BigClive
05-29-2007, 09:17 AM
I've just got back from a trip to Australia and thought you guys might find my experiences useful.
Firstly I stayed in Perth for eight nights. While there I met up with Squizzy, Zapman and Boyakasha for drinkies. Good bunch of guys. I enjoyed it. Special thanks to Squizzy who took me on a quick local tour before we headed back to his place and showed his kid how to turn a seemingly innocuous racing car toy into a high velocity projectile launcher. :D I was surprised to find that Boyakasha was well qualified in electronics. Hopefully we didn't bore Squizzy too much when the conversation momentarily turned to microcontroller programming languages and power driver circuitry.
Perth was good. Blazing sunshine with a sprinkling of rain and well spaced out and good for exploring on foot (but also with an excellent transport system and wide roads). For some reason Perth also seems popular with technical people. Quite a few of my online tech-head buddies are based there.
Then I moved over to Melbourne for eight nights and wasn't so impressed. The rain wind and hail didn't help much, but other than that it was a fairly typical bland grey city full of cliched cafes and restaurants. If you like drinking coffee all day or eating out, then it's probably fun, but I prefer other things. I did get to meet a side of the family I never thought I'd see and that was quite enjoyable.
Overall thoughts:-
Staying in Australia is not cheap. Despite the exchange rate being $2.3 to the pound the prices were simply 2.3 times higher so pound for pound there was little price difference. Alcohol in general seemed a lot more expensive whether bought in shops or in pubs.
The Australian culture is a strange mix of American and British. The supermarkets had a mixture of products from these two countries with a bias to bigger pack sizes like in the USA. There were a few brands where the logo was the same but the name had been changed, presumably for copyright reasons.
I get the feeling that like everywhere else in the world the property market is being manipulated to the serious detriment of the younger generation. In both Perth and Melbourne I discovered that some of my online buddies were still with their parents or living with friends in small groups since they couldn't afford their own house. It used to be that young Australians would traditionally go on a wanderlust round the globe before returning and settling down, but now I think they may be leaving Oz simply because they can't afford to live there. Western Australia seems to be particularly affected by this due to the boom in mineral mining and the short term wealth created as a result.
The Australian electrical system was a weird combination of the USA and UK systems. It had the simplicity of the UK 240/415 system but the outlets and switches were more in the style of the USA stuff with thin flat prongs on plugs that had a tendency to fall out of sockets easily. In both locations I noticed that the plugs often had to be jiggled to make a good connection in the sockets. Maybe this was just old hotel wiring. On the other hand maybe it's the reason my uncles previous house had burned down due to an electrical fire. The distribution system was very American looking. It had obviously been rattled up quickly to accommodate the sudden sprawling growth of the cities and I get the feeling that the guys spend a lot of their time fixing the work of their predecessors as a result.
Drought seems to be a bit of an issue in both parts I visited. I'm not sure if it's a climate change thing or if it's just due to the increase of the population, but there were warning posters suggesting ways to save water in both places I visited. I got the impression that in Melbourne they have been progressively draining their underground "water table" to the point they have suddenly realised that things are getting a bit grim. In my accommodation the point of the warning posters seemed futile since the toilet cisterns were rather huge and dumped gallons of water on each flush (no part flush), while the shower head was so enormous that it simply wouldn't work with anything less than a deluge! Perhaps they've just been a bit casual about water availability in the past and it's catching up with them. While visiting my Uncle and his family out in the countryside his young wife took us on a quick local drive and showed us dry reservoirs and gushing rivers within 30 minutes of each other by road!!! Their own water supply is supplied by catching roof rainwater and storing it in tanks.
There also seems to be a major drug issue in Australia. Both places I visited had syringe disposal containers in all the public toilets. There seemed to be a fair number of homeless and druggies on the streets and I even got a random torrent of abuse from a group of them while visiting St Kilda beach near Melbourne. Pretty much what you'd expect in a big city environment. It made me feel like I was back home in Glasgow. :)
So would I live in Australia? probably not. Would I work in Australia? Yes. There's an element of uncertainty about the drought situation and the cost of housing is so high in many parts that I'd probably have to get another mortgage when I got there. On the other hand, seasonal work in the mines looks quite appealing.
If you work in the UK and have been thinking about moving to Oz then keep in mind that you'd have to multiply your UK wage by about 2.5 to earn an equivalent level in Aus $. Talk of $35 an hour wages might sound good, but that's pretty close to the current UK rate for an approved spark. Ignore the agencies pushing and hyping the idea of emigration, they are businesses set up to make profit. If you like the idea of moving abroad then take a holiday there first and check it out for yourself.
