After almost five years of preparation, in May 2011 Nigel and Gill Burrows finally arrived in New South Wales to start their new life in Oz. Lana Clements catches up with Nigel to find out how life has gone so far.

It’s not hard to see why Brits abandon grey skies for Australia’s sun, beaches and relaxed way of life – like so many people, it was something that Nigel and Gill Burrows had long talked about. But in May 2011, they decided to finally take the plunge and shift their life to the other side of the world.

The couple had been living in a small town in West Sussex with their five-year old daughter Ella, where Nigel was a licenced aircraft engineer commuting to Gatwick Airport, and Gill was working a couple of days a week as a clerical assistant in the local Worthing Hospital. After visiting Australia a few times over the years, Nigel had become enamoured with the country and its way of life, to the point that he dreamt about living over there permanently. He says: “I had been to Australia a couple of times backpacking and in the early ‘90s spent three months living and working in Sydney. I really enjoyed the pace of life and couldn’t help but wake up with a smile on my face.”

Compared with Britain the lifestyle was also much more outdoors-orientated and sporty, which was a large part of the lure for Nigel: “I found it possible to live fairly healthily and sportily – but in the UK you’re looked at as a bit of a weirdo if you like doing sport!” The engineer put his dream into action about five years ago and applied for a skilled migrant visa, which his vocation enabled him to do. The job and economic environment was a large factor in pushing him into making the move: “In the UK the airline industry was getting more and more depressing and just going through the motions of decline,” he recalls.

The couple’s young daughter, Ella, was also a large reason behind the Burrows’

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