Our new adventure has started! And it’s taking place Down Under in
Perth, Australia.
Our previous post announced our imminent departure from Brazil but at
that time it was still uncertain where we would go next. In true engineering lastminute.com
style, it was only finalised in the last few days before we flew out of Vitoria.
We were interested to go East this time and were initially investigating
the Singapore and Vietnam, however, it was not possible for us to join those offices
at this time. Justin’s company then offered him a position in Perth, Western
Australia which we accepted after a few Skype interviews. It would appear as
though we only do continental relocations and are trying to live on every
continent! The current familial joke is that our next destination will be one
of the poles.
View of Perth CBD and East Perth from a park next to the Swan River at sunset
Sunset view of St George's Terrace in the city after a rainy afternoon
And then it was time to apply for a work visa. Our favourite part of
moving to a new country. Said no one ever.
We were apprehensive about all the paperwork and the visa process in
general since Australia has strict regulations and entry requirements. But we
had a real visa agency helping us this time which was a nice change and made a
huge difference to our visa application experience. They handled the entire
process for us and were very helpful and efficient. We were expecting the
application process to take 4-6 weeks but it only took 2 weeks from when the
application was filed to get a decision. We were seriously surprised and
impressed. We now have a four year temporary residence work visa for Australia!
We were quite amazed that it took a whole year to get a one year Brazilian work
visa but only 2 weeks to get a four year Australian work visa. That’s how it’s
done Brazil. Just saying.
The visas were approved while we were still on holiday in South Africa.
Fortunately we didn’t have to do too much visa admin on holiday, only have chest
x-rays taken which we squeezed in in Durban. Due to the timing of the approval we
tagged on a sneaky extra week of holiday and flew out on the second weekend of
August.
After hearing many horror stories of Australian Customs and Border
Protection we didn’t quite know what to expect once we landed in Perth. Overall,
all the airport processes were as OTT as we expected but at the same time smooth
and efficient; it only took 45-60 min from disembarking the plane to exiting
the airport. The passport officer was quite nar (a great not-quite-translatable
South African word describing a very unpleasant person), but everyone else was
very friendly and polite. The Border Protection guy only wanted to inspect our
wooden hippo (which passed) and check our shoes for soil contamination (good
thing I washed the soles before we left!) and we were on our way. Hopefully it
will be the same when our container of household goods arrives at customs.
The fire station in town
Justin's building on St George's Terrace
Statues of working men through the ages in front of the Amcom building
(the one Justin works in)
One of a cool series of kangaroo statues just down from the Amcom building on St George's Terrace
We thought this Migrants Memorial was a fitting pic for the blog!
We have been in Perth for almost two weeks and are enjoying our new city
so far. This is our third continental move in four and a half years so we know
the new person drill pretty well by now. We are surprised however that we don’t
have to register anywhere or obtain a residence permit card, our electronic
visa is sufficient for the duration our 4 year stay. Although we still have a
lot of things to work out and arrange, I feel much more oriented and comfortable
in the city than after the same amount of time in any of the other cities we
have lived in (especially Rotterdam, that place is a maze! I still get lost
there).
We arrived on a Sunday and Justin started work at his new office the
next day while Bron started tackling the list of admin, much aided by
everything being in English! The jet lag this time didn’t feel as bad as on previous
occasions, maybe our bodies are getting used to travelling and time zone crossings.
It’s the end of winter here but the weather is milder than we expected. The
past weekend was gloriously warm and sunny inbetween some rainy days so we took
advantage for exploring our new surroundings.
Exploring started at King’s Park, one of the world’s largest inner city
parks. At four square kilometres, King’s Park is bigger than Central Park in
New York (3.4 km2). Located on the western edge of Perth CBD, the
park has beautiful views of the Swan River and the city. The park is mixture of
grassed parkland, a botanical garden and natural bushland, and entry is free. The
park has numerous memorials, including a memorial to WWI and WWII, and Honour
Avenues, where the streets have been lined with eucalyptus trees and each tree
has a plaque honouring a fallen serviceman. We will definitely be back to
King’s Park for more outside time and hopefully many picnics but we suspect
that Kirstenbosch will remain our favourite botanical garden.
