Quoll

No idea, sorry. It wasnt something we were bothered with packing. Plenty of cleaning fluids in Australia!

The big medical centres tended to set up in high population areas so they could get the numbers churning through so country towns dont make it viable for them and country folk have to do the co-pay, if, indeed they can find a doctor at all! Canberra isnt that well endowed with bulk billing options - it used to be nigh on impossible to get a high needs person - like a drink/drug addict seen by a bulk biller and that was a bone of some contention amongst support services..

You may prefer it that way, but this is Australia and it wasn't designed to be that way. It wasn't until the big largely foreign owned medical centres arrived that the "bulk bill everyone" practice started and, from talking to folk who've been around a long while they're in the "churn them through and get them to come back repeatedly" market, so it's rather quantity than quality which counts for them. I'm sure someone has had a fabulous doctor at a big medical centre who has seen them and their kids through lifelong illnesses but that may be luck of the draw.. When they first started up around here, we were encouraged to go for after hours appointments on a locum arrangement. I must've been unlucky with the ones I encountered!

Havent got a net (yet) - this hat is impregnated with fly repellent which apparently lasts 70 domestic washes. Ah yes, I remember the 12 bloody apostles - never seen quite so many as I did that day but walking in the bush (or even the suburbs) around here is bad enough when you think they are trying to get into any and every orifice you've got! Before we moved to Australia we walked up the Pennine Way and there was one particularly bad fly day and my DH said "if you're ever going to live in Australia you're going to have to sort out that fly reaction you have". So I went to a psychiatrist, hoping for some hypnotherapy. His first question - yes, literally - was "how is your sex life" at that point I decided that I would just have to live with the damned flies!

It isnt means tested but it should be. Bulk billing was designed for people who could not afford to pay the co-payment.

Just bought a hat from Kathmandu which claims to be mozzie/fly repellent. From my limited use of it, it seems to work to keep the little buggers from buzzing around my head - WIN! Also bought one of those mozzie repellent bracelets - doesn't seem to stop something from buying my ankle though!

Knowing that you're not Robinson Crusoe really does help!

Continuity of care

I had hoped that might be the case. Both my parents are now dead and I have a son and grandson in U.K. - so much the same family situation as I had in UK with son and granddaughters here in Australia. I really thought - and hoped - that without the pull of my parents and associated guilt that I wasn't there for them, that Australia would become "home" but it hasn't. It's really ephemeral, I have no idea why I can't belong - I cannot rationalise it at all. I had a chat with a bloke in my last trip back over Christmas last year - he was a kiwi who had been here over 20 years - we both independently came to the conclusion that the colours are all wrong for us. The Sky is wrong, the clouds are wrong, the vegetation is wrong, its all just wrong and, unfortunately, rational thinking doesn't make it right. I did really think that without the pull of aged parents it might be different.

Equally we have seen so many instances where people have moved on to Britain and have wondered why the hell they didnt do it before. There's nothing magical about Australia, it's just another first world country with all the same first world problems that the rest of them have. It's very much luck of the draw - you either belong here or you dont but there is nothing to say that you HAVE to like it and belong. I might, once, have agreed with your other comment above about the choice of happiness - until it happened to me. I'd moved all over and I'd like to think I am essentially pragmatic and self sufficient but nothing prepared me for the hammer blow that exogenous depression landed on me. I woke up every morning determined to be happy - and I certainly faked it for years to all of my acquaintance - but it never happened, it most certainly wasnt something I chose - it took an enormous toll on my physical and mental health and I didnt realise just how bad it had become until I didn't feel that way any more. I know it is happening again and I am fighting it will all I have but, with the best will in the world, I would be hard pressed to say that I am much happier this time around.

Good luck to you! But your mental health really has to come first, you won't know how much better you feel until you don't feel this way any more. In guessing the best that you can hope for is that your son agrees to give it a go with the understanding that if it doesn't work for him he will be off again. Chances are you are going to end up in the other side of the world from one or both of your kids and that's the way it goes. It's not ideal but we grow them so they have wings and are capable of living their own lives. I've got one here and one there - the one who went to UK for a "holiday" almost 2 decades ago wouldn't come back for anything other than a holiday if you paid him!!! So you never know your luck, if your last is up for a bit of an adventure he may decide he quite like it but, as he said, it's his life. Good luck.

