once again i seem to be the only one in the family who isn't having doubts :rolleyes:

so what mum wants to know is, does anyone have any regrets about going to adelaide??

deep down she wants to be in perth, which doesn't really help. but we are also in the financial position that it would be hard for us to come back to the uk if we had to.

so does anyone want to share?

kim

Hi Kista

Definitely no regrets about coming to Australia :D If you'd have asked me 6 months ago then it would have been a different answer.

Our original choice was Perth so sometimes I do wonder what might have been especcially now as some of our friends are moving there from Adelaide and also my brother will be moving there next year but we're here for a few more years at least now so trying hard not to wonder "what if".

We were in the same situation - once here we couldn't afford to go back which is a good position to be in really as if we had then we would have been back by now and I am so glad we didn't (hope that makes sense).

Hope this helps your mum

Jo

I suspect you may only get responses from those who don't have any regrets. The ones who do either keep quiet to avoid the abuse you sometimes get if you're not happy here / don't like it, or they just don't come on the site anymore for the same reason.

Personally, I have a lot of regrets. If I could turn the clock back knowing what I know now, I wouldn't come to Adelaide.

Sorry, probably not what you want to hear.

Mandy :(

Hiya

No regrets from us.. albeit we may move, Adelaide has been a good starting point for us.

BUT.. I know of too many people who want to be in Perth, but cannot get there, so they come to Adelaide & they dont like it coz it just doesnt live up to it.

Good luck :)

K

Early days for us too but same as Mandy I reckon, `if I knew then what I know now I`d av stayed put aswell`,,the grass is not always greener! but for now we have to stay and give it our best! different breed altogether over here ;)

DEBBIE

HI,

absolutely no regrets...but there have been times where we have thought 'what have we done?'
This has mainly been during hard times...like my teenager not settling, matthew being ill etc....

We are not financially better off....we will struggle here like we did in england, but when we start to wonder if we've done the right thing...we take time out to remember why we left england in the first place.

lorraine

Kista, if your mom wants to be in Perth, then I'm assuming you're coming to Adelaide because you don't have a choice. You might find that it suits your lifestyle perfectly, you might not... whichever way, you only have to be here for 4 years (on SIR visa, less on other sponsored ones), then you guys can move wherever you want... in the greater scheme of things, that's not really very long at all...

We have no regrets about coming to Australia, to us the city in which we have ended up living is virtually irrelevant. There's no way we'll be going back to either the UK or South Africa...

we picked Adelaide for lots of reasons, the main one my brother has lived here for years and we have friends here from when we starting visiting in 2000 and since we've moved permanently.

This week a girl I've just met from my home town is going back again. They have family here and her in laws came with them. However, she lost her brother just 6 months ago, her mum died of cancer and she's in remission from cancer as well. Her husbands old boss has given him his old job back with better money and she misses her dad who is 75.

Now this got me thinking again about living here. I was prepared to come to Australia for a better life style, which we haven't got, to be financially better off, which we are not, to have an outdoors lifesytle, which you can when its not too hot or it isn't raining. To travel round Australia, which is difficult because flights are so bloody expensive. To give the kids a better life, thats a tricky one, I don't really rate the education here and my main objective is to stay to give them Aussie passports knowing in the long run they will probably leave us to go back to the Uk and Europe anyway.

If i'd have known all the things I know now, I would never have come here to live and the way I feel at the moment I'd get on the plane tomorrow and go back.

Theres lots of good points to Adelaide and if you've got to come here because thats the only visa you can get then come, there's enough to keep you occupied while you "do your time".

sorry to be a bit depressing but its a bad week for Jo.

Jo

This pretty much sums it up for me too.

Mandy

thanx for the honesty!!!

we kinda suspected all the things that have been said, but we had to hear it for certain i guess. only porblem is now mum is worrying if we should be going to perth :doh: . but we are on an SIR visa and were told we could gonly go to adelaide.

it gives us more to think about now, so thanx for all the replies :D

kim

I wonder if now is the right time to ask people if they regret moving out here....the reason being, we arrived four months ago in the height of summer. Everyone was having barbies, people were taking their kids to the beach after school and generally speaking people seemed in good spirits.

