adelaide bound

Mazzab

Anyone advice on best website to book flights .... looking at skyscanner ... are bags checked straight through? And how does baggage allowance work?

Recommendations on where to stay in city centre - reasonable prices?

Finally advice on most important things to take in while on initial recce?
Cheers guys

RustySpoon

1 stop Dub --> Adelaide via Dubai with Emirates is the best flight option I have found. 22 ish hours in total. Bags checked through. Only about a 90 min stop in Dubai both ways.

Try airbnb or stayz for accommodation options, cost and availability depends on the time of year as the city is fairly full with fringe, festival & shows for Feb & March but quietens right down in the late autumn/winter. IMHO the nearer the city the better for starting out as everything is within reach on public transport or if you are hiring a car.

I didn't do a reccie, but things I would think would be importanat are job agencies, suburbs you might like to live in (do you want beach, hills. near city etc) and schools if you have kids - Also make sure you have fun and enjoy it.

woolymammoth

well i guess where are you coming from, when are you coming, what are you coming for, and what are your expectations?

You can use the ita matrix to get an indication of flights in or around certain dates.. but only take it as a guide. Often if you go direct to the airline then, it'll be cheaper, or they might have a sale on. Flight comparison sites often get you cheaper flights, presumably because of a deal with airlines. Usually 23 or 30 kg checked baggage, depends on the airline. Just ask to have tehm checked all the way through at Dublin airport. Best flights are via dubai - only one stop, short layover.

As for adelaaaide! public transport ain't very cheap, and is free within the cbd. So, depends on if you're coming for work or for fun on where you might want to stay. There's a few backpackers in the city. It hit 42.5 here today, but this place gets baltic in the winter (low of 3.6 last June, with bitey wind'n'rain!), which is sadly one of the reasons i like this place reminds me of living in the west of ireland but with a summer!

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/australia/south-australia/adelaide might be a good starting point for you. http://mapfrappe.com/ is a nice tool to figure out how big a place it, compared to a place you know (adelaide is not big). And http://maps.google.com.au/ has integrated public transport directions to help you figure out how to get around. Take the tram to get straight out to the beach!

best of luck on your trip!

Mazzab

Hi all the info above was a great help on recce in March thanks. Whats the employment situation currently in Adelaide? Did anyone ship over possessions and what company would you recommend?

woolymammoth

Mazzab wrote: »

Hi all the info above was a great help on recce in March thanks. Whats the employment situation currently in Adelaide? Did anyone ship over possessions and what company would you recommend?

Ah! March was awesome! my dad came over, we went tripping all over the place

What type of work are you in to? Seek and Career One are good to start, but might not show some local hospitality jobs if that's what you're looking at. Otherwise, you can look towards some recruitment agencies - Hays, Peoplebank, Talent, Hudson, just to name a few. Some are better than others depending on the industry, and the agent you get! When i migrated, all i brought was a backpack. I guess it depends on how much stuff you want to bring, and if you're confident enough that you'll get to stay and work, and how long you want to stay. I'd say do a search in this forum 'cos i'm sure it's been talked about before.

Mazzab

I am in admin in the entertainment and leisure industry and would love to stay in that industry. i have a Regional state sponsored visa and don't need employer to sponsor. have signed up with most of those agencies just today and also with seek - hoping something comes up before i fly. this visa is for 2 years until I can apply for PR and thereafter citizenship.

Any advice on reasonable short term accommodation?

Flights - think I am settling on Singapore.

Shipping - looking at maybe just storing all here and ship in a few years if I get to stay on and actually settle.

any advice on banking and health insurance?

Also was going to buy a new laptop here and bring as I need one or is it advisable to buy over there/


Thanks

woolymammoth

Mazzab wrote: »

I am in admin in the entertainment and leisure industry and would love to stay in that industry. i have a Regional state sponsored visa and don't need employer to sponsor. have signed up with most of those agencies just today and also with seek - hoping something comes up before i fly. this visa is for 2 years until I can apply for PR and thereafter citizenship.

Any advice on reasonable short term accommodation?