Yes, it was stressful, it was expensive, no pets, furniture got given away in 2 days or put on a skip, lost money on gym memberships, gave cars away, phone calls to utilities companies (made more difficult because there were POA to deal with). Probably wouldn't have moved if we had had jobs and lived in our own home but we didn't and the writing was on the wall back then. As it was I booked flights on 12 March and flew out on 15 March. Qantas flew reliably until towards the end of the month IIRC, fares weren't cheap either. We would have been homeless and stranded had we stayed as the house we were in was being sold.

Looks like a Blue Tongue/stumpy tail/shingleback to me (I think they are all the same!). Next time, ask it to stick its tongue out!

Thanks MR, didnt really need a reply but just in case anyone was wondering about MoveCubes. No idea how you get someone else to do it for you though - the process does take a little while because you do have to pack it all yourself and list everything in each box and submit your official forms to them before they pick up iirc. Next time it'll be Gumtree, Freecycle and a big skip!!!

It's never been universal free health care in Australia. The system was not designed for that, it was always a co-pay system with bulk billing for those who could not afford the co-payment and if that is now being reinforced then, good job! It always amazed me that migrating Poms seemed to think that you had to attend a bulk billing practice - it's not the NHS, never has been.

Back in March, the message was very loud and clear - get home now or risk being stuck. Cant say they weren't warned and sure, moving at the drop of a hat isnt easy but it was do-able back then. As for dual citizens - I am one and I think that if you are living in the country of your other citizenship and (in some cases, have been for some long time) then, no, it's not the government's priority to return you to Australia.

Belonging

Probably not. Her kids have a father I assume - he might not allow them to leave and they will have him as a relative. Best thing she could do is to train up to be something that might possibly lead her to a skilled visa in the future but that's a bit of a gamble these days when even nurses and teachers are a bit iffy.

Oh lucky you! It's a lovely place and, yes, very flat - you can get a bit of altitude if you walk/run/cycle up the Gogs (where the golf course and the iron age fort are) but it is definitely pancake country! We lived in a little village 5 miles to the south, on the train line to London and it was perfect albeit eyewateringly expensive. There are loads of nice little villages on the outskirts though and transport is imho quite good most of the time. If you're a cyclist then you're home and hosed, it's a very cycle oriented city.

Don't hold it in. I did that for a very long time and I didn't realise the damage it did to my health - both physical and mental - until I didn't feel that way any more (ended up back in UK for nearly 9 years). I know you don't want to introduce your exogenous depression (that's what homesickness really is!) into your family but if you are to survive the next decade or so you could probably do with a support network behind you. I'd like to think that if my OH was desperately unhappy about something that he'd talk to me about it then we could address the issue together - of course, I didn't talk to him about my despair back then because, I guess, I wanted to protect him and I'm a big strong woman I fight my own battles. However, it was better once it was out in the open. Initially we worked on a compromise situation which went part of the way to solving my problem but then when we went on holiday in 2011 for our son's wedding and he saw how vulnerable my parents were he suggested (and I jumped at the chance) that we should stay and care for them. We did that until March this year - mum died in 2017 and dad died in June, since we got back here so now I have nothing in Cambridge where I belong but we have one son and grandson in UK (son went on holiday and never came back) and one son and granddaughters here. I still want to be there, where I belong but it won't happen and I've just had the most fantastic 9 year sabbatical so I'm grateful for that. I'm trying really hard to like being here this time around but it just ain't happening. I wish you all the best because your situation is unenviable and hope that you take good care of yourself!

School based teacher training has never been accepted. Not sure how you get around that except maybe a University masters with enough hours of supervised practice in some speciality. Still, if you can get a visa based on your wife’s skills you could still get in. Not work in teaching though (but I wouldn’t be banking on getting a teaching job anyway).

How will the kids feel about being away from grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles? That’s the one thing that both my now adult sons have said they regretted about their isolated childhood. We did our best with regular visits and all but a 24 hour flight or a 12 hour car ride didn’t make them that frequent. You’ve still got a few years before you need to worry about the schooling thing.

Toss a coin and if the first thought that pops into your head when you see the answer is “best of 3” then you know your answer.

In some states it’s illegal to fit your own plugs (Qld from memory) otherwise do your own.

This!!!! As for the 15 year old girl - yr 9 girls can be b!tches from hell with established cliques, I hope she is lucky and doesnt fall foul of any of them but it's potentially a very uncomfortable age to be trying to get into a friendship group. Yrs 11 and 12 seem to be a bit more human and humane.