Hi as said above we ( My wife and 10month old daughter) are new to this forum, however we are now into our 2nd year in Brisbane having arrived in May last year.

We have just bought in Lota on the bayside and are enjoying the life as new relocatees.

I am an Engineer and my wife is a nurse. Work has never been hard to find for us both and therefore should be similar for other qualified persons. I am actually moving jobs in 2 weeks which is 20mins from door to door having spend the last year travelling 10mins each morning to the local refinery. It's a staff position compared to the current contract one.

Brisbane and the Bayside we have found has everything you could want and more. Manly has the marina, the cafe strip and with plenty of parks and walkways/cycle tracks is ideal for the outdoors people.

Anyway, I though I would do the brief introduction thinggy.

Jason / Karen / Emma

 

new to the forum as-well

Hi Jason and Family,
We are currently looking to move Brisbane area once we get our visa applications through. But from what i can gather its a slow process. We have 3 kids (15yr old , 13yr old and a 2yr old )so for them we want to move to somewhere with plenty of surf but not too busy.

 

Hi Markv13

Good to hear from you!

How far down th application road are you?

Where are you looking at moving to in Brisbane, if you know that is? You mention surf for which you will almost certainly have to move to either the gold or sunshine coasts, due to the brisbane coat being on morton bay which kills any surf. It is good for kite surfing, sailing, wind surfing etc. However if like us you would like to be beside the seaside , and its cooling breeze and family atmosphere, then you have your choice from redland bay to redcliffe whilst still being relatively close to the city..

What do you guys do for a living?

I may be able to help with company names, web sites etc or in general for bayside area info if you have any specific queries.

Good Luck with the process.

 

Hi Jason,

We sent our visa application on the 16th of August 07 and it was in their post box on the 27th of August. i am applying for the 136 skilled independant Visa. I am applying as a carpenter/joiner so i am hoping my trade will stand me in good stead at the ASPC, I am told at the moment there is quite a back log due to the amount of people who applied before the 1st of Sep , so at the moment it is a waiting game for us. We are looking at doing our medicals and police checks in the next few weeks so that when they ask for them we will have already done them.

Is there much work for carpenter/joiners in the construction and domestic field.
We have looked at Redcliff but we have heard that it is an area mostly for the elderly generation, is this true.

How far from Brisbane is the gold and sunshine coast


Regards

Mark,Helen and Family

 

Mark

As far as I can tell there are always adverts, vacancies for joiners, especially in the new build area. Good if you like working outside but hot in the summer or most of time for us newly arrived!!!

We did stay a week in the redcliffe area when we 1st arrived as well as a few other places, and yes we found it to be for the older generation and a holiday let type of place.....I would imagine there are very nice parts of it, but it wasnt for us. We settled for the Bayside and have been renting in Manly and now moving this weekend into our 1st property over here in Lota, next to manly on the banks of the estuary...... There is a big new estate called north lakes which is not far from redcliffe, it is not getting good press at the moment with hoons and teenage fighting etc. Its a new estate with pubs and cinema with no transport to the city or other and the local hoons from surrounding suburbs are apparently causing problems.

I guess it depends on what you are looking for in a location and how much you want to pay etc

The Gold & Sunshine coasts are approx. 1hr from brisbane on a good day, though if travelling at peak work times you can add to this significantly...

Good luck with the application

Try www.carreone.com.au or www.mycareer.com.au for jobs.

Jason

 

Hi Jason & Family,
Hope everything is going ok for you all we have just heard that ASPC are staring on Augusts applications so hopefuly it wont be long before they get to ours. They had ours on the 27th of August.
Weather over here at the moment has been ok apart from today when we had a lot of wind and rain.
Im building an extension to an office block at the moment and the weather has been good considering it is November.
We have decided that we are going to find somewhere within an hrs drive from Brisbane so that the kids get to go to the beach and surf when they finish school. Do you think we would be better going north of Brisbane or South.

