Moving to Brisbane

Me and my best friend are moving to Brisbane for (at least) 6 months. I will be working as a nurse, hopefully at the Royal Children's Hospital, and my friend will likely be working in the CBD. Any suggestions on the best community/suburb to look for a place to rent? What about insurance. do we just get travel insurance or arrange for some type of insurance when we arrive? Is it easy to buy a cheap used car?

To add to my friend's post.personally I need some help finding a job. Not like my nurse best friend who could get a job anywhere

I am a recently graduated Bachelor of Commerce graduate with my concentration in Petroleum Land Management. I have worked here in Calgary in the industry for almost 5 years now but have experience in everything from HR, Accounting, Auditing, Purchasing and of course Land Management.

I would love to work in the Aussie Oil Industry (preferably in the Landholder Advisor type role.but I'll take anything) but I dont know where to start.can anyone give me some advice?

First off what kind of visa are you both coming on? If you're coming on a working holiday visa it may be difficult to find good professional employment since you can only work for someone for at most 6 months, and would definitely be gone by the end of the year. Employers for professional occupations generally look for their employees to stay for a while. If you have difficulty finding work then you might want to look at temping for agencies.

The nurse however could find sponsorship for a 457 temp visa quite easily, if she/he doesn't already.

There aren't that many oil companies here, so finding work in that specific industry might be tough. You might want to just start looking for mining related work.

My husband does however work in Brisbane for a company in oil shale exploration. No idea what they need for employees though because he's in the mining department.
http://www.qer.com.au/index.php?option= ... &Itemid=53

It's worth checking though. Other than that you'll just have to look in the papers.
http://www.seek.com.au
http://www.careerone.com.au/

You'd be unlikely to find a job before you arrive because you're out of the country. Even with a permanent visa and a job in demand (mining engineer) no one would look at my husband until we arrived in the country.

As far as where to live goes it's hard to say. The closer you are to the city the more expensive it will be. Although commuting to work would be easier and shorter from closer in.

You can find an rentals here. Prices are quoted by the week.
http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rs ... &t=ren&cu=
There's also a tab for shared accomadation. Most rentals seem to want a term of 1 year, although occassionaly they do have shorter terms. Then you'd need furniture as well, we do have ikea though!

So if you're only staying for 6 months then I'd probably look for shared accomadation, it'd be cheaper and there's a better chance of finding a furnished place. I would also suggest checking with Backpacker places or other backpacker related info sites as they quite often have notices for people looking for roomates, etc.

You can see all the suburbs on here, just search for Brisbane and then have a look at all the suburbs surrounding it.
www.whereis.com.au

If you choose to live farther out then try to be near a train line, or look up the bus routes. You haven't really mentioned how far you're prepared to commute or how much you want to spend. Also what kind of area do you want to be in, city or farther out?

As far as health coverage that again depends on the visa. If you have permanent resident visa you'd be covered for free by Medicare. If you are on a temp or holiday visa then you'd have nothing. I'd arrange for travel cover before you leave Canada (for about a month), and then try and arrange visitors cover once you get here through one of the private health care companies (like Medibak Private). It is expensive though!


For car rentals there are lots of used care places, same as Canada. Finding a cheap car would be tougher, although as long as you expect an older more used car then you should be fine.

Here's just one link for a used car site. It should give you a good idea of what to expect for your money. Remember to convert your money as well so you know what you have to spend in AU dollars not CDN.
http://carsguide.news.com.au/

Here are some Backpacker sites as well (just the top few I found on a Google search)
http://www.backpackaround.com.au/
http://www.backpackersworld.com.au/

I am currently in discussions with a company to move to Brisbane area and work. I work in the oil and gas industry. Any suggestions on moving with a family of 3 and what areas are good to live in. My wife and daughter will be alone for two weeks at a time so any areas where there is close transportation and things to keep family occupied would be a help? I will be moving from northern Alberta.

Hi bigoildog,

Are you moving from Fort McMurray? We moved from Fort McMurray to Brisbane back in 2007, although we're back in Canada now. We absolutely loved Australia (and Brisbane) and I would live there again in a heart beat. The move back was pretty much always the plan for the beginning (we only planned to go for about 2-3 years or so).

Anyway, where you decide to settle will probably more depend on your budget. We lived in the Bayside area which is technically south east of Brisbane and not really part of Brisbane at all. We loved that area and found it quieter and more family oriented than closer in to the city. If you check the real estate listings you'll find the closer you get to the city centre the more expensive it is. If you are going to be flying out to work in the mines then you'd probably want to be within an hour to the Brisbane airport, although you might be able to fly out of the Gold Coast airport as well (you'd have to check).

