Buying a car your first week.

If your anything like us you will want a car ASAP, you might hire one for your first week so you can get around, and during that week you will want to tour all the garages to pick your car.


The trickiest thing about buying a car is actually getting the loan, you have just arrived have no credit history in oz, no history of addresses or employment. But it seems its still possible (we managed it).


You will need a lot of stuff to get the loan, we had to supply.


1. Proof of rental address (my employer had to provide a letter as they were paying rent)

2. Proof of visa (just a photocopy of passport label)

3. Proof of employment (letter from company)

4. Three references (we had to supply names and addresses of 3 references, I used someone at work and long lost Australian relatives)

5. Three years worth of previous addresses.

6. Any random ID you may have, medicare cards, bank details etc.

The interest rates here are huge my car loan was 13.7% and that was deemed pretty good by the people I spoke to.

We also needed proof of no claims bonus to get insurance and needed a Queensland driving license to be able to drive the car away.

You can get a Queensland driving license with some ID (passport) and proof of address and your UK license (the picture card, they wont accepts the big green piece of paper as it has the word provincial on it somewhere which sends them a bit crazy).

The driving license only lasts for a few years(maximum of 5 years) and the longer it lasts the more you pay, (its up to you how long you want the license for).

Insurance.

Insurance is a bit odd they have this CPT insurance that is like insurance for running over a pedestrian (its a bit vague at the moment to me). But you get it with your car tax but have to choose an insurer. Seems to be a form of public liability.

Car tax is called rego (registration) and seems to cost a bit more than UK. You don't need an MOT certificate to get the car tax, all though they do require the car has a valid safety certificate whenever the car is sold.

Then you need normal insurance, except its for the car rather than the person (all though they still need to know the details of all the drivers)

Buying the car.

The number plates don't tell you how old the car is, you need to read the fine print in the window. The Australian's don't seem to care about car age only mileage is relevant (and they clock up a lot of miles here, no not miles kilometers). When I told one ozzy that in the UK the number plates show you the age of the car, he just stared blankly and asked "what would you want to know that for?".

90% of cars here are automatic (in Brisbane anyway), and if you can drive a manual the car salesman will get very excited that you might actually buy one of the few manual cars they have. (which are cheaper and more efficient but will be tricky to sell on).

The cars all have huge engines, a 2.0 litre engine is considered frugal here.

We ended up with a huge 4x4 offroader with a 3.6 litre engine, but it runs off lpg which is only 30 UK pence a litre.

So we got our car in the end, took about a week to sort out all the paperwork before we could drive it away.

If your shopping for cars in Brisbane you need to go up gympie road north out of Brisbane, its where all the car dealers congregate.

Things to do around Brisbane

Some places we have visited in the 4 months since arriving in oz


Australia zoo

About 90 minutes drive from Brisbane, Steve Irwin's zoo heavily concentrating on crocodiles (obviously) but with various other animals too. Elephants were our favourite, lining up to hand feed fruit to 3 elephants, and the tiger cubs were great too. There's a big stadium called the crocatorium with crocodile shows. What ever you do make sure you miss the cringe worthy bindi show, basically 30 minutes of bindi ( steve and terry's 12? year old daughter) singing and dancing. We accidentally attended not realising what the show was all about , thats 30 minutes of my life I will never get back.

Fig tree pocket koala Sancturary Brisbane

Close to the center of Brisbane (15 mins drive for us), a koala sancturary for rescued koalas, also contains a lot of kangaroos you can hand feed much to their indifference. Occasionally you can find a kangaroo that isn't completely stuffed to the brim with food and it will raise its head from its sprawled position to let you pop in a bit of food (come on sir, its only wafer fin).

Also lots of birds (very good birds of prey show), lizards, snakes, including some sulpher crested cockatoo's who can say hello and goodbye when prompted.

Surfers Paradise

This is what I came to Australia for, big waves, clear turquoise sea, sand so fine it squeaks as you walk on it. Ninety minutes from Brisbane (by the time you have found somewhere to park).

The beach goes on for ever, hundreds of miles, but there's only an occasional bit of sea you can go in marked with 2 yellow flags and a life guard sat in his jeep. The yellow flags are about 50 meters apart so while the beach is hundreds of miles long everyone is crammed into these pockets of beach. Not too bad in winter but I can imagine it being hellishly busy in summer.

And the sand really does squeak as you walk on it :)

Redcliffe

The locals here (in Brisbane) don't seem to consider Redcliffe a proper beach, maybe the sand doesn't squeak enough (it is courser and errm red'er).

Very pleasant, great for kids (no giant waves) no yellow flags, can be a bit rocky in places. Nice series of man made outdoor lagoon pools nearby.

Movie World

Slightly over an hour from Brisbane, its a roller coaster theme park based around movies. There wasn't that much for the younger kids to do unless they are brave enough to go on things like the log flume. My 4 year old was terrified of the scooby doo actors roaming the park but loved the kids roller coaster that was actually quite big and fast (too fast for the 11 year old to risk going on).

Highlights were the Shrek 3d movie and the super man roller coaster.