Moving - Part 1

There's no going back now as the first stage of our move to Australia takes place today, as our worldly possessions leave the UK on a container ship, bound for Sydney. The Chastine Maersk* is due to depart from Southampton for the month's voyage, no doubt loaded with containers which should include the one that was loaded from our house the previous Friday.

We have used a relocation company called PSS to handle the move of our furniture and other goods - they took a day to pack and wrap everything up and then loaded onto the container ready for onward shipping. Everything was handled very smoothly and efficiently and then for the past week we have been getting used to sitting on borrowed garden chairs and sleeping on left behind mattresses.

This is reaching the culmination of a long process to get a visa for Australia and to try a new life 'down under'. Sue and I can't really remember a particular decision point when we decided to see if we could try the move, but it's probably been about 2 years since the process began in earnest.

Our first attempt to get a visa through the business skills route didn't get very far, but then my internet marketing business provided the opportunity to get a temporary business visa to set up a similar business in Australia. We met the criteria and went through the process, including getting sponsorship from the NSW State Govt after I had a meeting with them in April 2005 - at the same time as the whole family visited Sydney and Melbourne on a holiday / fact finding visit.

I had submitted the business proposal to the NSW Govt in June 2005 and got this approved by August, after which we had to pull all the information together for the full application to the Department of Immigration, which was submitted in October 2005. By January we were contacted and asked for some additional information, and then we were requested to get police and medical checks in February 2006.

After a number of further delays, we finally heard that the visa had been approved in May this year, so since then it's been 'all systems go' to get everything done and ready for the move. We now have just over 3 weeks to go before we follow out our possessions and fly off on 12th September.

Clive

* The container vessel Chastine Maersk, transporting our container of goods to Sydney (August - September 2006).