Flights - think I am settling on Singapore.

Shipping - looking at maybe just storing all here and ship in a few years if I get to stay on and actually settle.

any advice on banking and health insurance?

Also was going to buy a new laptop here and bring as I need one or is it advisable to buy over there/


Thanks

Well.. I have no idea about the Entertainment / leisure industry, but i think there's normally temp admin roles around. Agencies are very useful in getting you in somewhere. I always felt that once i had had one job, subsequent jobs were easier to come by. Adelaide is known as the biggest country town in the world, so if working in the cbd, it can be very easy to have either a good or bad reputation. Your recruitment agent can be crucial in getting you a lot of good roles, or one good long term job. You can also have a look at vacancies.sa.gov.au. It lists both internal only, as well as internal & externally available government roles. Both myself and my partner have had great success getting work through Hays.

Short term accommodation? Completely depends on you, and where you think might find work. try realestste.com.au first. I guess if you have no idea what you'll be doing immediately, stay close to CBD for ease of access to agents, interviews, and transport out of the city in any given direction, maybe use backpackers if cash is a priority. You can find cheap shared accommodation close to city - watch out for student accommodation though which also shows up as cheap on there, you won't get that. If you're looking at maps, that one's prolly 30-40 min walk from the centre of the cbd. There is some free public transport in the CBD also.

Flights and shipping, well that up to you.

Banking, I would say avoid ANZ, mainly 'cos ATM coverage is poor. I use MEBank, which has fee free ATM agreements with Westpac, St. George, and Bank SA. Those banks are part of the same group so have fee free access to a wider network of ATMs. Health Insurance is again up to you, just have to shop around for best price, but BUPA is still good. We use AHM at the moment.

Laptops are my area! but you would need to think about what you have to spend, and what you want from it then, to compare what kind of value for money you would get between euros in Ireland and dollars in Australia. Have a look at JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman, Officeworks, and MSY for any deals here. The benefit of buying in Aus is the consumer guarantees and warranty you'll have here if there's a problem with it. and having the proper plug :pac: If that's no concern to you and you get a better deal in ireland, then go for that.

Mazzab

Thanks a million - lots of food for thought - I never really considered the warranty issue with laptop - that is a very good thought. i currently have a HP and have it for at least 10 years - battery life obviously gone - needs to be plugged in all the time - maybe i should bring this and purchase a new one over there. would you recommend as external hard drive as best back up option. would you recommend an acer/ - anyone in particular - I would like a light weight i guess. Maybe you can help set it up for me when I purchase - so not good with techy stuff. i am getting either samsung galaxy s5 or note phone before i leave also

re accom - i was more wondering about short term accommodation until I get over to sort more longer term and jobs.

Have sent Hays my resume and will visit their offices on arrival.

Would you recommend NAB at all?

woolymammoth

Mazzab wrote: »

Thanks a million - lots of food for thought - I never really considered the warranty issue with laptop - that is a very good thought. i currently have a HP and have it for at least 10 years - battery life obviously gone - needs to be plugged in all the time - maybe i should bring this and purchase a new one over there. would you recommend as external hard drive as best back up option. would you recommend an acer/ - anyone in particular - I would like a light weight i guess. Maybe you can help set it up for me when I purchase - so not good with techy stuff. i am getting either samsung galaxy s5 or note phone before i leave also

re accom - i was more wondering about short term accommodation until I get over to sort more longer term and jobs.

Have sent Hays my resume and will visit their offices on arrival.

Would you recommend NAB at all?

just remember the consumer rights / warranty is federal law and applies to all goods bought in Australia, including mobile phones. ABC have a great sow called the Checkout. Have a look here and check out the extended warranties clip. It's important to know about, because if you buy a phone or something valuable in ireland that stops working, you'll need to fork out for a new one here. Australia's not a v. cheap place to live.

