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Published: March 26th 2010
Sorry it has been a while, we have been busy getting our act together and getting on the road, but now we are and I have time to update you on what has been going on!
We were picked up from the hotel in Thailand on the 12 March and taken to the airport at 8am. Hideously early after our ten days of sleeping a lot and doing nothing! We shared the car with a lovely couple, Dan and Erin. Dan has just launched Peppersmith, a new and very exciting chewing gum made out of natural products instead of rubber. If you see it, buy it, it is yummy! We were very sad to leave La Laanta Hideaway. It was by far and away the best ten days we have ever had. The little hut was cute and quiet, the beach deserted, the pools clean and quiet, the staff soooo friendly (one chap clearly took a liking to Duncan, kept calling him a handsome man and stroking his stomach and grabbing his muscles ha ha!!!), the food gorgeous, the weather fantastic...if we ever go back to Thailand we will brave the flights, drives and ferries to go back without a
West Head lookout NSW
Duncan in front of Palm Beach (Home and Away!)doubt.
However the flight from Krabi to Bangkok wasn't the best I have to say. The take off was interesting...the pilot taxied to the end of the runway, did a handbrake turn and gunned the engines before we were even straight! He then performed another handbrake turn in the air and it felt and sounded like the plane was going to stall. That followed by an hour and 15 mins of turbulence and a landing that had to be seen to be believed (the pilot was still trying to get the wings level as we were touching down) meant that we were all very pleased to be on solid ground again!
We then had about five hours to kill in Bangkok airport while Dan and Erin tried to get to their hotel which seemed to be in the middle of a no go zone due to the protests happening in the city that day. Fingers crossed they managed to get there ok and enjoy that last couple of days of their holiday! Luckily for us the airport is huge and there were plenty of places to chill out infront of the aircon and TV's so the time actually
sped past and soon enough we were boarding our final flight to Sydney.
We got shown on, through first and business class again - pah - and were pleased to note that the plane was really new and had the same good entertainment system as the A380 that we flew on from London. Hundreds of films! However as it was a night flight we both decided to have dinner, take a sleeping pill and try and get some sleep. Duncan swears blind he hardly slept but he was snoozing away for hours while sadly for me I was wide awake yet tired, starving hungry yet feeling sick, and thirsty yet dehydrated. Or something. Whatever I was, I wasn't a happy bunny, and it was a mixture of all of the above plus crazy joy that we had finally made it to Australia after all our planning that had me in tears as we landed in a beautifully sunny Sydney 9 hours later. How embarrassing!
Having an Australian passport made customs easier and Duncan and I sailed through the passport checks in an instant, while everyone else from the flight queued up in the 'international passports' line. Ha! Our
bags were quickly out and we were through the rest of the checks and outside in minutes. Fantastic! We found our shuttlebus driver pretty soon afterwards and after picking up another passenger (a chap that moved form the UK to Queensland when he was 18) we were on our way through the city and off to the northern beaches. The chap we were sharing with was down from Qld to buy a car and seemed to know everything there was to kow about used cars which was really useful, and he told us loads about stamp duty and registration, pink slips and green slips. More on that later!
My first thought of Sydney roads was that they are huge. Six lanes roads in the suburbs. What is that all about??? And people sit in the outside lane, undertake, and rarely use their indicators. Oh, and people can park in the inside lane too. Takes a bit of getting used to...
Once we made it to Newport we were dropped at Holly and Matt's (lovely couple who very kindly offered to take us in despite never having met us! Thank you Charlie for twisting their arms ha!) and met
their friends Stuart and Vicki, also from the UK, who moved out to Sydney a few years ago. Then Holly and the kids (Hunter and Freya - gorgeous blondies!) got home and we were shown to our rumpus room flat. Rumpus rooms are the best Aussie invention. They are usually the ground floor of houses and consist of a big room for guests or kids to play in, a bathroom and a second kitchen. Fab!
For dinner that night Matt cooked up the biggest steaks on the BBQ, excellent introduction to Australia!
That night I went out for a drink with Holly and her frineds Juliette (another Pom!) and Verity, my first proper Aussie ha! However I was so jetlagged I kept thinking I was going to pass out, and we both slept so well that night.
