17 replies to this topic

[Daviesgang]

Hi there,

My husband of 14 years, our 3 sons aged from 9-17, our Staffordshire Bull Terrier, 3 indoor cats and 2 and grey galahs are seriously considering making the move to Tasmania for the purpose of improving our quality of life, with the added bonus of getting rid of our mortgage at the same time.

We currently live 10kms from the city of Perth, on a main road, and it is causing our youngest son a lot of grief with his asthma. We are hoping to find some fresher air and a lot less traffic to help our son breathe easier, which in turns lets us breathe easier as well.

I currently have about 4 million and 3 questions that I could ask about what areas are good and bad and what is and isn't available in Tassie, but I think I will read myself blind on here for a few days and see if a lot of my questions can be answered without me having to hassle everyone by asking questions that have already been answered in the past.

My husband and I are planning on coming over for about 7 days at the beginning of March to have a drive around and look at the different areas so we have an idea of where to start seriously looking.

If we find a house for the right price, we were thinking that rather than lunking everything from one side of Australia to the other and costing us a small fortune, we will sell most of our rather aged and pretty much all secondhand stuff and buy everything new again in Tasmania and do our little bit to help the local economy, while improving our quality of life at the same time. We are even planning on buying new secondhand cars when we get there rather than bringing our landcruiser and hyundai excelwith us, due to the cost of transporting the cars. It will pretty much be ourselves, the kids, the animals, one aviary, one large china cabinet, some books, photos, ornaments, our computers and our clothes and linen.

I look forward to meeting some people that are thinking of making the move, some that have already done so, and some that have never left Tassie in their lives and that know all the lovely little secrets that make learning about a new area so much fun.

I am so excited....... Sasha

[Mystic]

Hi Sasha, and welcome. Love your avatar

Good luck with everything ahead of you, and I hope you find what you are looking for. The air down here is definitely cleaner than it would be near any major city on the mainland. There are also plenty of rural areas on the fringes of any of the cities here, within easy driving distance.

Do you have any ideas about locations, or the kinds of things you would need in your area?

Just a thought, if you kept the landcruiser and did not mind driving to Melbourne, you could pack the things you plan on keeping in the back of it and bring it over on the ferry, saving any transport costs on the gear. Second hand cars can be fairly cheap down here, but because there are no inspections for registration, you do need to be careful when buying one.

If you can't find your answers, feel free to ask. Look forward to seeing you around.

[Shane V]

Hi Sasha and welcome aboard Have a good look around and if you do have other questions please don't hesitate to ask.

[seachangegirl]

Daviesgang, on 27 January 2011 - 01:59 AM, said:

Hi there,

My husband of 14 years, our 3 sons aged from 9-17, our Staffordshire Bull Terrier, 3 indoor cats and 2 and grey galahs are seriously considering making the move to Tasmania for the purpose of improving our quality of life, with the added bonus of getting rid of our mortgage at the same time.

We currently live 10kms from the city of Perth, on a main road, and it is causing our youngest son a lot of grief with his asthma. We are hoping to find some fresher air and a lot less traffic to help our son breathe easier, which in turns lets us breathe easier as well.

I currently have about 4 million and 3 questions that I could ask about what areas are good and bad and what is and isn't available in Tassie, but I think I will read myself blind on here for a few days and see if a lot of my questions can be answered without me having to hassle everyone by asking questions that have already been answered in the past.

My husband and I are planning on coming over for about 7 days at the beginning of March to have a drive around and look at the different areas so we have an idea of where to start seriously looking.

If we find a house for the right price, we were thinking that rather than lunking everything from one side of Australia to the other and costing us a small fortune, we will sell most of our rather aged and pretty much all secondhand stuff and buy everything new again in Tasmania and do our little bit to help the local economy, while improving our quality of life at the same time. We are even planning on buying new secondhand cars when we get there rather than bringing our landcruiser and hyundai excelwith us, due to the cost of transporting the cars. It will pretty much be ourselves, the kids, the animals, one aviary, one large china cabinet, some books, photos, ornaments, our computers and our clothes and linen.

I look forward to meeting some people that are thinking of making the move, some that have already done so, and some that have never left Tassie in their lives and that know all the lovely little secrets that make learning about a new area so much fun.

I am so excited....... Sasha

Hi Sasha and family,
I am also new to this website and thinking of moving to Tassie from Victoria. Good luck!

