Our Story
Around 7 years ago, we were living in a beautiful village, in the south east of England. Ben made a suggestion one day that we move to Canada, to which Maz replied ‘NO!’, rather abruptly. All of Maz’s life she had dreamt of Australia (mainly because of watching Home and Away as a child!). But as time went on, the children were born, we settled down and that dream was forgotten. When Ben mentioned emigration, Maz jumped at the chance to show him Australia. He was apprehensive at first, as when he thought of Australia, he thought of the desert!
Not long after that conversation, we agreed to keep our minds open, and explore the idea of living in both countries… to be honest neither of us really were open minded, we were just secretly waiting for each other to cave in!
As Ben had agreed to keep an open mind to Australia, Maz booked a holiday there! In the days prior to the holiday, Maz had to work nightshifts and so hadn’t had time to sleep for three days by the time we got to the airport. As soon as we got on the plane, she fell asleep on a very large, hairy man (not Ben!) next to her, Ben said nothing, and enjoyed the flight to Dubai in peace!
On arrival in Brisbane, we picked up our rental car and borrowed a sat nav (which we named Bruce Bruce). We made our way down to The Phoenician in Broadbeach, where we stayed in a homely, large apartment with not just 1, but 3 balconys! We went shopping at the closest supermarket, and immediately freaked out - there was no way we could move here, everything was so expensive, we would be broke! For the first week of our trip, we were jet lagged, stressed and a bit snappy with each other. We decided that moving to Australia was not going to work for us. However, once the jet lag had worn off, we were back to our usual selves, and didn’t feel the pressure to make such a huge decision (as we thought we’d already made it!) things changed. As we enjoyed the rest of our trip, we fell in love with Australia, and we began to feel at home, so much so that we really didn't want to leave.
Back in the UK, we then found out what we needed to do to be able to move to Australia, and so we went balls to the wall and did it! A year and a half after our reccie trip, we got our visas. We received a phone call from our emigration agents at around 6.15am one morning, and by 7am we had booked flights, accomodation and rental cars. We flew out that same evening! It was rather a hectic day!
We have been living in Australia for 7 years now, and have not looked back. We love everything about where we are, and most of all, we love sharing our Aussie adventures with you!