Now we are approaching Autumn it is cool and wet and the mood has changed, noticeabley so with the Brits I have come to know.

I am not saying I am having regrets, but I can see what makes people more nostalgic about UK at this time of year. We are living in rented accommodation (we left a lovely house in England), I am finding my feet in a new job (I left a secure job back in England), now we have not seen family and friends for a while, I think about them more often. We go out with umbrellas (back in England it is up in the twenties).

It would be easy to get rather down and I can see why people get on a plane and go back at this stage, but I ask myself if I went back, would it be as I imagine? I picture sunny days in the garden, beer gardens in quaint country pubs, castles, big family get togethers......but in reality, everyday life in England is not like that, just like everyday life in Oz is not like a scene off Neighbours.

Some people have very rational and real reasons for wanting to return to UK - but I wonder how many people return THINKING it is what they want, until they have been back for six months - and then wish they hadn't.

Sally

QUOTE (Duckers @ May 8 2006, 05:14 PM)
We go out with umbrellas (back in England it is up in the twenties).




You can't guarantee the weather anywhere. We are now nearing the middle of May and it is pouring down where I am (UK) and it's not even warm. We all wore coats on the walk to school.
I have a childrens party organised for this coming Saturday, :sign03: for a bit of good weather.

Deb

It seems to me that most who have replied on this thread are not saying they want to return to the UK.

Most seem to be saying that they would like, or wish they had, moved to somewhere other than Adelaide.

G

to be honest, nice weather will be a bonus, and not the deciding reason for where we go. it was sunny on friday, and now it's peeing it down. so i'm used to the crap weather already!!!

we just want a better life. yes, we might not be better off money-wise, but if we stay here it isn't going to change, i won't be able to get on the property ladder over here because i can't afford it, it may be different there, it may not. the weather may be crap a lot of the time, so we're unable to do much, but there really is sod all to do here, that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

we just want the oppourtunity, and we have removed the rose-tinted specs.

i hope that made sense, i'm still half asleep!!!!!

kim

Hi ,
We dont regret coming to Adelaide, but we've given it a fair go (18 months) and we have decided its not the place for us. The reasons being much the same as other members have already said in their replies. Plus the beers so bloody expensive !
Think you should give it a go though , 18 months have flown by , we have had some good times here , and made some good friends.
We've not given up on Australia and are in the process of deciding where to go next. Perths in the back of our minds too.
We had friends visiting from the UK at xmas, they did a tour from Cairns down to Sydney, then spent a week in Adelaide with us . After 2 days they had nicknamed the place " Oddelaide "...... That just about sums it up !
:68:

Yes, I think I did wander off the thread a little.......:-)

Kim,

I posted a thread one day last week asking people how they would compare Adelaide to Perth and got some interesting replies.

I THINK it was called Adelaide or Perth - a comparison. (or something like that!)

It strikes me that each state has its merits and pitfalls, although I can only speak from limited personal experience.

There is a similar website to this one called Poms in Perth, that may give you a fresh perpsective.

Sally

We have no regrets. I can see why peole are a bit low at the moment and I'd be lying if I said I can't see why .... The weather is shocking at the moment and I am freezing most of the time! We are arrived last year mid winter and were really pleased by how mild it was, although I was really cold even then, but if you arrive in the summer it would be a real shock.

But right through last winter you had a week or so of grim weather and then there is a week or so of really nice weather. Last August we had a lovely day whale watching and it was lovely and warm, same with the Adelaide show in September, when we got a bit of sunburn!

We still own our UK house and so aren't tied to Adelaide, I think constantly about buying (I hate renting) but in another sense the fact we haven't bought leaves us free-er. In 2 and a half years we will have our Australian citizenship and I'll have finished my degree, Callum will also be just about to start high school. That'll be when we decide if we are staying or going to move on (in Australia, not back to the UK).. It is way too early to see how we will feel so far into the future .. Australia is so huge and diverse, in one sense it is a shame to limit yourself to one place.

