Dizzy

Oct 10 2007, 08:49 PM

My Hubby and I have recently returned from our reccy in Melbourne Australia. We went with Emirates, from Manchester, Dubai to Melbourne. The check-in at Manchester was sloppy, and she checked us in on a row of three, despite there being oceans of space at the back of the plane :angry:
The 2nd leg from Dubai to Melbourne, was long, and the check-in lady at Manchester had stuck us in the middle of a row of four, two blokes at either end snoring all the way and only swinging their legs to one side to let me out make comfort breaks :angry:
Having said that I thought the service on board Emirates was excellent, the staff were helpful and cheery and couldnt do enough for you. :D The ICE entertainment system was brilliant, and helped to pass the time on a very long flight.
We arrived in Melbourne, at around 6am, and I had splashed out on a pre-booked chauffer to pick us up and take us to our hotel. The weather was fine and sunny in the afternoon, and despite being quite tired, we had a real good look around the city. I liked the city (cbd) it seemed cleaner and more compact than some of our UK cities, and the people were a real mixed bunch and very friendly. :mate: We went up to the italian district for lunch, and had a great pizza. Cost of eating out generally was cheaper than at home, and it was good quality food. I liked the idea of the BYO, but we never seemed to organise ourselves enought to do this, so we just picked licenced resturants. We also visited china town and had some great food there.
Our visit to the suburbs for places to live, was a little more traumatic. We visted waterways in the east side, and although the outlook was nice, the land prices were high (over $300K per lot), so this would make building here quite expensive. Other suburbs we visited on the east side, including Doncaster, Doncaster East, all felt too much like the UK, sprawling, never-ending rows of houses, streets after streets and with busy main roads with lots of people all trying to get somewhere in a major rush. (Which brings me onto one of the bits we didn't like... aren't the aussie drivers manics, un-curtious and impatient?!? This included the lorry drivers driving huge artics.... very scary when you're in a little 2 door hire car!!)
After 2 days on the east side, disenchanted, we ventured out west. We visited Williamstown, and loved it immediately. Unfortunately, the house prices were high in this area, and we just don't feel that to get a house equal to what we have in the UK, we could afford it, so we ventured further out west. Arrived in Altona, which although was nice near the beach, we didn't like the feel for it, it just didn't live up to our dream of what Australia should really be like, so we moved further out, and came across point cook, and sancturay lakes. We loved it out there, especially sanctuary lakes. Despite the management charges, it felt somewhere where we could move to and feel safe and have facilities nearby that we would use (swimming, gym, tennis courts and open spaces, small beaches by the lake, with cycle tracks and the creek alongside for walks and adventure for the children).
We spent the remainder of our time around this area, and looks at houses for sale and the option of buying land and building our own house. Hubby fell in love with this idea, so I think that would be the way to go for us. Rentals didn't seem as expensive either, so ideally rent nearby, then look at buying a plot of land and building. We visited the nearby beaches and the point cook costal park, which I thought were nice places for weekend fun, bbq's and chill-out time for us and the kids.
We tried out the trains, for commuting into the cbd, which I had mixed reactions about, I loved the free parking :thumbsup: but the trains were a bit depressing, with a strange mix of individuals <_< . The price for the tickets were much cheaper than here in the UK, but the commute door to door would be longer than I would like at 40-50mins.
We checked out some local schools, and liked Seabrook Primary school. The Headmistress was fantastic, and dropped everything she was doing for an impromptu meeting with us, which last 1.5 hours. She showed us around the school, and it looked fantastic with brilliant facilities that our current school hasn't got anything near, she even said in principal OK to the places and gave us the application forms.

On our final night, we went on the resturant tram around the city and visited the casino, we won $70 (not bad for half an hour's fun), and were in awe at the number of people just throwing their cash away! :ugh:

So, after 9 days in Oz, we arrived home with our decision made. Told our families and had a mixed reaction. Life at home is extremely tense now, because my MIL & FIL are distraught at the thought of us taking their grandkids away!! I hope they will come round within a few weeks, I don't want to spend the last few weeks in the UK not on speaking terms with them.

We're starting to plan everything now, wish us luck!! I'm sure I'll do more postings in the coming months as things start to hot up on the planning for our big life change and relocation to Melbourne, Australia!