As for 10 year old computers, I had a HP compaq nc8320 until a few months ago which needed to be kept plugged in (and i work in ICT!). There's noting with old laptops if the operating system is optimised to run as well as it can on the hardware (i.e turn of any fancy windows 7 graphics), and they do what you want them to (office & internet). But as far as new laptop go, with windows 8 out of the box there's hardly anything you need help setting up! The only thing you might need to do is remove crap-ware from the computer. Can use PCDecrapifier for that.

just realised i pasted the wrong link for MSY earlier [t's http://cdn.msy.com.au/Parts/notebook.pdf]. HP, Acer, Asus, Lenovo, Dell, all good brands. But the internal parts are all the same, so don't be afraid of names you never heard of. Even top brands can have problems, hence your consumer warranty and guarantee. you need to consider what you have to spend, then the technology you can get for that, then how compact you want that technology to be. Compact, lowtech = less expensive. compact hightech = more expensive. External hard disks are great but you should never rely on them 100% - they can and do fail, but not often. If you have data you consider to be critical to you, use some secure online storage.

Don't know any short term accommodation, other than backpackers. You could post on the Adelaide Irish Connect fb page, someone on there might know a place. As for NAB, no better or worse than most banks i guess. My recommendation would be to see what the fees are, and how big their ATM network is. You'll get charged a couple of dollars for using an ATM that's not your own bank.

d.pop

Personally I would not buy anything new in Ireland before coming to Oz beyond some shorts....
As mentioned previously buying here gets you the warranty.
Some thing's you should do as soon as arriving or sooner.
Get a reliable postal address somewhere, you'll need it for all sorts of stuff.
Tax file number, get sorted if not already.
Open bank account from overseas so It's all ready to go, I use commonwealth and find them good.
Buy a cheap phone when you get here so you have an Aussie number. A pay as you go type but check what you need to do to carry number across later when you buy a good phone.
Get your drivers licence transferred across to an Aussie one ASAP.
You need to build a credit rating here so need to enter into a few contracts, telephone is a good one so maybe buy your Samsung or whatever on a plan, kill two birds with one stone?
Bring electronic and hard copies of everything " official", qualifications, cv's, college stuff etc. agencies will want as will your perspective employers.

woolymammoth

d.pop is right, and just to add to that;

• Open bank account from overseas .. - consider currency fair also for transferring money.
• Buy a cheap phone when you get here so you have an Aussie number .. - worth checking the current phone radio frequencies. If it compatible with available australian frequencies, just bring the phone (unlocked) and get a sim card.
• Get your drivers licence transferred across to an Aussie one ASAP - once you have an address. You can only update the address on your license so many times before you need a new license, but that no big deal, still useful to have as ID and everything. Check out sa.gov.au
• You need to build a credit rating here .. - not sure how necessary that it, but i can't discredit it.
• Bring electronic and hard copies of everything .. - absolutely.

d.pop

woolymammoth wrote: »

d.
[*]You need to build a credit rating here .. - not sure how necessary that it, but i can't discredit it.
[/LIST]

Just based on own experience, If you are a fairly new immigrant and going for any sort of finance like a car (with St George btw) you need to put down a hefty percentage as you would have no credit history. Think was about 35% at time. Depends on institution no doubt but no harm in having a few small good records building in the background. Can help with bigger loans down the road....

Mazzab

d.pop wrote: »

Just based on own experience, If you are a fairly new immigrant and going for any sort of finance like a car (with St George btw) you need to put down a hefty percentage as you would have no credit history. Think was about 35% at time. Depends on institution no doubt but no harm in having a few small good records building in the background. Can help with bigger loans down the road....

Thank you so much both of you. Just on techy stuff ... would you recommend a particular online storage ?

Also I wonder if I buy laptop here in harvey Norman would warrant cover me in aus then?

woolymammoth

Thank you so much both of you. Just on techy stuff ... would you recommend a particular online storage?

Are you with google, or microsoft? Google Drive is free for anyone with a Google account. OneDrive is free for anyone with a Microsoft account. Both are good, neither could be called highly secure, but still secure enough and that doesn't necessarily matter depending on what you're storing in there. Personally, I use Wuala, and that's not free. With Microsoft, you have the OneDrive storage, Outlook.com/.ie/.com.au email address / aliases, as well as online versions of Office. That last bit is v. useful if you buy a new PC without Office. You can also link a windows 8 computer to the account, they have android apps, etc. Google have their own versions of word editors, and other benefits. It's worth comparing them to see what suits you best.

