Shipping Cost To Australia.

Sooooo.

Looking at shipping costs for a container I found..

http://www.costhelper.com/cost/home-garden/ship-car-overseas.html

 “Transporting a standard-sized car from the US to Australia costs about $2,950. If household items are to be shipped in a container along with the vehicle the price runs around $3,200 for a 20-foot container that can handle a car plus a few small items”

So basiclly at 20 foot container full of our crap, plus im sure their is a price for customs, I’m going to guess its going to cost at LEAST $4000 to have our crap in Australia.

I like my stuff, its reallly neat stuff. But really? I don’t think its worth what I’m about to pay for Tif’s wedding to ship it there.

Carrie doesn’t want to talk about it but when we do, she doesn’t want to get rid of our stuff. Well.. Honey, $4000 to have our bed, couch, and dining room table there.  Again. Moving is very very stressful. Because of CRAP!

ah.. no thanks. we’ll ship boxes of pictures and bathing suits instead.

More Australia Research.

So I figure its going to cost like 20k USD to move the family to Oz. Between the Visas, Three round trip tickets… twice. Putting our stuff in a container and shipping it, buying a car, deposits, insurance.. blah blah blah. Depending on how much it cost to ship, I’ll just sell everything and start fresh (and lighter!) After reading about quarantine and customs and sleeping on the floor for 2 months waiting for your stuff… no thanks.. My bed and couches are to damn big.

It seems life is about collecting crap.

That is why moving is so stressful. Moving all this crap!

I was reading a blog this morning about an fellow from the UK moving Melbourne, and it seems I found even more stuff to research. http://movingtooz.blogspot.com/ I found it because I typed this blogs name in blogspot vs wordpress. LOL. It was very helpful since he is a IT guy also with a wife and kids. I could relate a bit. The process of getting bank accounts in itself looks like fun.. not. hahaha

I went to Carlsbad this weekend to buy a new SUP racer that was going to take with me to Oz. But after talking to Carrie, I decided to keep the money, start the Oz fund, and I can always buy one once I’m down there vs. trying to sell it in Arizona!

My very good friend Chris is moving to the North Shore (Oahu) in a couple of days. That is why I went to Carlsbad in the first place. Also, to pick up my baby, the 9′ 6″ Takayama longboard I broke a few months ago. She is all fixed up and good as new, if not better! I gave Chris some money for some surf art work and large framed photos of waves. I do want to take these with me.

It was nice to get back to the beach. It was very cold and the surf was blown out. I can’t wait till the day we are in the Sunshine Coast and its warm most of the time 😀

But now in the meantime, we focus on Tifanie’s wedding, meeting the new family, and growing the Oz fund.

Oh.. Before I forget. Jack gave me a bit of a run down for Australian beer. To my dismay, Fosters is crap PBR beers there. haha. So Victoria Bitter it is. 😀

Cheers mate! 😀

SUP Noosa

Nothing happened. Been dealing with my concussion from falling off my dirt bike. 6 days now, it’s getting annoying.

Nothing really happened regarding down under.. Just watched some videos of Stand Up Paddling in Noosa. Thinking how much to send the boards down there. I guess we dont have to sell everything. Maybe crate some stuff up and send it on a ship..

More stuff to think about. arrgh.

Day 1. So, we want to be Aussies…

Well as of Feb 25th 2010,  My wife Carrie  and I decided to uproot our American life and spend the rest of our days somewhere in the Gold Coast.

I created this blog to log our adventures along the way.

Some backstory…

Our daughter Tifanie met a Aussie named Jack, fell in love, and now getting married in 4 months and planning on moving to Australia to start a family within a year. She would only go if her parents went. Well.. It was a no brainer for me. My wife and I are ocean people. Since the economy in California priced us out of the market on one income, we moved to Arizona. Which is a bummer.. I surf and my wife is a beach girl. My work is remote. I am software programmer that works for a company in Virgina. So as long as I have a internet connection. I can work. They have the internet  down under.

So the overall of it all is that we want to get back to the beach and restart our life with very little material crap.

Our target is a year from now. March 2011.

Here we go.

Since I’m not your normal soccer dad.. I’m more like your long haired hippy, rob machado looking, surf, skate, dirt bike riding dad. Cool dad 😀  The first thing on my mind was “how to speak Australian” (like the Fosters beer ads)

I bookmarked a site http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html 

It’s got a ton of slang that I ran across Jack and he said that it was a great list. So, I’m going to start practicing. Also bookmarked some local news sites in Noosa, Tweeds and Brisbain. These are areas we are interested in. (mostly Noosa for me since its surf and shopping (wife). Finally, I have been chatting with our soon to be Aussie family.

Let’s see where this goes.