But as I said definitely no regrets, we might move on, but I severely doubt that that would be back to the UK! There are pros and cons to moving here, it probably depends a lot on what you want to get from it, as it isn't paradise, and you will need to work hard to get the life you want.

Nikki
xx

Nowhere is perfect and it's very easy to fall into the 'grass in greener' mentality - especially when the weather takes a turn as it has here recently. However, I wonder if those who have been here a while keep up with what's happening in the UK? I realise they give a very one-sided view, but have you read the international papers recently? Just one example, John Prescott gets stripped of his ministerial role for being a cheating lying b**tard, but still gets to keep the salary and two 'grace and favour' properties that go with the job! How corrupt is that! Made me realise that you really don't hear that sort of thing very often in Aussie politics. And have you missed reading about the Beckhams every single day in the papers? A friend is in the UK at the moment, and has noticed how miserable everyone seems there, how run-down places seem (ok, this is probably because there are places with a bit of history which we don't get, but do we appreciate that when we're in the UK?) and how no-one takes the time to chat. We're hoping to take a holiday back to the UK this year - hopefully we'll have been here long enough then to appreciate that all the things that made us dissatisfied in the UK haven't changed. I wouldn't say I'm 100% happy here, and still miss my friends like mad, but I don't think that's about whether I'm in Perth or Adelaide, it's about whether I am in my old comfortable rut, or my new, still breaking-it-in-to-fit-properly one.

If you've made the decision to leave your home-country and make a new start elsewhere, I think the actual destination is incidental - if you can't make a new start here, I don't see how things would be different making a new start elsewhere. At the end of the day, the decision is do you want to leave the UK or don't you? If you do, and Adelaide is where you can get in, then best of luck, by all means come in with your eyes open, but if you're not happy don't blame it on the place.

we definately want to leave the uk!!! apart from family and friends, there's nothing here for us anymore. we love our house, but the area is getting worse by the day. last week some teenagers (younger than me) knicked a car and crashed it into the front garden a couple of doors along. there's also a druggie living on the same road. we don't want reece growing up in that environment.

don't get me started on the government, because i could sit here and b*tch for hours about how stupid it is. :angry:

i'm dreading leaving everyone, we all are, but i'm not going to sit in a country i hate for the rest of my life think 'what if.....' because i was too scared to leave a few people. a lot has happened in the last year, i've lost a few people close to me, and it's made me think really hard about where i will be in a few years time. i might not still be friends with those people, we might have all moved away, i probably won't be with my boyfriend (if we last til next month i'll be shocked!!), those family members might have moved away, or, god forbid, have passed on. i wanted to travel to oz in my gap year anyway, so i'm just doing it a bit different.

It is a bit desperate to start knocking the UK isn't it?

The original question was about regrets moving to Adelaide, Not about moving to Australia.

Do you really think that there is no crime, vandalism or 'dodgy' politicians in Adelaide?

G

we know that we will get that there, but those are some of the reasons we just want o get away. we can't move anywhere else in britain, so we've chosen adelaide. don't get me wrong, we really do want to go, but mum was having one of her doubting days and it was left up to me to get some re-assurance.

funny enough i was going put my thoughts about that, but i didn't bother as it would be a waste of time.

So are you reassured?

It seems that, with hindsight or opportunity, many people would have chosen a destination other than Adelaide.

G

not particularly no, but i've tried to explain to her that it's each to their own, and that we might have a different experience to everyone else.

kim

I don't regret moving to Adelaide one bit, I get paid more, do less work, work less hours, get more holidays, live in a nice area and luckily its the same for my partner. I reckon it doesn't matter where you live that makes you happy, its your working life that determines it. Just say Perth/Brisbane for instance was 100 times nicer than Adelaide but all of above was the opposite then I'd never dream of moving there. My plan was to move to Adelaide to get citizenship then look around Australia but I've shelved that plan. Whats the point in moving if I've got to work longer hours and have to pay more bills?

few people have the former, most have limited amounts of the latter, and therein lies the problem!

