RS Grant

Today a friend asked me if I'd like to take a year out in Australia with her.. rather random, but I am extremely tempted. I visited in 2000 for a month and loved the place, she knew this and it seems like a great opportunity to satisfy the burning urge that I've had to return to the place after I left.

Plan is to head over, travel/work on the East Coast for a year.

Has anyone done this before, I'm needing to look into the plan of action because the last thing I want to do is to pay for flights etc.. get over there and be stuck without a job or an idea about what to do.

Things that I know I'll need (but no idea about how to get) are:

- Work Visa
- £2000 in a Bank Account (This is sorted)
- Cheap/Reasonable Accomodation
- Basic Jobs

Web-links, General Info, Advice, etc... will all be greatly appreciated!!


Cheers,
Grant

ryn004

Why would you need accomodation if you are staying with your friend?

If you type in "australian job search" in google you would have a nice list of jobs to go through. The best is to send emails from there.

If you log onto www.jobsearch.gov.au, which is a government site you should find something that would help you about the work visa issue.

Enjoy the cars and the women, when you get there!!

GC8

The visa will be difficult unless youre young enough to get a working holiday visa.


Simon

GC8

An electronic visa will only allow you to stay for up to three months and not work at all. If youre caught as an overstayer then youll be deported and prohibited from entering for three years; and you have to be checked by immigration on exit so its likely too...

RS Grant

I am going across to Australia with my friend who lives over here in Scotland just now.

I'm only 22.. so would hope I qualify for a Young Persons Working Visa.


Cheers,
Grant

SlimJ_2005

Hi Grant,

I feel fully qualified to give you as much info as you need to know as I spent 2004 out there, and what an awesome time we had!

1. Visa's

This is the site you need to look at, http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/visiting_whm.htm You can apply for a visa directly through the site, it was $165 when I did mine, can't see a price at the moment. Beware of travel businesses saying they can do it for you, theres no need and will cost you a fair bit.

If you work for 3 months in agriculture (more than likely tbh!) you can apply for another 1 year visa, if only I had known I would've made more effort to work out there for more than a week!!


2. £2000

Not necessary, they never ask you to prove it. As long as you have a return air ticket they are ok.


3. Accommodation

Hostels range from $10 to $30 per night depending on where you are and the season. We camped a lot as we were driving round the country and saved a lot this way, we also stayed with an Aussie family for 3 weeks in Perth which saved us $$$.


4. Jobs

Don't go thinking you can land any job you want because of a qualification you may have, employers aren't too interested in people only working for 3 months. Some people are lucky and land a decent job and end up getting sponsored, but don't hold your hopes too high!

Best things you can do is probably farm work or bar work, it may not sound too great but your likely to work with other back packers then travel on with them perhaps. I worked in a place called Kununurra for a week, just corn detasling, not a great job but was out in the hot sun all day with some great people!


Other things I can recommend, if your out there for a year, please please PLEASE don't spend all your time on the East Coast, your missing out on what Australia is about. You need to head to the outback of the Northern Territory, or right over to Western Australia to experience the best!!

If you get the chance, Tasmania is very much worth a visit!

A car is a good way of seeing the whole country quite cheaply, worth considering.

Links to check out.

http://www.immi.gov.au/
http://www.westernaustralia.com - Check out the interactive tour section, theres some vids!

A personal site I threw up, covers Tas, NT and Queensland at the mo!
http://www.jamesmprince.f2s.com/australia/


I think you should go, if theres a burning urge then you need to do something otherwise it will continue burning and you will never forgive yourself if you don't go! I was the same, took 5 years and a job loss to finally say 'sod it, lets go!'

Only problem I have now is I want to go travelling again and see a few other places, Canada and New Zealand for starters, in fact I want to go back to Oz to do the bits I missed... bugger!!

Anyway, hope this has helped you, anything else just let us know!

James

GC8

When my younger brother went he did have to include original bank statements when he applied for his WH Visa...

Simon

King RA

I'm currently looking at going out there this year myself. I thought that you needed 5k in an account, not 2k???

Also I was planning on buying a scooby out there thinking they are cheaper. This is not the case, they are actually slightly dearer than here.

Use www.google.com.au when searching for stuff.

SlimJ_2005

I can't quite remember that, but I didn't have to show anything when validating my visa in Oz.

Even if you have less than the required amount, you can easily get £2k transferred to your account, get a bank statement then transfer the money back, they wouldn't know

RS Grant

WOW!!!