View of Perth CBD from King's Park
WWI Memorial in King's Park
(the WWI Memorial is on the other end of the paved path)
Pioneer Women's Memorial Fountain in King's Park
A patch of cosmos-like flowers in bloom
Bron nearly wet her pants when she almost stood on this guy!
He was so confident, he didn't run off when we approached and was happy to pose for pictures
From King’s Park we made our way to Fremantle by train. Fremantle was
the first area of Perth settled in 1829 and is situated at the mouth of the Swan
River and home to Western Australia’s largest and busiest cargo port. Referred
to as Freo by the locals, Fremantle has many attractions including the harbour,
markets, craft breweries, cruises of Swan River, ferries to Rottnest Island,
eating al fresco on the Cappuccino Strip, and much more.
From Fremantle train station we wandered down to the water’s edge via
the Cappuccino Strip and the popular markets. By this time we were starving and
decided we couldn’t go wrong with fish and chips at the harbour. Perth is known
as an expensive city and we are trying to get used to it and not convert
currencies too much but it’s hard when our one shared fish and chips costs the
same as four generous portions we recently had in SA! After our late lunch we
popped into one of the craft breweries to sample the local offerings while enjoying
the last rays of the day. Our way back to the station was via a street lined
with well-preserved convict-built colonial-era buildings, really beautiful! One
afternoon was clearly not enough time to enjoy everything on offer but it was a
good starter and we will definitely be back for more of Freo!
Our weekend of exploring also included a visit to the Perth Mint. The
Mint was established as part of Britain’s royal Mint in 1899 and was intended
to refine gold from the gold rushes and eastern gold mines which it still does
today. The main operations of the Mint have moved to near the airport but the
original building in the city still stands and has a gold exhibition and shop. The
centrepiece of the exhibition is a Guinness World Record one tonne gold coin.
At 80 cm wide and 12 cm deep with a value of $50 million, it is the largest and
most valuable coin in the world. We enjoyed our visit to the Mint and
especially the gold pouring demonstration; they turn the lights off so you can
see the liquid gold glowing, it’s really cool! We didn’t realise before that
Australia was such a gold producing country so it was an interesting visit.
Colonial era buildings in Fremantle
Cool street ending at the harbour in Fremantle
Statue outside the Perth Mint
For security reasons, no photos may be taken inside the Mint
During the week Justin had to go up the coast to Guilderton for a meeting
so Bron decided to join him. This was our first experience of driving (a rental
car) in Australia and of anything outside of Perth. Guilderton is a small town
a bit more than an hour North of Perth at the mouth of the Moore River. The
estuary and surrounding beaches is really beautiful; to give you an idea, the
town won a national award recently for its pristine beaches. We had the town
and beach to ourselves that day but I imagine it gets crazy busy during the
summer. We can report that the roads here are in good condition and people obey
the rules of the road. We didn’t see that much of the area from the highway
though, only lots of trees which was nice but we couldn’t get an idea of the
surrounding areas from that. We also saw our first Aussie sheep and cows and
kangaroo sign!
Boibs at Guilderton
The Moore River Estuary
Our first kangaroo road sign!
So far we are enjoying our new city and are looking forward to exploring
more of it and Western Australia. Even though Perth is the most isolated city
in the world, we think it will be a good base for us to travel from since it is
in the middle of Australia, New Zealand, and many interesting places in
Southeast Asia.
General first impressions: the people are friendly, even the cashier at
the supermarket asks how your day is going; the city is clean; public transport
is good and free in the inner city; you can buy rooibos tea and milo in the
supermarket (insert happiness here); the city feels modern, there is a lot of
art/statues around the city; we feel safe; lamb is cheaper than chicken and you
can buy kangaroo meat in the supermarket. More to follow soon!
South African holiday blog posts coming soon!!