I'm under no illusions, a good honest politician I am sure is the exception rather than the rule, the world over. And there are good people and bad people everywhere.

I think though that of those that are unhappy in Adelaide, the biggest factor is probably missing friends, family and familiarity and that's going to be the same wherever in Australia you are. It is very easy to forget why you wanted to leave in the first place. You could move every couple of years seeking utopia, but everywhere is going to have negatives as well as positives - it's just how the different factors affect you personally.

Kim, I don't think I'm the only one thinking that some of the most sensible posts in this thread are the ones by you ... jeez, I hope my daughter ends up as level-headed as you!

Catwithclaws, I couldn't have put it better myself ... ne'er a truer word was spoken! Love the breaking-it-in analogy! :D

lol, cheers annette!!!

exactly diane, that's the way i'm trying to look at it, but convincing my mum to look at it the same way is proving to be a bit trickier.

kim

We do not regret moving to SA, Kangaroo island to be precise. We weren't particulay in debt in Uk or have it bad, had standard 3bed both worked etc...but thought Oz would be a good move and for us it was.....

However!........ i agree the weather is shocking at mo...but it is winter...and yes its hotter in UK but we are not in tropical north so we will get crap weather but its not for 6 months +, my mum is still here from UK and shes laughing still saying when am i going back!!, im not!.

We came here for alot of reasons and have no regrest, there are things that are taking time to get use to shall i say but there are also more things that are bloody great, but what can i expect for moving all this way...a new life, different culture, have to have an open mind and soak it all up then decide after giving it time.

We are in rental and not feeling "comfortable"....(especially as we have no haeting :68: ) and i have probably almost decided that KI is not for me or my kids (for those keeping up )(i think hubby would stay though) but we are all in agreement that we are seeing QLD in august and may well move around, i did want warmer weather so that is a big factor, i could go on as there are so many other reasons, but i would say SA is a good as place as any to make your start!.

good luck.tan.x

thanx tan. i think it's just going to be a case of where we feel comfortable, and seeing as we can only go to south australia at first, it's a good place to start!!!

This is quite an interesting thread that has not deteriorated as it had the potential to do.

This question has become very relevant to me recently.

I don't live in Adelaide but have spent a lot more time there than many who post on here.

It would not have been my preferred destination as I like the Northern NSW coast and have been offered some interesting opportunities there. However my wife and I had planned to move to Adelaide later this year.

The reason for this is because my son lives in Adelaide and it seemed most logical to move to where we had connections.

However, on speaking to my son recently, it has become very clear that he does not really like living in Adelaide and would move back to Brisbane in a heartbeat.
He originally moved to Adelaide from Sydney because his company wanted him to work on a particular project. In order to get him to move they offered him a big six figure salary to move (he now knows why).
He has now bought a house in Adelaide, has a big mortgage, and has a girlfriend who is from Adelaide. He has a good lifestyle but it does not compare , in his opinion, to Brisbane.
The reasons he has stayed is partly because to keep the same salary he would need to go back to Sydney, which he does not want or take a big pay cut to go elsewhere. He is also professionally committed as he is heading up a major engineering project and this is his career (before anyone says there is more to life than work).

He will see out this project but then I suspect he will move to Brisbane.

This has now thrown our plans as I see no point in moving to Adelaide if he is somewhere else. I would add that I like Adelaide as a city but it lacks something for me....not sure what.

We had got used to the idea and were looking forward to it.....we now have to start again with a new plan

Hence I have been giving this some thought.

Sorry for the long post.

G

thanx guys, your comments have been really helpful!!!!

kim

Hi Kim,

My comments are really more like Annettes, I have read many of your posts and must congratulate your Mum on having such a lovely bright and intelligent daughter who is sensible well beyond her years. :love29:

I am sure that if your family are meant to be here you can make it work, as long as you are under no illusions. It seems that you all already know it won`t be a bed of roses, so good luck with the move.

