People & Places
Discovering one of Victoria's secrets
A better quality of life and a career change were the main reasons mechanical engineer Nick Cardew and his wife Tracey left the Lake District to settle in the historic Victorian town of Ballarat
As a merchant seaman in the 1980s, Nick Cardew spent a fair amount of time in Melbourne and Sydney in his younger days, including a six-month spell living in Australia in 1988.
What he wouldn't have been aware of back then, is that stories of these travels would one day provide the inspiration which would lead to him moving back to the country for good.
"The Lake District, where we lived in the UK, was very pretty but by the time we paid our mortgage each month, along with the general cost of living, we didn't really have the money, energy or time for anything else," explains Nick.
"We were in a bit of rut," agrees his wife, Tracey. "We could see what the rest of our life was going to be like in the UK, and it wasn't necessarily how we wanted it to be. We needed a change of pace – a different way of life."
Recalling Nick's stories of Australia, it was Tracey who suggested the possibility of starting a new life Down Under.
It was a suggestion that didn't meet with too much of an argument from Nick. "I suppose it was the right time," he says. "One of my brothers lives in Newcastle, New South Wales, and he spoke in glowing terms about life in Australia. "My grandfather also lived out here in the 1960s, so it's always been a bit of dream." However, not everyone in the family immediately relished the idea of embarking on the Australian dream.
Having just started secondary school, their children, Alistair and Victoria, weren't too keen on moving at first. "They had just started high school and it was hard for them to leave their friends, but they quickly got into the adventure of it all," says Tracey.
One of the family's first steps on the emigration path was to contact a migration agent in the UK. After meeting with the agent, Nick was advised to apply for a skilled migration visa to Victoria based on his design engineering skills.
"She [the agent] looked at my CV and said 'I think you should go for Victoria', and within two weeks of submitting the application we got our interim acceptance," reveals Nick.
Straight away Nick and Tracey began researching possible places to live, ultimately deciding that they shouldn't make a final decision until they got some first-hand experience of the state.
Upon arriving in Australia in December 2005, the family stayed with Nick's brother in Newcastle for three weeks, before driving down to Melbourne, intending to travel around Victoria to get a feel for the landscape and the different cities and towns as they went.
"We rented a house in Dandenong (an outer eastern suburb of Melbourne) for a couple of weeks just to get our bearings. It wasn't bad – but it wasn't really the right area for us," says Nick.
And so the family embarked on a tour of Victoria. It would turn out, however, to be a not particularly long tour.
Their first port of call was Ballarat, a historic gold mining town about an hour-and-a-half west of Melbourne. It was quickly decided that they didn't need to go any further. "It's such a pleasant city. It has all the things you need to live in a place but it's not too big," says Tracey. "It's perfect for families. There's cycling and walking tracks, arts and culture and a very good healthcare system. There's a lot of history here, too, and the architecture is really nice as well."
Within two weeks the Cardews had found a place to rent not too far from the children's school, and within four months they had bought a house around the corner from it.
Today, the family has no regrets about making the decision to upsticks and swap the Lake District for Ballarat.
"We really love Victoria. It's great to be able to go down to Melbourne, which I believe is one of the best cities in the world," says Tracey. "Ticket prices for shows and concerts are very reasonable and you can hop on a train in Ballarat and be there in an hour. We went to the Commonwealth Games in 2006 and I went to a Robbie Williams concert, too. It was fantastic and something we probably couldn't have afforded to do in the UK."
Since arriving in Ballarat the Cardew family have welcomed a new addition to the household in the shape of their dog, Bella, who they say has helped them feel more at home in Oz.
Tracey has also started a diploma of business administration course at the University of Ballarat, which she is enjoying. "The teachers are great. They're so positive," she says.
There is no doubt in the family's mind that others who are becoming increasingly fed up with the UK should give Australia a go. As Tracey says: "If people are really thinking of coming here I'd say give it a go, give it 100 per cent. If you don't give it a try you'll never know."
With thanks to the Skilled and Business Migration Programme, Workforce Participation Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development for Victoria: www.liveinvictoria.vic.gov.au
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