I remember when we were planning to move to Australia I spent days scouring the internet for some honest blogs about what its really like moving from the UK to Australia, there weren't many so I thought now that we've been here 10 months I'd write my own.
Firstly, the whole process of moving to Australia is incredibly different for everyone and will vary massively depending on what visa you come on, if you have friends / family here already, where you move to..and so on and so forth.
The weather.
I guess the most obvious different between the UK and Perth (where we live) is the weather. Apart from a few weeks of the year Perth is generally hot, sunny and clear skied. However, Perth gets cold in Winter, not quite as cold as England however, once you've had a Perth summer of 30 degrees plus for months straight, 10 degrees suddenly feels a lot colder. And add to the acclimatisation the fact that Perth homes are all single glazed, rarely have heating or double glazing. Thank goodness the blankets are only out for a short amount of time. I'm hoping it's pretty obvious that for the rest of the year it's warm, warmer, hot and painfully hot, this summer was 'cold' but we still experienced a day of 45c which was way too hot to get anything done in.
Houses & Rent.
Note : houses. A massive percentage of homes, out of the city centres, are houses. Most houses are open plan, and alongside having bedrooms, bathrooms and living areas have activity rooms, cinema rooms and games rooms. It seems to be totally normal for a young couple to live in a 4 bedroom house out here, especially as first time buyers. Another little quirk is the lack of gardens, as block sizes are getting smaller (err hey australia, you're not running out of land any time soon) the houses are getting bigger, and the gardens are getting smaller. Oh and before you ask, no not everyone has a pool.
Work & Wages.
Ahh the Australian dream, hardly work and spend the rest of your time frolicking on the beach and messing around on boats. What a glorious misconception. Sadly the average Joe works just as much as they would back in the UK, if not more. A usual working week is 40 hours 8:30-4:30. Obviously a lot of non-desk jobs work a lot more, just like anywhere else in the world. Sadly it's not until you're cashed up (or the super savvy self employed type) that you get heaps of time off to play outside.
Wages are generally higher out here, and the cost of living is only slightly higher than the UK. For example, Dan and I both earn roughly the same as what we earnt in the UK in similar job roles. If you're clever money can go a lot further in Australia, however just like anywhere in the world you can blow your wages as quickly as you earn them.
Finding a job in Australia is about as hard as in the UK, and most recruitment happens online. We were both extremely lucky to have landed good jobs within a month of arriving in Australia, but we were both very motivated and determined to start work ASAP. I know of a few people who have really struggled to find non-professional roles in Australia.
Alcohol is expensive.
And by expensive I mean about on-par with London, expect to pay $10 for a pint of beer or cider in an average pub around the same for a glass of house wine or spirit and mixer. There is a distinct lack of good cider in Australia, although if you like the filthy sweet imports you'll be fine.
Making friends.
Making friends as a grown up is hard, like really hard. I am lucky enough to have met a few girls in Australia who are bloody brilliant and I owe a lot of that to the blogging community out here (which is awesome FYI). There are a lot of Facebook groups great for meeting other people in Perth, specifically 'Poms in Perth' which is a huge Facebook group for UK expats. We've both been lucky enough to meet some awesome guys through work, which makes life so much easier too.
Leaving friends and family behind.
I guess the hardest part about making such a big move is leaving people (and dogs) behind. We put a lot of effort into setting up a more personal blog for friends and family to try and keep everyone up to date, but it would only get around 5 hits a week. We were promised Skype phone calls, texts, Facebook and whatsapp messages galore, but dyou know what? Hardly anyone stays in touch and thats hands down the worst thing about moving half way around the world. We have worked really hard with sending back birthday and christmas presents, and even sent a suitcase full of gifts back with mumma-bee but have only had thankyous from one person! Those who are, in my opinion, most guilty of not staying in touch are those who have access to the internet, have us added on social media and are themselves active on social media. I'm not naming names or pointing fingers, but my half blind nan somehow finds the time and effort to write a letter and get someone to take it to the post office for her each month. And a family member who juggles three kids, a full time high flying job and a crazy dog, manages to Skype us once a month (even to just leave a video message) and text us little bits of news...yet we have friends and family who haven't done as much as ask how we're settling in. How shit is that?
But of course, we could spend our time trying to cling onto these relationships, but there's only two of us and there's plenty of friends and family. Thankfully, we both have a handful of amazing people in our lives (and each other, aww) who do stay in touch, who drop us the odd 'hows everything going?' on Facebook, or I'll get tweets from my Bournemouth blogging babes saying I'm missed ( I love you ladies!) and they're the best friends. What's hardest to stomach is they're not always the people you expect!
I hope that's given you a little insight in to what it's really like living here in Australia, if you're hoping to move to Australia and would like more advice etc. feel free to email me :)
Have and of my readers moved far from home? Was it what you expected?
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