Ann :D

I regret taking the pleasure of young grandsons away from grandparents. They will have many other opportunities here that they wouldn't have had without this adventure Lachlan has real difficulty remembering who's who with aunts and uncles and cousins, whereas most of my nieces and nephews are older teenagers and can remember the relationship we shared making it easier to continue via e-mail and webcam etc.
gils

You don't have to come to Adelaide tho do you?

You can go anywhere in South Australia on your Visa, how about Mount Gambia or a bit further inland. I think Rob Morton-Jones was looking at Ceduna before they decided on Queensland. How about spreading the search a bit.

sorry for my post yesterday, I was feeling a bit blue.

Jo

thanx ann, i'm blushing now!!! mum agrees with you though.

jo- we don't want to be too far away from the main city, as i want to be somewhere where i can get a job, go shopping on a saturday and be a teenager really.

kim

Regrets on Adelaide- No

Regrets on Australia- yes

We've been here 3 and a bit months now and I have just got a job, renting a nice ( but cold!) house so everything should be peachy. But the last week I have been REALLY down, not sleeping, eating, stomach cramps the whole lot. I can't at the present time see us staying more than a year (and thats finacial due to the import duties on taking new stuff back into the UK and breaking the rental lease).
We moved for a better life for my family, but I think thats wrong, we moved for finacial/ materialistic reasons but did'nt realise it at the time. At the moment i just can't see how it can be better for family life if none of the family are here. All our parents are now getting on and in one case ill, when there time comes there's no way after all they've done for me am I going to be on the other side of the world.

Think hard

Graham.

Sounds like there are a few dissatisfied customers? We have been here 8 months. Never been anywhere but my home town (literally, first flight etc.)

We have taken a long time to settle past the finding house, shops, schools etc - fortunately had a job to come to, which has been the only factor in staying so long.

Hubby and son particularly had a terrible time and like you Graham sufferred physical symptoms, I would say he had a bit of a nervous breakdown. This had an extreme negative affect on my son who became a nervous wreck.

There are many times when we wanted to go home mainly because we have 2 older kids there. We miss family but when something goes wrong in their lives and the way they deal with it reminds me of one of the reasons we came - we felt life was passing us by and in a major rut.

There are some lovely places in Adelaide but SA is a big place and each community is very different.

I love the work despite it's differences to uk and the pretty c :sign53: p support network with the sponsors. I get payed more as I am no longer on a set wage regardless of the type of shift.

Regrets of moving to Australia - no

Regrets of moving to Adelaide - no - it's a good base to learn the ropes but we are only just gaining this mind set.

Regrets of being swept along with all the hype (and we did stay realistic as best we could and researched) It was generally advertised very differently to what it actually is - forgetting of course SA is a big place and not just Adelaide, I think we got the 2 confused a bit.

Would love to visit perth and will, just to have something to compare with.

IMO if you have to come to Adelaide do so but keep an open mind and if it doesn't suit use it as a base to experience Australia as a whole. Some need more time than others - I do not recommend a knee jerk reaction to the place. We would have regretted not trying it more than trying and not liking.

Never thought I 'd hear myself say that

we don\'t want to leave family- i\'m leaving my dad and his side, my mum is leaving her elderly and frail parents, my step-dad is leaving his dad. but they might not be hear in a few years time, so all of them have told us to go for it and not miss the oppourtunity to have a good life.

not sure if this is relevant....

my partner and I looked into Oz a few months ago, and found out that we could only got into Adeliade. We then started the process with vetassess. However, after the vast amount of research we've done, we have become very concerned if adeliade is the right move or not.

it's not what we'll miss that's worrying us, but what we're going to in terms of jobs and city life - in fact the only positive comments I've read about adeliade is from this site and the SA site itself. Other Oz's i've spoken to are very down on it.

We are now seriously considering Auckland in NZ instead.... and are looking into what is involved for that, feeling the job opportunites are going to be much better for us. We know it won't be as hot, but the standard of living seems very high.