It comes as no surprise that moving your stuff to the other side of the PLANET is quite expensive. But still I was surprised when the University’s relocation provider quoted an astonishing $7,195.00 to ship our belongings out with us. Admittedly they provide an amazing service, packing it all for you, labelling everything as required for customs, and unpacking it all at the other end as well as (presumably) moving the stuff from our Birmingham base to Canberra, a cool 10,082 miles.
Actually, when I look at it like that it doesn’t seem quite so unreasonable…
Nevertheless, this is WAY out of our relocation budget (which has to cover a range of different things). So it’s back to the drawing board. We had originally planned on taking a couple of bits and pieces of furniture with us- a double mattress, a sofa bed, a couple of bookcases, a chest of drawers, and a couple of desks; alongside the standard homeware of bedding, plates and bowls, glasses, paintings/photos, clothes. Now we are exploring the possibility of hiring a van and packing up the furniture and most of the rest of the ‘stuff’ to store in my parent’s attic (thank Mum and Dad!!) or in storage near their home (£700 for the year). Not quite sure when we’ll do this as we don’t have a spare weekend between now and when we leave…
This means either a) we need to request extra baggage on our flights or b) we need to get everything for 18 months into one suitcase each (and a cabin bag….). This could be interesting!
