We arrived in Brisbane to a lovely holiday apartment provided by my new employer.
A 3 bed apartment in what estate agents would call the highly desirable area of New Farm. Views of Brisbane river, opposite the popular New Farm Park with giant kids play area, and just a 20 minute walk to work. Perfect, except its such a desirable area the apartment was probably worth $2,000,000. And weekly rent was just under $1000.
So we had a month to find somewhere more permanent to live while we waited for all our possessions to arrive.
We had several criteria.
1. Near a train station that would get me to work without too much fuss.
2. Near a beach, or have a pool.
3. Near good schools.
4. Be a nice neighbourhood.
5. Cost a maximum of $600 a week to rent.
6. Have at least 4 bedrooms preferably 5.
Some candidates were Shorncliffe, Sandgate, BaldHills, Bracken Ridge.
Fortunately there is one main website for home buying/rental
http://brisbane.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=sf&s=qld&t=ren&cc=&ty=&snf=rbs&cu=OBC
After viewing several places none of which quite ticked enough boxes we extended our search and eventually found somewhere south of the river in Graceville, a very nice area very close to a train station, just 20 minutes to the town center, very good local state schools. Five minute drive to a big shopping center (Indooroopilly).
No where near a beach but it has a pool.
Unfortunately the house wasnt available for a month until after we needed it so we moved to Redcliffe (Scarborough specifically) for a month.
This meant the kids couldn't start school yet, and I had quite a commute (90 mins each way) half by bus half by train. The train from Sandgate to Brisbane(Brunswick street, the stop for Fortitude valley) stops 14 times and takes quite a while to get into the town, but travelling by car can take just as long or longer if you don't set off early enough. (Even though its only 30 km). On the bright side we were 200 meters from Scarboroughs award winning beach. The kids had a great time playing on the beach every day and we bought a few fishing rods and did a bit of fishing as well as snorkeling.
With hindsight I now wish we had ended up permanently living by a beach. But Brisbane doesn't really have any beaches they are all on the outskirts, shorncliffe would have been perfect but houses just dont come up very often with enough rooms for our family.
If you want to check train timetables for Brisbane here's the link:
http://www.transinfo.qld.gov.au/
Incidentally train charges are less than half of the UK. I'm commuting a similar distance to the UK but paying $80 (£40) a month instead of £106. And so far the trains have been far more reliable than the UK.
Sunday 27 July 2008
Ten Surprising things about Brisbane/Australia
We emigrated to oz almost on a whim with no real idea of what to expect, heres some things that took us by suprise.
1. It gets dark early, even though its 25 degrees and feels like summer (its winter at the moment) it still gets dark between 5:00 and 5:30, but dawn is early 5:30am.
2. The locals think its cold, even though its 25 degrees, some locals think its cold and can be seen walking their dogs on the beach wearing coats while the crazy English family are swimming in the sea.
3. Wild parrots all over the place, You can make it obvious you are foreign by excitedly pointing out parrots and other colourful birds to your children and taking photos.
4. Giant Fruit Bats roam the skies at night, our first day out at the local park suddenly cut short by the sudden fall of night at 5:30 resulted in seeing several hundred odd looking crows flying low overhead, that turned out to be rather large fruit bats.
5. Its full of cars, coming from Scotland where the roads are relatively empty it was a surprise to find how busy the roads are. Every attempt to drive along the M1 from the north into brisbane has resulted in a 10 km traffic jam.
6. 4x4's rule the road. Every other car is a 4x4, big toyota landcruisers seem to be the most popular.
7. Petrol is cheap, really cheap. At $1.35 a litre its nearly half the price of the UK, allthough the price is rising fast, its gone from $1.35 to $1.55 in just the few weeks we have been here allthough it seems to be dropping again.
8. The night is noisy. Maybe we are just unluky but our nights are filled with the sounds of wild creatures tap dancing on our metal roof, even after having a possum removed from its cosy home in our loft in week 1.
9. Fatal snake bites. None of us have been bitten/stung/eaten alive by snakes, spiders, jellyfish, sharks or crocodiles. Infact apart from spiders none of the above had made an appearance and even the spiders we have seen, while big are probably not life threatening, probably...
10. Its not cheap. The cost of living is supposedly cheaper in Australia (so everyone says) but you have to shop arround to get a bargain and a lot of things are just downright more expensive than the UK.
1. It gets dark early, even though its 25 degrees and feels like summer (its winter at the moment) it still gets dark between 5:00 and 5:30, but dawn is early 5:30am.
2. The locals think its cold, even though its 25 degrees, some locals think its cold and can be seen walking their dogs on the beach wearing coats while the crazy English family are swimming in the sea.
3. Wild parrots all over the place, You can make it obvious you are foreign by excitedly pointing out parrots and other colourful birds to your children and taking photos.
4. Giant Fruit Bats roam the skies at night, our first day out at the local park suddenly cut short by the sudden fall of night at 5:30 resulted in seeing several hundred odd looking crows flying low overhead, that turned out to be rather large fruit bats.
5. Its full of cars, coming from Scotland where the roads are relatively empty it was a surprise to find how busy the roads are. Every attempt to drive along the M1 from the north into brisbane has resulted in a 10 km traffic jam.
6. 4x4's rule the road. Every other car is a 4x4, big toyota landcruisers seem to be the most popular.
7. Petrol is cheap, really cheap. At $1.35 a litre its nearly half the price of the UK, allthough the price is rising fast, its gone from $1.35 to $1.55 in just the few weeks we have been here allthough it seems to be dropping again.
8. The night is noisy. Maybe we are just unluky but our nights are filled with the sounds of wild creatures tap dancing on our metal roof, even after having a possum removed from its cosy home in our loft in week 1.
9. Fatal snake bites. None of us have been bitten/stung/eaten alive by snakes, spiders, jellyfish, sharks or crocodiles. Infact apart from spiders none of the above had made an appearance and even the spiders we have seen, while big are probably not life threatening, probably...
10. Its not cheap. The cost of living is supposedly cheaper in Australia (so everyone says) but you have to shop arround to get a bargain and a lot of things are just downright more expensive than the UK.
10 weeks on
(Still not seen a wild snake, but a lot of worryingly large spiders)
This is the first post about our new life in Australia, its now 10 weeks since we first arrived and we are starting to settle into our long term accomodation after 2 months of short term holiday letts.
We moved from a small village outside Perth Scotland to Brisbane Australia on a 457 visa (a 457 visa is a working permit organised by an employer before you arrive in Australia). Theres 7 of us, Mike and Alison (the grown ups) and 5 children, J aged 15, K aged 12, R aged 9, B aged 7 and M aged 5.
We have learnt a lot over the last 10 weeks. Things that went right, things that we could have done better, and lots of suprises about Australia.
Arriving off the plane from singapore was the first time any of us had set foot in the country! So we were bound to have a few suprises along the way.
This is the first post about our new life in Australia, its now 10 weeks since we first arrived and we are starting to settle into our long term accomodation after 2 months of short term holiday letts.
We moved from a small village outside Perth Scotland to Brisbane Australia on a 457 visa (a 457 visa is a working permit organised by an employer before you arrive in Australia). Theres 7 of us, Mike and Alison (the grown ups) and 5 children, J aged 15, K aged 12, R aged 9, B aged 7 and M aged 5.
We have learnt a lot over the last 10 weeks. Things that went right, things that we could have done better, and lots of suprises about Australia.
Arriving off the plane from singapore was the first time any of us had set foot in the country! So we were bound to have a few suprises along the way.
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