Also I wonder if I buy laptop here in harvey Norman would warrant cover me in aus then?

I would say no. I imagine them being different corporate entities, and as operating in different jurisdictions would comply with different laws. To get warranty cover on a laptop bought in Ireland, you'd have to send it back.

Mazzab

I am with both google and microsoft - onedrive storage. I am just not very good with all the techy stuff as i say - which is why I was going to buy a laptop here and have a friend set it all up for me - with up to date office etc.

Looking at the HP and Acer online - would you have a preference? or what features to prioritise - it will be mostly for internet - don't store movies etc.

woolymammoth

Mazzab wrote: »

I am with both google and microsoft - onedrive storage. I am just not very good with all the techy stuff as i say - which is why I was going to buy a laptop here and have a friend set it all up for me - with up to date office etc.

Looking at the HP and Acer online - would you have a preference? or what features to prioritise - it will be mostly for internet - don't store movies etc.

no preference - just take into consideration the size + weight for what you want to spend. If you have a max. budget / $ figure, as well as some requirements, then i can give some direction. Otherwise, you just want to make sure you're happy with how it looks, that it's not too heavy for you, that it has a built-in webcam, how long the battery will last, and Windows 8 for the basics. MS Office can be a pricey extra unless you get it as part of a package deal for under $100, or go with subscription models for less than that but every year.

Mazzab

I would consider up to 600€ - not sure how that equates to dollars - cheaper if possible - want the best one so nothing ges wrong but not overly expensive - sorry for confused answer.

woolymammoth

Mazzab wrote: »

I would consider up to 600€ - not sure how that equates to dollars - cheaper if possible - want the best one so nothing ges wrong but not overly expensive - sorry for confused answer.

Using CurrencyFair rates as of today (1.4792), 600 yoyos would get ~$880

Everyone always wants the best of everything but sometimes you need to get what's just good enough, and that works. Like i said before, most of the innards are the same or similar, and normally very reliable, and buying locally means you can take it back if there is a problem. When the price goes up, what you pay for is usually processors that are faster (faster than you'll ever need, like owning a Formula 1 car to go shopping!), name brands, slimmer compact designs with more stuff packed in that you might never use, ultra low power technology, and memory like solid state disks. All cool high-tech stuff that you don't need to run Office or browse the internet - example 1: your current 10 year old laptop.

you haven't given any real direction. So, looking at something small, portable, lightweight, runs windows, will run Office if you buy it, will run any browser for internet access, will play movies and music, has a webcam for skype et. al., has HDMI to hook to a TV, has wifi, a touch screen (cool, sometimes useful for maps or fingerpainting , but ultimately not necessary), the Acer Aspire V3 112P is as good as any computer and comes in under $500 URL="http://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/acer-aspire-v3-112p-11-6-touchscreen-laptop-acv3111pc3"]Officeworks[/URL URL="https://www.jbhifi.com.au/computers-tablets/laptops/acer/acer-v3-112p-c2qq-11-touch-screen-notebook/612420/"]JB Hi-Fi[/URL URL="http://www.harveynorman.com.au/computers-tablets/computers/laptops/acer-aspire-v3-111p-c3ep-laptop.html"]Harvey Norman[/URL. Sometimes the shops will price match too if you like to haggle.

Based on that specification, you can then look around at other laptops in the same price or specification range to see if there's something else you like better. can even customise one of Dell.com.au, or go to the Dell aus outlet.

and, if you didn't know already;
https://hotspot.internode.on.net/partners/adelaidefree/
http://www.adelaidecitycouncil.com/explore-the-city/city-information/city-services/internet-and-wi-fi/
as with any free public wifi, the speed is pretty ordinary, but you'll be able to check FB and wot-not.

