Hi All

I thought we would share our experiences of Adelaide with you all, now that we are back in the UK. :sigh:

We arrived on the 26th November, we stayed for 3 weeks at my cousins Donna & Darren's house in Andrews Farm (YES the NORTH) ;)
Upon the first things we noticed was how CLEAN the place is! There's hardly any litter anywhere! Although very tired, we tried to stay awake as long as possible as all my side of the family whom I hadn't seen since I was 11 were there to meet us, plus their children - it really was wonderful!
Within 3 days, Mike knew his way around in the hire car. Unfortunately, I have a terrible sense of direction and I would still get lost! :doh:

We went looking at new build houses in the North and got lots and lots of information. We found that new houses and land vary in price considerably from builder to builder. There was no haggling us in any way, just really friendly people offering as much advice as you could wish for if you wanted it.

The shopping centres were excellent. Clean, friendly, not even busy compared to the Uk, considering it was a few weeks before xmas...
Cleland Wildlife Park is definately worth a visit - we all had our pics took with the koala's. :sign61:

And we had to go to the museum so that our youngest who's 8 could see a red back spider! He was looking for one day and night, (I wasn't :68: ) and as Donna said, it's very rare that you see one! They are not at all what I imagined. I expected to see this huge thing ready to attack and it was a lot smaller. The guy in the museum said that unless you irritate them, they wont bother you at all! The kids went to Donna's son's school for a look around - no complaints there either.

We also went to visit friends who moved to Hallet Cove 2 years ago, and that was excellent too! Excellent hosts! Thankyou Jane & Mark! :yeehah: Beach, Swimming Pool, Barbies for breakfast with rump steak etc! The south is lovely too, although we found a huge differences in house prices from North to South.

We were really excited when we got a call from our agent whilst we where there to say that Mike had passed the TRA! And then the estate agent phoned to say that contracts had exchanged on the house, all in 1 day, what more could you ask for!

We were not happy as it drew nearer to us having to return home, and if we could have stayed - we definately would! Adelaide in our short time there was excellent. Loads of sports activities too for the kids! (They wanted to stay too!) We can't wait to return and have today submitted the visa application for the agent to send. :sign03:

Although we have had a nice christmas here at home with Mikes parents, whom we are now living with, as the house sale has now completed, we feel that we are definately doing the right thing for us and the children. We are glad that we did the trip as for us it has confirmed everything we were unsure of.

I'll leave it there as I'm sure I've waffled long enough......

Thanks everyone

Jo & Mike ;)

Hi Jo & Mike

Thanks for such a positive post :yeehah:

We fly out on Sunday and the bubbling excitement is really kicking in now so sharing your thoughts has come at a fab time for us :bouncy:

Some friends ouf ours went to Perth on October and have said that once they had gotten over the initial jetlag and started to come round , they knew why they had done it in the first place so :sign03:

Congrats on the TRA and house sale and good luck with your visa application

Babs :D

Thanks for the informative post.
What areas/suburbs of the North did you visit? For some reason we are drawn to the north.
Lynne

Hi Lynne

We visited quite a few areas all over, but we were really spoilt for choice. Andrews Farm seemed nice, rather quiet but there is a lot of developments planned there. We saw Salisbury, Munno Para, Elizabeth, Gawler, and lots of other areas, no complaints about any of them. We can't decide between North and South now, as we liked both. :doh: I think we will end up renting somewhere first, and then take it from there.

Good luck for your move, hope all goes well! :bouncy: :dance: :sign61: :happy45: :sign03: :sign03:

Hopefully, we'll see you on the other side soon!

Jo

Hi Jo & Mike
Great positive post, Looks like you fell in love with Adelaide the same as us. We have everything in place to go, Just one big Stumbling Block. The HOUSE to sell :doh:
Just a long waiting game. So you guys are lucky to have that head start.
Good luck with the application

Keith :sign60: :sign60: