- Powershift
- Nov 23, 2009
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Just to lend my experiences, from other aus threads:
quote:I'm over here right now from canada, came here end of oct, i can offer some tips.
-Go there not expecting to find work, it can be tough, so worst case scenario you should be able to support yourself for the length of your stay.
-book hostels well in advance, especially in the busy season.(dec-feb)
-yha.com.au get a membership, it costs 32 for the year ,and will save you between $2 and $10/night, they have hostels everywhere, and are incredibly helpful for getting information on things to do and places to go, and a good place to meet people. it costs between $20-40 a night, internet is stupidly expensive on top of that. most of the places have some sort of cafe or bar in them.
-if you want to take a tour up the coast through ozexperience or the like, book it now.
-most hostels have job/rideshare/vehicle boards, but jobs are usually 1-2 day poo poo helping people move and the like
-seek.com.au and jobsearch.gov.au for jobs
-everything is more expensive. the actual exchange is about 0.9:1, the practical exchange is about 0.5:1 a meal that costs $10 in the US will cost $20 in australia.
-it can get very hot. I'm in adelaide right now, and a couple days ago it was 43*C(about 109*F)
i've been to sydney, melbourne, adelaide, next week i'm flying to brisbane for 5 days, gold coast for 4 days, sydney for 5 days, then back to canada to do something more productive. It's been fun so far, but incredibly expensive, you need to prepare yourself for that.
quote:I tried in Melbourne which is as far south as you can go, but it's just too drat big to settle down in without some serious cash. The city is like 75km wide, and even travelling 9km to look at an apartment took 50 minutes through the public transit system. a shared room is about 150/week. own bedroom in a flat share 200/week an hour+ away from downtown. 300/week anywhere close to downtown. Adelaide is further west, where i am now, and the job prospects are fairly slim. Unless you have a marketable skill(mine is driving, in canada i can drive anything but a motorcycle) that you can put to use, you're going to have trouble getting anything other than temporary/casual work. Perth out on the wast coast might have options, but that's a ways out. The place i'm staying in Adeliade is 125/week is about 4k from downtown and about 6k from the beach.
There are a lot of mines around adeliade, and south australia, but a number of them have had some major layoffs, so there's a lot of experienced competition for any open positions. Adelaide itself is somewhat depressing, around where i am there are a lot of companys out of business, the south side of downtown is somewhat rundown with a couple abandoned buildings and such.
I applied for a lot of IT stuff, having a backround and provable experience in it, but without a degree i might as well have been computer illiterate. driving is out, as nobody will insure me, being not only trained and licenced in another country, but being under 25. there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of general labour available.
Getting around australia can either be somewhat pricey or incredibly tedious. flights between cities are between $120-$150, busses are between 60-80, and take 10+ hours.
In the hostels, internet is either 0.75-$1/15 minutes, $15/day, $30/3 days, or $50/7 days, is basically dial-up speeds, and you will pretty much need it. to plan routes on the public transit, plane tickets, job hunting, apartment hunting. A week in sydney central YHA with internet is $309, and you still have to feed yourself. you can burn through $2000/month pretty easy just sitting around. there are always tours and stuff to go on, but once again, $$$.
Sydney is awesome, but drat expensive. the train from the airport to the city costs $15. they have the worlds biggest imax in darling harbour, but tickets are like $30/person. going to the top of sydney tower was like $25. the little stuff can hack away at your finances pretty quick. I stayed at Sydney central YHA when i first got there, it's on the south end of downtown, you can walk to pretty much everything. When i go back i'll be staying at YHA the rocks, right along sydney harbour, which is supposed to be pretty awesome.
Melbourne is less touristy, but still has tons of stuff to do. the aquarium, eureka tower, maritime museum, tons of bars, like 800 asian food places downtown. the melbourne central YHA is awesome, right on the corner of downtown, close to everything. there's a bar on the ground floor with $10 pitchers of beer(an awesome deal, trust me), and $5 pizzas monday-thursday. the melbourne metro YHA is also awesome, you can see all of downtown from the roof. it's a little further out, but if you ever figure out melbournes public tranist, you'll be able to find your way around.
Adeliade is smaller, a little slower paced. melbourne and sydney are about 4 million people each, adelaide is about 1 million people. far less tourists than melbourne or sydney. cheaper housing and food and such, fewer job prospects, but less of a chance the job will be 3 hours away on public transit.
i'll be going to brisbane and gold coast, and back to sydney for a bit, and will be able to give you a better idea of what those areas are like then.
edit: also, the flight over is a bitch, 14.5 hours from LA, i flew from calgary, i left at 11am tuesday, and got there 7am thursday. being 6'9 the flights were uncomfortable as hell too. This time of year you can almost gaurantee you're getting off a flight that long with a cold as well. the flight back is awesome though, as i will be TRAVELING BACK IN TIME! well not really. the plane leaves here at 3pm, and gets to LA at 9am the same day. they will serve lunch then breakfast. in fact, i get to calgary at 4pm the same day after almost 19 hours in planes/airports.
Also, you should add http://jobsearch.gov.au/default.aspx to the OP under jobs.
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