further inland. It is regularly below zero at night inland in country SA in the winter.

 

Also factor into this the El Nino and La Nina weather patterns from across the Pacific, which seem to determine years of drought or years of rain (we are in the 2nd La Nina year now which means lots of rain especially in the Eastern states) so the weather is quite complicated!!

Edited April 5, 2012 by Anne B

[Guest Dr Scotland]

That makes sense, Anne, about the different geography - it's facing south onto the southern ocean, probably nearer Antarctica than it is the equator!

I just find it really interesting peoples' comments about 'bad summer' and 'long, wet winter'; the averages for this summer past are hotter than average for the past 30 years, and the 'long, wet winters' referring to the driest state capital of the driest continent on earth. Is it mostly to do with perspective?

Anyway, I'm sure living anywhere is different from the numbers that you read on a screen about the place. Like I said on another thread, it's probably very different living in Spain or France compared to visiting it for a couple of weeks in high summer; I'm sure one must have a different impression and relationship to the weather.

 

Sorry! This has totally hijacked the original thread...no more weather chat from me.