Jenny

[dave]

Hello, welcome to the forum!

[Daviesgang]

Thank you for the lovely welcoming replies...it is so nice to find a friendly and informative forum.


Mystic...my avatar is very fitting...trust me.

We are still at the deciding stage as to whether just sell up and move now or leave it until the end of the year so as to not mess with our kids schooling. I realise that it will probably have to be the end of the year option, but it really sucks when I have already seen a house that I like and it is well within our price range. It is doing my head in because I used to think every payment into our mortgage was another step closer to owning our house, whereas now I just see it as another $1300 every month that we could be saving rather than sinking into the mortgage on a house we are going to sell anyway.

Without ever having set foot on Tasmanian soil I am saying, at this point in time, that we want to stay around the Hobart area. Within a hundred kms I am thinking. Only because we need a hospital nearby due to my youngest having life threatening peanut allergy. He stopped breathing when they did the allergy testing and the hospital has said they have never had a child so allergic as my son is :-( We will need a primary and high school but we prefer to be closer to the high school as my younest only has 2 years left of primary school. We are hoping we can find somewhere within a commutable distance of a Tafe college as well because my husband and I are looking at doing some courses in the near future.

We are thinking of getting rid of both of our cars because we have been having problems with the landcruiser for a couple of years now and as much I love the driving it she is getting to be a handicap rather than a benefit. We no longer need the 8 seats as my husbands kids have left home so now we only have our 3 instead of the 5 we have between us so we want to downsize to a sedan and save money on fuel. Our little hyundai has so many kms on the clock that instead of telling us how many kms it has done it just says "you couldn't handle the truth"...lol.

Also after looking into the cost of transporting the cars over to Melbourne it was just going to be cheaper and easier to sell them and buy another car when we get to Tassie. We also won't have to mess around with changing the rego over to the tasmanian one if we buy over there. My dad who would be moving with us is a mechanic so he will be able to check any cars we are thinking of buying so I think we will be ok there. Thanks for the warning though Mystic.

I have seen a house that I really like in Geeveston that is cheaper than what we have budgeted for which would make the move so much easier for us as we could get rid of pretty much everything here in Perth, and then only bring a few things that we can't part with and save ourselves a fortune in removalist costs, and then I get the bonus of being able to buy all new stuff for the new house and it also has the added bonus of supporting our new local community as well.

One thing I have a question about immediately though is the gas bottles. I see a lot of houses have these...it is much more a rural thing over here so i have no idea how much they cost and so on. if anyone could provide a link or information regarding where we buy them from and costs etc that would be awesome. Also does anyone know how the local councils are about putting granny flats/gamesrooms in your backyard for people to live in? My Dad needs somewhere to live and we would prefer it to be with us. He can't afford the rent nowadays being a pensioner.

I have rattled on long enough so i will take off but i will check back a bit later on. Once again...thanks for the warm welcome. I think I am going to like it here.

[Mystic]

Nice to see you are so excited, and so you should be Tassie is a great place to live

Re your gas, you can check
SUPAGAS TASMANIA
28 Crooked Billet Drive, Bridgewater, TAS 7030
Ph: 03 6263 6422 Fax: 03 6263 6455
Email: supatas@supagas.com.au

Trading Hours: Mon – Fri: 8am – 5pm and Sat: 8am – 12pm

They should be able to provide info on costs, etc for you and was the first decent link I found for gas bottles around Hobart, though I am sure there are more suppliers.

I believe most councils have very few problems with granny flats, but you will need to make a call to the council in the area you plan to buy to double check. I think granny flats are pretty easy to get approval for.

[Daviesgang]

Oh Mystic that is awesome..thank you. I will look into that gas information.

I am super excited. I have always loved travelling and moving from WA to Tasmania is definitely travelling. I adapt really well and tend to just slot into wherever I end up. I have had plenty of practice having moved states every 6 months or so when from the age of 1 through to 16 years as my Dad moved to wherever the work was available at the time.

Looking forward to a new start, meeting new people and making new friends. Sad to leave my current friends, but they will be able to come and visit and have a look around at the same time.

I hope the granny flat issue is hasslefree....or as much as possible anyway. We want my dad close but he also needs his own space and a granny flat is the perfect solution.

[Shane V]

Have your kids started school yet? I know they don't start school here for another couple of weeks...