We got up and went straight to the beach on Sunday, but I was still feeling dizzy and jetlagged, I blame the 9 hours of turbulence on the plane! That night we had prawns, moreton bay bugs and barramundi, again on the BBQ. Could get used to this! Also got introduced to girlie beers. They already have natural lemon or
lime added and are yummy!
We headed straight into Sydney on the Monday morning (after sitting at a bus stop for half an hour before some kind gentleman told us that it was for school busses only and no bus would go past after 8.30 am oops) to try and make a dent in all of the things that you have to do when you move to a new country. I will try and summarise what we did in the hope that it might make it a little easier for someone else!
The list -
Bank account
Medicare
Tax file number
Mobile phones
Internet
Car
Bank account We opened an account online before we left the UK. It was actually quite easy, and all we had to do was bring our passports into our nominated branch and get the account activated. Easy right? No. Our nominated branch sent us to another branch who then tried to send us back again. However they seemed to take pity on us and allowed us to stay and opened our accounts for us. Now we could make deposits, but could not withdraw any money as they then
send your cards out to you in the post. Also you can't do any internet banking until you have your Tax file number (TFN) but as we had no money in the account it made no difference to us at that point. The cards arrived at Holly's a few days later, and you then have to register them and get a number for telephone banking. THEN you have to wait for a PIN to arrive in the post, or do as we did and go into a branch and get them to set one up for us. SO not so hard afterall!
Medicare This is the Australian version of the NHS but more complicated. I don't actually understand it, but it seems like you have to pay for some things, but can claim some costs back. However for it to work, you have to have a medicare card. Medicare offices are, usefully, located in a lt of shopping malls, so we found one in Sydney and took a number and waited to be called up. Duncan was in the booth next to me and seemed to get his medicare number in seconds, whereas the woman at
my booth did NOT want to give me mine. It turns out that if you have a UK passport and a visa you get medicare immediately, no questions asked, but if you are Australian and happened to have lived most of your life in the UK you have to prove yourself before you get medical cover. The woman's arguement was that I had to prove I had moved to Australia permanently or I could just have visited to get surgery and then gone home. My argument that the NHS back home was perfectly adequate, and it would not make sense for me to pay for a flight just to pay for some aspects of my medical care here when it was ALL FREE BACK HOME. This did not go down too well and we both started to get irate. At which point I found myself standing up and pointing at poor Duncan saying "he's bloody English and he gets medicare no questions asked, yet I am Australian and I get nothing?" to which she simply answered yes. Useful. Not to worry though, I picked up a form which told me all I had to show was that I had moved
by giving them some of the following documents from the UK:
1 - proof of sale of house in the UK/purchase of a house in AU
2 - termination of a lease
3 - termination of employment
4 - cancellation of car insurance
5 - cancellation of bank accounts/council tax among other things.
Luckily I had all of these things so I was able to get my coveted medicare number the next day, but let this be a lesson to all returning Aussies - if you have been out of the country for more than 5 years make sure you can prove that you are back for good!
Tax file number We spent most of Monday trying to find the Sydney tax office but were finally told that you make your applications online now - so much easier! Except for me. Again. Duncan just filled in an online form whereas I have to pick up a form from a newsagent, get copies of my Aussie citizenship certificate, passport and medicare card certified by a JP (apparently also to be found in shopping malls!) and send them all off. Typical. For those of you who
are from the UK with a visa, just go to www.ato.gov.au and fill in the forms online.
Mobile phones Apparently there are only a few mobile phone companies in Australia with their own masts, and the rest just buy airtime off them. So there is not a lot between them. We ended up with Optus and just went in and got two pre-paid mobiles (pay as you go) and a pre-paid mibile broadband dongle thing. It seems to work in most places so far which is good! Very easy, but you need an address and also a form of ID like your passports. You will not be able to get a contract phone for a while as even though you may have a fantastic credit rating back home, as soon as you move to Australia you have no rating at all.
After all of that we caught the bus back home, totally exhausted!