Good trip though. Well recommended.
Firstly I stayed in Perth for eight nights. While there I met up with Squizzy, Zapman and Boyakasha for drinkies. Good bunch of guys. I enjoyed it. Special thanks to Squizzy who took me on a quick local tour before we headed back to his place and showed his kid how to turn a seemingly innocuous racing car toy into a high velocity projectile launcher. :D I was surprised to find that Boyakasha was well qualified in electronics. Hopefully we didn't bore Squizzy too much when the conversation momentarily turned to microcontroller programming languages and power driver circuitry.
Perth was good. Blazing sunshine with a sprinkling of rain and well spaced out and good for exploring on foot (but also with an excellent transport system and wide roads). For some reason Perth also seems popular with technical people. Quite a few of my online tech-head buddies are based there.
Then I moved over to Melbourne for eight nights and wasn't so impressed. The rain wind and hail didn't help much, but other than that it was a fairly typical bland grey city full of cliched cafes and restaurants. If you like drinking coffee all day or eating out, then it's probably fun, but I prefer other things. I did get to meet a side of the family I never thought I'd see and that was quite enjoyable.
Overall thoughts:-
Staying in Australia is not cheap. Despite the exchange rate being $2.3 to the pound the prices were simply 2.3 times higher so pound for pound there was little price difference. Alcohol in general seemed a lot more expensive whether bought in shops or in pubs.
The Australian culture is a strange mix of American and British. The supermarkets had a mixture of products from these two countries with a bias to bigger pack sizes like in the USA. There were a few brands where the logo was the same but the name had been changed, presumably for copyright reasons.
I get the feeling that like everywhere else in the world the property market is being manipulated to the serious detriment of the younger generation. In both Perth and Melbourne I discovered that some of my online buddies were still with their parents or living with friends in small groups since they couldn't afford their own house. It used to be that young Australians would traditionally go on a wanderlust round the globe before returning and settling down, but now I think they may be leaving Oz simply because they can't afford to live there. Western Australia seems to be particularly affected by this due to the boom in mineral mining and the short term wealth created as a result.
The Australian electrical system was a weird combination of the USA and UK systems. It had the simplicity of the UK 240/415 system but the outlets and switches were more in the style of the USA stuff with thin flat prongs on plugs that had a tendency to fall out of sockets easily. In both locations I noticed that the plugs often had to be jiggled to make a good connection in the sockets. Maybe this was just old hotel wiring. On the other hand maybe it's the reason my uncles previous house had burned down due to an electrical fire. The distribution system was very American looking. It had obviously been rattled up quickly to accommodate the sudden sprawling growth of the cities and I get the feeling that the guys spend a lot of their time fixing the work of their predecessors as a result.
Drought seems to be a bit of an issue in both parts I visited. I'm not sure if it's a climate change thing or if it's just due to the increase of the population, but there were warning posters suggesting ways to save water in both places I visited. I got the impression that in Melbourne they have been progressively draining their underground "water table" to the point they have suddenly realised that things are getting a bit grim. In my accommodation the point of the warning posters seemed futile since the toilet cisterns were rather huge and dumped gallons of water on each flush (no part flush), while the shower head was so enormous that it simply wouldn't work with anything less than a deluge! Perhaps they've just been a bit casual about water availability in the past and it's catching up with them. While visiting my Uncle and his family out in the countryside his young wife took us on a quick local drive and showed us dry reservoirs and gushing rivers within 30 minutes of each other by road!!! Their own water supply is supplied by catching roof rainwater and storing it in tanks.
There also seems to be a major drug issue in Australia. Both places I visited had syringe disposal containers in all the public toilets. There seemed to be a fair number of homeless and druggies on the streets and I even got a random torrent of abuse from a group of them while visiting St Kilda beach near Melbourne. Pretty much what you'd expect in a big city environment. It made me feel like I was back home in Glasgow. :)
So would I live in Australia? probably not. Would I work in Australia? Yes. There's an element of uncertainty about the drought situation and the cost of housing is so high in many parts that I'd probably have to get another mortgage when I got there. On the other hand, seasonal work in the mines looks quite appealing.
If you work in the UK and have been thinking about moving to Oz then keep in mind that you'd have to multiply your UK wage by about 2.5 to earn an equivalent level in Aus $. Talk of $35 an hour wages might sound good, but that's pretty close to the current UK rate for an approved spark. Ignore the agencies pushing and hyping the idea of emigration, they are businesses set up to make profit. If you like the idea of moving abroad then take a holiday there first and check it out for yourself.
Good trip though. Well recommended.