Mazzab

Acer Aspire V3 112P

€320 - works out about $470 - what you think - is this a good option as per specs?

woolymammoth

Mazzab wrote: »

Acer Aspire V3 112P

€320 - works out about $470 - what you think - is this a good option as per specs?

are you seeing that price in Ireland? I won't comment on price comparison back home, but Australian prices tend to be higher on many items (Australia tax). I'm not specifically recommending that PC, it's just an example of what you can get for the money. I forgot to include dick smith in my earlier posts, just for more comparison. You only need to think about what you have to spend, then what you really want from the computer, then what's the lowest price you can meet your requirements for. Most low level processors celerons, pentiums and some AMD processors are cheap enough and will still do Office & Internet stuff just fine.

I understand that many people just want to be told what to buy 'cos that's easier and less confusing, but it's your money, you should take an interest in what you're getting for your money. If you're happy something that's not literally lightning fast, you can get something even cheaper.

Mazzab

Hi Woolymammoth

Completely understand you would not like to commit a particular brand. I just don't have time to look around alot so really going on advice as I say I haven't a clue and appreciate your advice to date. Before Xmas I did have a list of top specs to look for in laptop and actually had the name of a HP and Acer which met those but i lost the info so basically back to square one.

woolymammoth

Completely understand you would not like to commit a particular brand.

awe.. it's not what you think! I have a ThinkPad. I paid a lot of money for it. I get my use out of it, i'm very happy with it, and would recommend lenovo in a heartbeat based on my experience. They're known for quality, but lots of people who bought them had heaps of issues. The point? even the most expensive computers can have more problems than something less than a quarter it's price tag. What's good for me isn't necessarily good for you, etc., etc.. and i don't want to tell you 'get this laptop', and then you curse me when you're not really happy with it Saying you "want the best one so nothing goes wrong but not overly expensive" just doesn't really mean much anymore.

I just don't have time to look around alot so really going on advice as I say I haven't a clue and appreciate your advice to date. Before Xmas I did have a list of top specs to look for in laptop and actually had the name of a HP and Acer which met those but i lost the info so basically back to square one.

I've had HPs, I've used dells, I know people who swear by toshiba, and people who have only good things to say about acer and asus. And i know other people who think the opposite. When you're on a budget, and all you want is something to run windows, use Office apps and access the internet, then pick up any cheap laptop in the $300-$500 range with Windows 8, a camera, and the screen size you're happy with and you're laughing. Spending much more than that to use Word, Excel, and the internet is a waste of money really.. All of the shops i mentioned previously have models out on display, so you can have a look up close to see how you like them!

seipeal1

Wooly,

Good on you. You go over and beyond providing good , Useful and relevant information to people considering migration to Adelaide. We may be heaps backward compared to Sydney and Melbourne but this country town remains defiant!!!!

woolymammoth wrote: »

awe.. it's not what you think! I have a ThinkPad. I paid a lot of money for it. I get my use out of it, i'm very happy with it, and would recommend lenovo in a heartbeat based on my experience. They're known for quality, but lots of people who bought them had heaps of issues. The point? even the most expensive computers can have more problems than something less than a quarter it's price tag. What's good for me isn't necessarily good for you, etc., etc.. and i don't want to tell you 'get this laptop', and then you curse me when you're not really happy with it Saying you "want the best one so nothing goes wrong but not overly expensive" just doesn't really mean much anymore.



I've had HPs, I've used dells, I know people who swear by toshiba, and people who have only good things to say about acer and asus. And i know other people who think the opposite. When you're on a budget, and all you want is something to run windows, use Office apps and access the internet, then pick up any cheap laptop in the $300-$500 range with Windows 8, a camera, and the screen size you're happy with and you're laughing. Spending much more than that to use Word, Excel, and the internet is a waste of money really.. All of the shops i mentioned previously have models out on display, so you can have a look up close to see how you like them!

woolymammoth

seipeal1 wrote: »

We may be heaps backward .. but this country town remains defiant!!!!

haha! Thanks seipeal! I literally lol'd when i read this though - spoken like a true Adelaidean, in that self deprecating but truely proud demeanour

Mazzab

Thanks People, Ye have bee very helpful.