We spent Tuesday looking for cars on the internet and on Wednesday went back into Sydney to look at the Kings Cross Backpackers car market. It took us ages to walk there (through the Botanical Gardens, lovely!) and when we got
there were told that the only cars they have in are the ones they sell which are all over $5000, and the backpackers now sell theirs online. So we walked down Victoria Street in Kings Cross where the car market used to be. Apparently it is now illegal to sell cars on the street there but as there are so many hostels down that road we saw about 8 cars for sale. Sadly none that we wanted so we popped into an internet cafe and had a look on the trading post website and Sydney Gumtree and the Kings cross car market website. We were after a Ford or Holden Wagon without too many miles for about $2500. We only saw a few so got their numbers and sat in the Botanical Gardens and had lunch. We called the guy with the best car and he agreed to come into Sydney and pick us up so we could see the car. We couldnt believe our luck! He picked us up and drove us out of the city a bit so we could look around the car, and drive it a bit. It was pretty clean, and low mileage so we
haggled a bit and bought it! He took us back to his so we could sort out the paperwork and he told us he was leaving for the UK on Sunday and asked if we wanted his camping gear for free. Um, yes please!
Car Once you have bought a car you have 14 days to register it at the RTA (DVLA equivalent). Again RTA's are usually found in shopping malls and you fill in your forms and take a number and wait to be called to a booth. Once there they simply tap a bit on the computer and you have a car all registered in your name! Remember to take in lots of ID (licence and passport, medicare card etc) and some proofs of address. If you do not have enough they can give you a form for someone to sign to say that it is ok to use their address. They are really helpful and quick! They also told us that we can drive on our UK licences for 6 months before having to change them over.
When you buy a car, look for one with a long registration. This is like
car tax. It lasts 6 months or a year. Ours is valid until September. In September we will have to go back to the RTA and reregister the car and pay the fee. Once a year you also have to have a roadworthy inspection (like an MOT) and you get issued with a pink slip which you need to register the car. You also need basic insurance, which is called a green slip, but you can get more comprhensive insurance if you like.
When you buy a car you also have to pay stamp duty of 3% of the purchase price, which gets charged at the time of registration. If you are planning on driving around in NSW it is also a good idea to get an e-toll tag which is like an oyster card for all the toll roads (harbour bridge etc) which gets topped up directly from your bank account. If you do not have one and go on a toll road you get fined, and a lot of the roads wont let you pay cash!
I think the above is all correct for NSW, every state is different and I think in South Australia you
dont need a roadworthy unless you sell the car - dont hold me to any of this though, it is just information we have picked up as we have been going along and may be all wrong!
So now we have a car, all of our documents and some camping gear and on Wednesday 24 March, (after spending about three days walking around Avalon, suburb next to Newport and Palm Beach, going "wow, we love this" quickly followed by "wow, we could never afford this") we finally left Holly and Matt's house and headed off down the coast to stay with Jayne and Laurie, some of mum's friends, in a place called St George's Basin. They bought a plot of land there 20 years ago and built their own house on it. It is really quiet and lovely and nearly all solar powered. Fantastic!
We stayed with Jayne and Laurie for a night and then drove further south and into Victoria to Mallacoota where mum used to have a house. One of her friends very kindly let us stay in their house while they were away, and this is where we are at the moment. Mallacoota is just lovely, surrounded by wilderness and fronted by two huge lakes and river systems, and about 8 deserted beaches. All of the houses have amazing water views and there are parrots everywhere! We'd love to live somewhere like this but it is really hard to get any kind of work here as it is so small. Sue and Nikko, more friends of my mum's, live round the corner in an amazing house that they were building last time we were here. They suggested Duncan try and get into mining in northern WA (second person to suggest that!) as you work two weeks on one week off, get paid loads, dont have to pay for food and accommodation and get flown home, or maybe to Bali, for your week off. Sounds like a lot of hard work, but good pay offs! We will keep it in mind but I think at the moment Duncan is keen to try and get back to the northern beaches and work with Matt if at all possible in the marina. Me, I still have no idea what I might end up doing! Nothing...? Ha!
We are off back up north on Monday and I will update you more then, once we have actually started camping!
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neil
non-member comment
glad things are going well for you both, looks lovelly ,have fun .i'm not jealous much ha ha!!!!!!