Regards

Mark and Family

 

Hi Mark

Sorry, cant really tell you where to live, but as I have mentioned elsewhere when my wife and I arrived last year we spend time staying in B&B's in Redcliffe (North of River), Wellington Pt (South of River), Samford (Western Suburb) and Canungra (Gold coast hinterland).

We found Redcliffe to be for the older generation or holiday lets, Samford we loved as it was in the hills with acreage but did not have very much there and was about an hour to where I was going to work on the other side of the city, Canungra although lovely was not as nice as Samford and was well over the hour to brisbane. Wellington pt we loved and decided we would like to stay. We ended up renting in Manly and now move into our new house in Lota tomorrow.

As I said we love the area and its on the cost so not as hot and humid as the hills. There is plenty to do locally, parks, walk/cycle tracks along the waterfront, cafe strips/pubs and local events/street parties going on, and we can reach Brisbane CBD in 30mins by car or train and the Gold / Sunshine coasts in 1 hour.

My advice would be to do something similar as we are all looking for specific individual things, failing that take a short term rental somewhere and use that time visiting local areas.

You will probably also find that your job location will have a say on where you settle!

Hope this helps

J&K&E

PS....Good luck with your application.

 

Markv
Hi im waiting for my 136 visa also and have been told they are upto 8weeks behind . mine was received 15th july and im still waiting . I was informed two weeks ago that they had received 9 months worth of applications between the end of may and the end of august and were now looking at taking on extra staff to help clear the backlog .
Have you been to oz before or are you like me and my family who have not ?. we are realy keen to get on with things but are in a state of limbo at the moment .

mark

 

Hi Mark,

Yes i have been to Oz, in 1990 i spent 12 months working my way round Australia from Sydney where i spent 8weeks with some friends i met in America.i then decided to go to Adelaide and i stayed in a place called Glenelg and it was lovely there,i worked on a new shopping centre called the Myers as a carpenter. i stayed there for about 7 months and travelled round using it as a base.
I then decided to move to the Gold Coast ( surfers paradise) where i spent the rest of my time working for a local builder as a carpenter and generaly having a great time like any young lad of my age did.
Now that we have decided to up sticks and move to OZ i thought of all the places that i have been to in OZ and the Gold Coast was the only place that came up trumps with regards to what is there for our kids to enjoy.
On the east coast you have a lot more places for kids to enjoy like sea world,Australia zoo and a lot more.

markv13

 

Hi Jason and family,

You said that your wife is a nurse out there , does the hospital that she works in have a dialasis unit there, and if so could you let me know the website so that i can have a look to see what sort of facilities it has.
My wife had a kidney transplant 3yrs ago so we have to make sure that there is a Kidney dialasis unit near by just in-case .

markv13

 

mark v
We have never been to oz but have decided on the brisbane area
we have been looking at redland bay to start with and we will then look around .At the moment I am not to worried about how long the visa takes as I am commited to work until end of april but after that the sooner the better .
I have three sons 11/13/18 and my wife mandy who is a school caterer,I am a diesal mechanic but also a qualified heavy plant operator so will be looking for work in one of those jobs .
Our house is on the market and we have had quite a lot of interest but so far not sold .

mark

 

Hi Mark,

We too are putting our house on the market in a couple of weeks but to be honest i think it is the wrong time of year but we will wait and see.
we havnt decided where we are going yet in brisbane area.cos they all look nice to me . So i think we will hire a 6berth camper-van for 2weeks as a holiday and tour the area north and south of brisbane, and see when we get there for our-selves.
Our kids are 15,13,2 we also have a 22yr old but he is staying in england and then coming out later when we have settled in.
I dont think you will have much problem in getting work as either a mechanic or a heavy plant operator. When you say plant operator do you mean JCB driver on building sites.

Markv13

 

mark v
yes JCBs dozers etc . We are planning on taking 6-8 weeks off when we get there and look around (may alter dependant on how well we sell the house )but will take a short term let to start with .We have just yesterday received notification of receipt for our application and they have given an expected completion time of 5 to 7 months from the date they received it which was the 27th july so we are looking at end of feb for receiving our visa . Im not to worried if it is a bit later as I am committed to work until at least the end of march .

mark