We found that from where we lived there was plenty to do within an hours drive. Surfers Paradise on the gold coast was about an hour away (plus Seaworld) and the theme parks (whitewater world, movie world, wet n'wild) were about 40 minutes away. You can get cheap yearly passes as residents as well. About an hour or so north of where we lived was the Australia Zoo (Steve Irwin's). There aren't many real beaches within Brisbane itself but South Bank (just across from the city centre) has a nice man made beach and some parks for the kids. We were a 30 minute drive to Southbank. There's also Stradbroke Island just off the Bayside area which has a nice beach and a regular ferry across.

There's plenty of suburbs of Brisbane (over 200 I think!) as Brisbane itself is really just what we would call the downtown area (they call it the CBD). So you've lots too choose from. We choose Brisbane because it did seem very family oriented and we didn't want to be too close to the city. Also, the property was cheaper out there. We lived in Capalaba which was a cheaper part of Bayside and we though it was great, although most prefer the areas a bit closer to the water. If you're selling a house in Fort McMurray then you'll be able to get something decent there.

The other reason we chose the Bayside area is because I had read a lot of favourable comments about it from another message board I follow and I know that it has quite a few people from the UK that move there, so meeting people was a bit easier.

Have you sorted out visas yet (permanent, temp?) Also, are you shipping your things?

Feel free to ask loads of questions, I remember planning the move over and having piles of questions.

thnaks for the info COMET555. I am moving from Grande Prairie and will be renting due to the term of living in AUS will be on a year by year basis. The company will subsidise my flights from Brisbane to the Roma area where I willl be working mostly. Would it be nicer to live south of Brisbane toward Gold Coast and also we probably would want a furnished place so not to have too much stuff when planning to move back to Canada. Our visas would be permanent but not going to ship too much over.
I have a daughter who is only 3 at the time so schooling is not a huge deal yet but where is a good place to be for little ones. Also my wife would like to live in a area that has younger families?

I have tons of more questions but just a bit at a time

thanks

Hi Comet555 & Bigoildog,
I was excited to eavesdrop on your blog conversation. I am (we are) currently in Fort Saint John, and my husband is looking at opportunities in both Brisbane and Adelaide (in - you guessed it - Oil & Gas).
Since you are/were both Northern Canadian neighbours it was good to read what you had to say. I am putting the cart ahead of the horse a little, given that we are just starting to look now, and it appears that you aren't even "considered" for work until you are in the country.
My husband is a mechanical engineer in a management position and has been talking with headhunters about positions down there. If you have any thoughts on working with a headhunter down there, I would love to hear it. He has put forward some CVs directly to some companies, but closing dates are just this week, so I suspect it will be a while before we heard anything (good bad or otherwise) for a while.
However, if something does happen, I imagine it would happen quickly so I would like to be prepared. (I am a typical girl and like to do all the research long before it is necessary)
1) Do either of you know what a container would cost (ball park) to ship from Northern BC (or AB) to Brisbane?
2) I have heard it is very expensive to bring a pet along, (we have a medium size dog) and that the quarantine process is somewhere between 30 days and 6 months. And that the quarantine is an additional $30/day. Does this sound right?
3) We are also a family of three (yup, we also have a young daughter, she will be 3 in April) so I might just follow along on your blog posts with respect to good places to live for families,etc, if thats ok.
4) Last question off the top of my head, if my husband does get a job and gets his visa sorted out, will I also be eligible to work there, or would I have to apply for my own visa (I currently run my own business and just freelance, but I am not sure if that is allowed down there)
Thats it for now. Thanks, it was great reading about 2 "someones" in such similar circumstances. Good luck to you on your way down, and welcome back to the one that has returned!

I can answer two of those! We just moved to Brisbane from Edmonton....be very careful when shipping a container. There are tonnes of extra charges when you arrive here - namely a $600 charge just to take the container off the ship, and another $1200 to move it somewhere else and have them unpack it (something you cannot do yourself), plued customs duties....our shipping agent in Canada knew nothing of the first two charges....

We brought our two dogs as well. Quarantine was 30 days, but there were 5 months of blood tests and vaccines before they could be shipped. Quarantine was about $1000 a dog, flights were....$6900 for both dogs. One of the tests also, is about $500 a dog. Money well spent though, couldn't have done it without them!

Thank you SacredlyProfane!
Very useful - wow, It is more expensive to bring our dog than our daughter!
And I figured the containers were expensive (~8-10K) but I was unaware of the "after charges" will keep that in mind. Do you recall ball park how big your container was and what that cost was (did you buy the container and pay to have it shipped? Or just have it done as a service?)
Thanks again!

Our container was a 20ft, and it cost $4900 CAD, plus GST, then all the extra charges...in hindsight, there was a company called Crown Relocation who were more expensive but did door to door, which would have meant no surprise charges! All up it was probably 8k to bring our things, including two dirtbikes...we did use a shipper, not completely impressed with them due to the no warning about the extra charges here!
Yup! It would have been cheaper to bring kids!!