Day One: Admin

Brad has just one day off before he starts working and we had big plans for it.  We were to be up early for a walk on the beach before doing our 'chores' but only managed to drag our jet-lagged selves from our bed after midday!   So it was straight to the admin; bank accounts, phone sim cards, groceries...

Here's some useful info for anyone moving to Melbourne (the rest of you scroll down to the pretty pics)...

We opened our account with Commonwealth Bank.  For a regular current account there is a monthly fee of $6, this is wavered if a certain amount of money (like a salary) is deposited each month.   It also means that there are  no charges for things like counter withdrawals  replacing new cards etc, which I believe most banks will charge for.  All we needed to open the account was our passports and a billing address.

We both went with Vodafone for sim cards.  We're starting with Pay As You Go until we're settled.  The sim costs $2 and we topped up $30 each.  With the $30 we get $450 worth of credit and unlimited text messages within Australia.  We also get 500MB of data.  This all expires after 28 days.

We also signed up with Medicare, the equivalent of the UK's NHS.  This was really quick and easy.  We needed to fill in a short form and have our passports and drivers licence or NHS card.  We received temporary Medicare numbers and our cards are in the post.  Unlike the UK, you do not have to visit a doctor within your local area and if you're unhappy with the service you can chop and change until you find your own Doctor McDreamy.  I will post more information about the healthcare system and bulk billing once I've found and visited a doctors.

Last on the list was groceries - oh my word the prices!!!   Even arriving with Pounds did not prepare us for the price of anything in Australia, including groceries!  We shopped at the IGA Store as it was the closest.  We spent over $85 on just a few bits to get us through the next few days, including cereal, salad, bread milk etc.  Nothing extravagant at all!  We assumed they were a pricey store but when I did comparisons with Coles and Woolworths there wasn't much of a difference.  Locals say that its definitely cheaper to get your fresh produce from markets and your meats from the local butchers.  I hope it's cheaper because one red pepper in IGA cost nearly $3!

After an admin filled day we ended with a walk along the pier.  At sunset every evening the penguins all come back across the bay to their nests built among the rocks of the breakwater.  A really sweet sight until you notice the huge water rats that inhabit the same area!!

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