Hi, my name is Neil and I’m from England originally. Now, happily living & working in NSW Australia with my partner of 11 years, Nicola.
My first experience of Australia was back in 2011 when the UK company I was working for sent me over here to oversee the installation and commissioning of data storage centres.
Many more visits ensued over the next 4 years until the work was completed and I was seconded to USA & South Africa carrying out the same work. Quickly realising I really wanted to be back in Australia, I sought sponsored employment with a Sydney based construction company, the news came through that my 457 visa was issued and I was once again Australia bound, this time with Nicola and our cat, Ticky in tow!
The 457 was extended after 4 years by Alice and her team, this time for two years, after which time we were pretty certain we’d have to return to England due to my age. But Alice contacted me with the news that we could apply for Permanent Residency (PR) due to our commitment to working right through the Covid-19 situation; we’d been handed a lifeline to possibly stay here forever! Alice and the team worked tirelessly on the application over the next couple of months to ensure we had the best chance possible of being granted PR.
The application was complete and lodged in April 2023, we were told it could take up to 18 months to process. We waited nervously and tried to push it to the back of our minds – impossible!
Then, one day in July 2023, I received a call from Alice; thinking that she was probably just looking for more information, I calmly took the call:
Me: “Hi Alice, how are you?”
Alice: “Hi Neil, how are you? You’d better sit down.”
I feared that it was a rejection, and thoughts of packing our lives back into a shipping container flashed through my mind.
Alice: “Congratulations, you are now Australian Permanent Residents”!
I can’t recall the rest of the conversation, but it would have been mainly me gibbering, expressing my gratitude to Alice and her amazing team.
Now we’re settled, we are buying property here and planning more exploring in this amazing country in our caravan, and prospecting for more gold! We took up gold detecting around 5 years ago and it now takes up all our holidays, driving to the gold fields in Tibooburra and Hill End regularly.
We are not afraid of a road trip, the biggest one to date was 14000kms setting off from our Sydney home, visiting Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Mount Magnet, The Great Central Road, Uluru, Back to Adelaide and Melbourne before returning to Sydney, a wonderful experience.
Our lives have completely changed since migrating to Australia, this is certainly the land of many opportunities that no way on this earth we would have been able to pursue and enjoy anywhere but here.
None of this would have been possible without Migration Downunder, Alice and team. We thank you so much once again!
