Move to Australia ASAP!
What you think:
You've been told 'it's very similar to South Africa - same weather, also love rugby, sunshine and braai/barbeque'
What they DON'T tell you:
Go and see for yourself. It's beyond me how anyone can rip up their whole lives, hop on a plane and go and live somewhere on the opposite side of the planet without taking the trouble to have a look firsthand?
Yes, it's expensive. Yes, it takes planning and time. Yes, everyone at work and all your friends and family get a heads-up on your intentions. Just do it!
We decided to visit Perth (everyone in South Africa tends to end up there), Sydney (everyone wants to be there), and Melbourne (heard good things from some Aussie friends). We skipped Brisbane, Canberra and Adelaide.
We took nearly three weeks so we could spend a decent amount of time experiencing local life and try to lose the tourist feeling to feel the 'real life' in the various places. Not much time in retrospect, but enough to see the differences in the various places.
So here's what we thought:
- Perth - too far from everything, particularly given that my wife and I are in IT. If you're in the mining or resources industry it's probably good to consider, as it's booming at the moment. Also a solid 6 hour flight to Sydney and Melbourne where a lot of Australia's business happens.
- Sydney - nice if you're a tourist, but our (very limited) experience was that it's just another busy city. It seems very congested, loads of tourists, traffic is hell, very expensive to live and work there. Very beautiful.
- Melbourne - this stole our hearts. It's a spacious, well-planned, vibey and interesting place and has a bit more laid-back feeling. It sits on a 50km by 50km bay which is perfect for any watersports, has winelands all around it, snow skiing in winter only a 3 hour drive away and there's lots of sports, concerts, shows, restaurants, etc in very close proximity. Public transport is also excellent. The trams, trains and buses are clean and well maintained and generally on time. Also very well organised as is everything else here, so they have extra transport during major events as an example.The weather seems ok - it's known as four seasons in a day, but so far it's been great. Gets VERY hot sometimes with desert winds blowing the temps up to 40 degrees for a few days, then a 'cool change' comes in and the temp drops by 10 to 20 degrees in 30 minutes. Everyone always has a spare coat with them!
- Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra - we skipped these because Sydney and Melbourne are the biggest cities - around 3.5 million people in each, and these 3 cities where either too remote or too small to hedge our bets in the job market.
Take a look at the map and see how close Sydney and Melbourne appear. That's 900km's you're looking at! roughly from Joburg to East London. Also remember that you have to drive at 100km/h - not 101 or 102, but 100 - and that's a loooooong trip by car...
So our impressions were that the weather is good, lifestyle is very different, very British history, mannerisms and ways about the Aussies, very clean, neat, well-organised country, very proud nation, very welcoming, very accepting of different cultures (only 30% of Melbournians are Aussies), VERY EXPENSIVE housing and a low, low crime rate.
The country is also booming so there's lots of work around and we felt we could build a future here filled with hope, security and a great lifestyle...
