Summing Up

With our trip back to the UK happening in just a few days time our immigration to Australia and integration into our Australian life is now pretty much complete.  It has been a long road to get here which started long before this blog.  You could even say meeting B over 8 years ago was the very first step on that path, but it was only in 2010 when idle talk and wishful thinking started to turn into more concrete planning.

Our first big decision was where abouts in Australia to move to, and for quite a while we seriously contemplated moving to Hobart in Tasmania.  Hobart is a relatively small and quiet city, located near the most southerly tip of Australia.  It is built between a natural harbour of the river Derwent and the looming peak of Mount Wellington, with plenty of national parkland located within the cities municipal area.  Practicality however lead us to the decision to chose Melbourne, a much bigger city, but a city we had contacts in, and where job opportunities were more abundant.

Before we spent too much time pondering over the city we wanted to live in I first had to obtain a visa, there were two options on how to go about this: firstly I could have tried to get a skilled migrant visa or secondly I could have gone for a partner visa.  In reality the choice was made for me as "Pharmacist" was removed from the official migration list of required professions, also getting a partner visa is supposedly quicker and cheaper.  Still the visa application was not cheap, and getting all the documents certified along with the necessary police and health checks added drastically to the cost of the process.  The biggest frustration however was not the cost, but the waiting, as those who have been following my blog from the beginning will surely have noticed.  Still it was all worth it in the end, and it even went better than I expected with my visa granting me permanent residency straight away.

So with my visa sorted I could officially live and work in Australia, but if I wanted to work as a pharmacist I would need to ensure my registration could be transferred.  The first time I went to Australia was in 2004, back when we still had a reciprocal agreement with Australia, where each country recognised the others registration.  By 2005 that agreement had ended, making the process a lot more complicated.  The whole process involved two main steps, the first with the APC to ensure my qualifications and clinical knowledge were up to scratch, and the second with the PBA to give me some practical experience and test my knowledge of pharmacy legislation.  The process is not quick or cheap and nearly 2 years after I started the ball rolling I am now officially registered as a pharmacist in Australia as well as the UK.  So that's 2 lots of registration fees to keep up with now.

While I was busy organising my visa and registration requirements, B was more interested in planning our big trip over to Australia, our initial plan was to take a detour through South America a continent neither of us had ever been to.  But flying around the world in an east to west direction turns out to be a lot more expensive than a west to east direction, so we finally settled on a route that would take us through South East Asia, allowing us to stop and spend some time with B's family too.  The final route went: London-Singapore-Bangkok-Krabi-Bangkok-Phnom Penh-Siem Reap-Vientiane-Hanoi-HoChiMinh City-Jakarta-Singapore-Melbourne.  The whole trip took around 2 months.

Once we knew how we were going to get to Australia, we had to figure out how to move all our stuff out to Australia with us.  For this we relied upon Pickfords, the same removals company B used when he first moved to the UK.  Big decisions had to be made as to what we would bring with us and what we wouldn't, and with several trips to the charity shops, donations to friends and a house clearing sale we managed to whittle down our possessions to a more manageable amount.  We were still however left with an extra bill from Pickfords for shipping more than we had originally been quoted for.  This delayed the departure of our shipment and meant it didn't arrive until 4 months after leaving the UK.  When it did arrive there were several breakages and one missing carton, for which we managed to claim a pitiful £500 back from the insurance.

When we arrived in Melbourne we had no Job and no where to live, and with only a weeks worth of accommodation booked in an overpriced hostel we felt a lot of pressure to get moving as quickly as possible.  Although at the time it all felt very stressful, looking back it is amazing how quickly we managed to find a house, and even finding a job turned out to be less trouble than expected, thanks in part to knowing the right people.  We had a few teething problems with our house at first getting the electricity and gas connected for one thing and finding our missing garage for another, but the gas and electricity are on, and we eventually found our rouge garage just in time to store our excess shipping.

The whole process of moving is not cheap, and thinking of the amount of money we budgeted for we managed to make it through relatively unscathed.

The basic cost of the move came to £6,821.37, this includes all the essentials including both visa and pharmacy applications and exams along with our flight to Melbourne and our shipping costs.  It does not include all the luxury bits (ie the flights and accommodation costs for our trip around Asia).  Added to this the costs involved with setting up our life in Australia once we got here and before we started earning money again came to approximately $10k, money we are only just beginning to recoup now that we are both earning again.  It is going to be a while before we have enough for a deposit on a house.

So here we are in Australia, we made it and in less than a weeks time we will be making the trip back to the UK (a more direct route this time), and seeing our friends and family again.  I think this trip is possibly going to be the hardest thing so far.  Going back to my old home in Bath, and yet knowing I don't live there any more is going to be tough as it was a good home for us and I have many fond memories of our time together there.  It is ironic that a trip back to the UK so perfectly marks the end to our emigration process.  It brings us about full circle I suppose, and marks a fitting end to the adventures, trials and tribulations that got us here.  So I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been there for us and supported us through this whole process, without who we would never have made it.

Adam