Right heres what I experienced and some advice.



I moved to Sydney with my wife for just over 2 years before returning. The plan was to move permanently but things just didn't work out. My wife is a Nurse also (albeit Australian) the working conditions for Nurses is better out there and there are plenty of jobs especially if she is prepared to be an agency nurse. As for your occupation I don't know much about retail but with any job be prepared to to be unemployed for at least 6 months and when I mean prepared I mean financially, you will need money, a fair bit of it, you need to factor in living costs for at least 6 months for both of you and one thing I can tell you is Australia is expensive, even more so with the current exchange rate, I see you mention Brisbane so that will be a little cheaper than where I moved but it will still seem expensive to you.



Your other half is right, you need to go before moving out there, it isn't England with sun, go have a good holiday, and as one poster said if you can't afford the pre emigration holiday I don't think you can afford to move.



Don't underestimate how much you will miss home, I was fine for 6 months as it was a honeymoon period but when you are just doing the normal daily grind, not having family and friends around you can be incredibly difficult.



But would I do it all again, yes, it was a fantastic experience, and luckily we did OK out of the exchange rate so it didn't really cost us anything in monetary terms, so my advice would be do it, but do it with your eyes wide open.



The process was fairly simple but thats because my wife is Australian but if you want to know more specific details PM me and Ill be happy to give you spme advice.

TBH Australia can hardly hold itself up as a beacon of equality

Indeed, one of my other reasons for not going, incredibly racist people.

Not all and certainly not in the cities.



I'm more embarrassed by some of my friends comments back home on fb then I ever hear out here.

My eldest daughter (26)moved on her own to Sydney in January this year and has absolutely no regrets. I speak to her via Skype every week and ask her the same question , "any regrets?" and the answer is always "no".

She was originally living at a place called Dee Why near Manly but has now moved further out to Gosford on the central Coast about 50 miles from Sydney as rental property was half the price of that in the Sydney area. Fortunatley she works from home and only goes into the office one day a week, which is about 40 miles away.



Whilst in the uk she had got into Rugby League reffing and now does that in the central Coast area (kids and teenagers games). It's been useful as she has made friends through this. And despite being a "pommie" woman does not get much grief from the sidelines. Far less than in the uk she says.



When she went she said she would not come home for two years to get over the 'homesickness' although we are going out to see her in August for three weeks and whilst there will attend my nephews wedding, he's been over there in downtown Sydney for six years now.



One thing that has helped Lucy is that she has bnot made her home and her life a shrine to England. If you're going assimilate into their way of life rather than remaining an Englander abroad. The only time she is allowed to be English/ British is when we play them at Rugby League.!

Give it a go. I'm 57 now and wish I had had the balls to do it.

I'm with Sheldon. I'd say I see and hear far less racism here in Brisbane than I used to in Leeds for example.



Aboriginal equality is a huge issue, and a lot of the current issues for Aborigines are indeed down to years of institutionalised racism. But successive governments have for some time tried to turn things around. Sadly a lot of the issues will not and cannot be solved by everybody 'stopping being racist'. In fact I'd argue that one of the biggest problems is the inability by some to view the problems in anything other than racial terms. Community isolation and remoteness, alcohol addiction, domestic violence, lack of education and opportunities will not be solved by everyone being treated equally.



As for moving overseas, I'd say the experience is completely personal. I miss lots of things from England - friends and family and a sort of connectedness to all things British, including and sometimes especially the rather naff stuff. But I wouldn't move back because my kids are Aussies, and to me work is work wherever you live.



But I've met Brits here who are more extreme than me in both directions - some who seemingly can't stand the place and want to go back to the UK ASAP (including one old couple who'd lived here for 40 years!), and others who started supporting Australia at sports the moment they got off the plane and are more Aussie than the Aussies.