April 2013 - It's a cold wet weekend and for some bizarre reason we're making the 5 hour drive to Wales for a weekend of rock climbing!!! Looking out the window at the dismal weather I posed the question to Chris "So where are we going to move to then?!". Chris and I had discussed several times about living abroad for a while. Chris had been keen on America for sometime, myself I just fancied somewhere warm which encouraged a more outdoors active lifestyle. We started discussing the idea seriously and weighing up our options. We wanted somewhere English speaking: America, Canada, NZ, Australia, South Africa. It had to be somewhere warm - Canada and NZ were out! Somewhere safe - South Africa was out! Somewhere we could actually get a visa - America was out. So Australia then!! :) After discovering the Working Holiday Visa programme, and the requirement that you have to be under 30 to be eligible for the Visa, the decision was made to get our skates on and head out down under!
9 months later, we've got the visa, flights are booked and in less than a month we'll be sitting on Rainbow Beach in Queensland getting over our jetlag and enjoying the sun and scenery! :) We've signed up to a scheme called VisitOz http://www.visitoz.org/ They train you up in agricultural work enabling you to get jobs on cattle or sheep stations in the outback, as well as having access to a wealth of other employers all over Australia who they can market you to. They guarantee you work for the first year, and set you up with an Aussie bank account, tax file number, medicare (like the nhs) etc so basically it seemed like a good deal to take the stress out of things and help to quickly get us on our feet!
The last few months I've had to learn quite a few new skills in the lead up to our departure - I've learnt off-road motorbiking, tractor driving, welding, horse riding, all things that are valued skills for the outback jobs! And also great fun! :) There's also been a lot of stuff to sort out with my house as I'm renting it out while we're away so I've had to instruct a letting agent, figure out tax requirements, get various gas and electrical inspections done etc etc etc! Chris has done a huge amount of work to the house for me which has been amazing. Additonally Chris was very keen to buy an investment property down in Cornwall before we headed out. After 2 houses falling through, the third finally exchanged this week, and is due to complete 2 weeks before we fly out! Talk about cutting it fine!! So it's been a stressful time to say the least but we're getting there! Whoever said emigrating was easy!
Our flight out is on 18th February, flying into Brisbane. Next post will probably be from Rainbow Beach! 8)