Thankyou for the info James, those links are REALLY useful. Already downloaded forms etc..

I know what you're saying about needing to satisfy the burning urge, I know I'd regret it if I didnt do anything about it.. Will end up being 30 and realising that I've missed my chance.

About buying a car, what are the prices of cars like over there?? Something like your Falcon Estate would be spot on.. also, insurance, fuel, etc. Dont want to buy a car, then be unable to run it!!

KingRA, I think that its $5k Aus rather than £5k Sterling.. Or at least, I hope so!!


Cheers,
Grant

Freak

If i remember correctly, on the working visa you can only stay in each job for a max of something like 12 weeks.
I know a few people that have done it- bar work is very easy to come by apparantly.

I seem to remember it was 5k stirling too- not 2k

mightyyid

Buying a car is easy but do not forget that you pay a tax to the government both when you buy and sell a car - and this is common knowledge for all Australians so they forget to tell you. I bought a number when I lived there for 2.5 years, and I always forgot - which can be a **** on the expensive cars (and as for the person who said Scooby's are more expensive, this is not true - but of course it depends on the exchange rate. I bought mine new in 2000 and it was about £4,000 cheaper). Now, they are about the same price but that's simply down to rate changes.

As for cars, there are plenty. Big engine beast (Falcon and Commondores) are plentiful, last a long time due to their unstressed nature and easy and cheap to get parts for. Not the best cars but who cares. Fuel is way cheaper so you'll not worry about that like you do here. Insurance (make sure you take proof of your no claims, if any, from the UK as most will accept it - they call it rating xx , with Rating 1 being full no claims, and so on). Bought my new Scooby and then a Porsche on my UK license so no worries about that and even got some finance on the Porsche on my visa so it's all possible.

Easy to drive as well. Melbourne to Sydney is about 8-9 hours. 2 days up to Cairns area - again, I know this as we own a house on the Great Barrier Reef (well, not literally, they'd be pissed off) and we drove a car from Melbourne up there before we moved back to the UK). Top area.

Have fun - ask away as there seem to be a few people who have lived there... Andy

Cool Chick

It was only last night that I finally made a definate decision and have decided to go travelling! Spent ages on the net last night, but didnt really know where to start.....Come on here this morning and Slim J you're a genius! lol

It's something that I've wanted to do for a while now, and have no real ties at home to keep me from not going. Only problem is, is that I have a great job which I love that I will have to give up to go. But i suppose there will always be a reason not to go, so I've decided to take the bull by the horns and start saving! Thanks for all the info.

SlimJ_2005

Thanks for the thanks guys, I'm honestly pleased to be sharing any info I have picked up!

About the car, we got the Falcon from a garage in Melbourne for about $4000 and thats with the Roadworthy certificate (equivelant of an MOT) and the Rego (tax), worth $500 alone! I think they had to spend a few hundred on the car to get it through the roadworthy.

We had a few problems with the car but nothing that couldnt be fixed and nothing that caused us to break down. We had to have a new fuel pump, exhaust, tyres along the way, but we accounted for any expenses before we got the car just so they didn't suprise us!! lol Air con also broke before we got to the hot parts, but as we were hard core we didn't get it fixed!

Insurance, you are covered 3rd party on the rego, entirely up to you if you want to get anymore insurance, but we didn't worry.

Fuel, the falcons are 4.0 6 cylinder, so tend to be a bit thirsty! We had autogas so was getting gas for about 40c in some places and doing 350-400km to a tank. I think with about 70 litres of petrol as well, we were able to get a range of 1000-1200km's, so quite a long way through outback areas (fill up in populated areas, its cheaper!)

Tickets or fines, we got a parking fine but were told by people to ignore it, they won't chase you up as it would cost them too much


Cool Chick
I had a fairly ok job but was looking to go travelling anyway, and thinking about handing my notice in at some point, but I got called into the managers office and they said they wanted to either make me redundant with a nice package or offer me a different job (crap!) for the same money... now what would you choose!! It just made the desicion to go, much clearer in my mind!

oh, if you get the chance to go diving, check out exmouth and coral bay in Western Australia, theres some pristine dive sites there. Some of the GBR is over dived now and damaged, to see the good stuff you have to get on some more expensive trips (Mike Ball or Taka) but these can also take you out to Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea (it's awesome! Sharks everywhere!!)

Anything else, fire away!

James