I am going to keep adding good advice and good to know info (or just plain old stuff !) on this page. I will start by telling you if you are on the Gold coast the theme parks have discount vouchers for locals everywhere, in fact most tourist things have vouchers out there somewhere, so dont rush into going right away. At different times of the year the back of supermarket dockets have $20 off theme park entry vouchers. The best idea is to wait until they are doing annual pass specials. Movieworld, seaworld and wet & wild are owned by the same corporation, and they have just finished offering cheap annual (yearly) passes for $99. They are usually around $160. It is $62 just to get in for the day to most of them. Dreamworld in Nov 2008 was doing annual passes for half price, $92. So as you can imagine it is the best way to go, and its great just being able to 'pop' into a theme park when you are in the mood! To check on ANY current saving dockets, go to www.hotdockets.com.au and enter in suburb 4212, print them out and WHALAA! Also try www.clevercoupons.com.au

As soon as your phone line is up and running head to www.donotcall.gov.au and register your phone number. This is a register that stops companies ringing you up trying to sell you products. Believe me, if you dont do it right away, you will be back here before long getting the site because they drive you up the wall, before we registered we were getting about 4 calls a week, which may not seem like much but when they dont know how to take 'NO THANK YOU' as an answer, it becomes very frustrating.

There is no Burger king here, our equivalent is Hungry Jacks. Target is Australias equivalent to Farmers. You will never find fish and chips here like they are in Nz. Or Gingernuts.

If you are house hunting try and find a house with -

• Ceiling fans in the bedrooms
• Air con
• A garage or really good car port (to avoid the hail)
• Not much bushy backyard if you are concerned about the new creatures here!
• A pool !! (if you can find one, youll love me forever)
• A really nice undercover outdoor area (you dont want to be in the direct sunlight)
  
• One storey homes are better until you get used to the heat, the upstairs area gets very hot.

If you do happen to be house hunting make sure you give Paul a call right away, he knows all the ins and outs of getting a Kiwi a mortgage over here and will save you a LOT of time!!! Don't forget to mention this site!!

If you are going to call home, look around for a calling card, they work out a lot cheaper and because they are prepaid you can't run up a huge bill. We are on a Golden Banana card, and it costs about 3 cents a minute to call Nz.

If you start to get homesick, stick it out. Everyone goes through it at some point and the unfortunate thing is after spending all that money to get back home again they come to realise there really wasnt much to miss and would rather be back in Australia. Let yourself get through that tough stage before you go making any rash decisions. Give it at least 18 months.

Thanks to Tory for these links!

Once you have registered with medicare you can call a doctor to come to your home after hours, if you dont have a car or if your kids are sick during the night. They are called 'Medcall' and their number is 55311224, They are bulk billing so wont cost you anything. There is also a health line over here, it is 13HEALTH (134325). There are registered nurses ready to take your call day or night.

 Neighbours is on channel 10 at 6.30 and Home and away is on channel 7 at 7pm ;)