[Mystic]

Hope it all goes well for you and you keep in touch to share the story of your big adventure

[Daviesgang]

My boys go back to school this Wednesday Shane:D . The poor guys have been bored since a couple of days after christmas and drving us mad ever since. That is one thing we wont have a problem with once we get there as we will spend a good long while checking out all the lovely sights Tasmania has to offer and dragging the kids along with us. They love driving around looking at stuff so they will love it.

[Shane V]

Thanks Sasha, was just curious. They will love it down here...so much to see

[Kelli]

I moved to Tassie five and a half years ago from Queensland. We travelled down with a 4WD and a farm truck. Everything we owned in the world was in those two vehicles. Including two horses, two dogs, two chooks, three cats a cockateil and a newborn human baby. And I was pregnant. What an adventure! I loved it!!

We came over for the first time for a holiday (12 days) and on day four we bought our farm. Then we had to go home and sell our old house and pack up and move. Never regretted it.

We moved to the North East about an hour away from Launceston. There is a hospital in Launceston and a great little hospital in Scottsdale where I had my baby girl. You don't need to live near Hobart to find a hospital. We have friends who have a daughter with nut allergies as well and they have lived here all her life.

If you want you can see lots of photos of our newish lives here on my blog www.summerinwonderland.wordpress.com We travel around a lot and I take a lot of photos. Your going to love it here.

[Daviesgang]

Kelli it sounds amazing!! I just want to do it now but we are going to have to wait until the end of the school year as my eldest son is starting year 12 the day after tomorrow.

I am worried that what happened to you will happen to us.....we are planning on coming over for a week asap to have a look around and to get an idea of areas and I am worried that we will find "the house" while we are there and end up putting an offer on it and then having to race back to Perth and sell up
in a hurry. In fact...I think that is a lie...I am kinda hoping we will find the right place while we are there.

The only thing I am worried about is my son finishing year 12. We don't even have anyone here he could stay with until the school year finished so it isn't like we could move over and get set up while he finishes his schooling and then he joins us later on unfortunately.

It is definitely going to be an adventure and I am so looking forward to it. I have never been the most patient person in the world and this is testing me to the limit having to wait. I am going to have a stickybeak at your blog.......your experience sounds challenging, but awesome. I can't wait until it is our turn:D .

[Cascade]

One word of advice... Don't rule out the rest of the State. Lots of good properties around the NW within 30 mins or less from emergency treatment @ Burnie or Latrobe hospitals. Most schools are Epi-pen trained and students and teachers adhere to rules set down re food etc to aid students with allergy related problems.

A big plus.... we have higher rainfall than most of the state excluding the West Coast, my records show I have only watered my vegie patch 8 times since Novemeber 2010. Although, I admit, it is unusually damp this year. Plus our local basalt soil is great for cropping or pasture. My neighbor has already had a cut of silage, a second cut of hay and is preparing for another cut of hay in the next week, all from the same paddocks. If land is one of your optioned requirements, sometimes paying a bit more for land offsets the headaches from poorer quality soils.

Depending on what you or your partner are looking for or what your sons may be looking to do re further education after yr 12, the way The Tasmanian Acadamy, the Skills Institute and Tasmanian Polytechnics (the old TAFE system) are now set up for the courses and subjects they run, you could well be at the wrong end of the State if you decide Geeveston is the spot to be. It could be wise to check out what they offer and where in the State the courses are run before making any solid decisions.

http://www.polytechnic.tas.edu.au/ http://www.skillsinstitute.com.au/ http://www.academy.tas.edu.au/

Hopefully the week here will be sufficient to help you to work it out. Good Luck.

[Daviesgang]

We definitely haven't ruled anywhere in or out yet Cascade as we have never set foot on the soil yet so we wouldn't be making an informed decision and we don't want to screw this up. Thanks for the TAFE information. My eldest son is still trying to decide what he wants to do once he finishes year 12 but my husband and I want to further our education through TAFE courses so we will get onto looking at what is an isn't available in the different areas. Thanks for the heads up on that issue.

We would love to find somewhere with enough room to have a good sized vegie patch and some fruit trees but we also need to be close to town so we will just have to see what is around when we get over there. Hopefully we can get over there asap to have a good look around. Thanks for the advice Casacade

[Cascade]

If I can be of any further assistance be sure to ask.

[Daviesgang]

Thanks so much Cascade. I know I can come here and ask which is just awesome. It will make our decision so much easier and if we are really lucky we will be able to move to Tasmania with some new friends already.