Moving to Australia Part 14 – Arriving in Australia

Validating Your Visa.

Last week, you will recall, our worldly goods were loaded onto a container to begin their seaward journey toward the Port of Brisbane. I had my last pint(s) in an English pub and on Monday 12th of November 2007 we boarded our plane.

At 6:30 in the morning on Wednesday the 14th, local time of course, we set foot on Australian soil. Entering the country is the final act of your emigration process. The date stamp that customs enter onto your passport effectively validate your Visa.

That validation meant we were allowed to live and stay in Australia indefinitely. After four years here, we can apply for Australian citizenship. Wonderful.

And if arriving in a different country to live isn’t exciting enough, we were also about to see our brand new house for the very first time.

back garden Moving to Australia Part Fourteen
That’s the view from the back garden. Beautiful isn’t it? In fact the land it is on, the frontage and the location were all fantastic. Time to go inside and take a look. Had our gamble to buy our house on the Internet paid off?

18 sets of pink curtains, 14 sets of fluorescent lights, brown smoked glass stuck to the walls in three locations. Our first impression wasn’t good. Neither was our second and third impressions. In fact I believe my wife had gone into some kind of shock. I wanted to join her but I had a ton of decorating to do.

18 months ago if you had asked if buying a house on the Internet was a wise thing to do, you would probably have got an answer filled with ifs and buts. But today, with every wall and ceiling painted, every curtain removed, every light fitting replaced, a new bathroom suite and ensuite fitted and the kitchen fully refurbished, we love our home.

For us, the gamble has paid off.

So we were now living in Australia and we were in our new home. That must surely mark the end of the “Moving to Australia” series. Well, not quite. There’s one more episode to go and I’ll wrap that up next week.

To read this entire series from the start, please go to part one

For a full chronological list and brief description of all the posts in this series about how I moved to Australia, please visit my page How to Move to Australia.