Are you a former US resident? If so, I’d love to hear your story.
So would I, if it’s not much trouble. 
Shortish version:
About 13 or so years ago on alt.altheism on Usenet, Boy began corresponding with Girl about a question she had on evolutionary biology. A general hi-how-ya-doin’ sort of correspondence continued via email and later, AIM and ICQ, as Girl worked online and was on at weird hours.
Somewhere in the first six years of this, Boy’s long term partner left (on good terms.) Then Girl decided she’d had enough general stupidity and laziness on the part of her then-husband, and (finally) kicked him to the curb.
Boy and Girl talked more, as both were partnerless and therefore online more. Comments were made on both sides that one should call the other. Call finally placed, and nine hours later, when Boy and Girl hung up, the world hand changed for them. Boy lived in Australia with a real career. Girl’s career had just washed up broken on the shores of the dot.com bust. It was decided that Girl should cross the ocean therefore, and live with Boy.
In May, Boy and Girl will be married seven years. (God, I love him so.)
And that is how I ended up in this wonderful city of Sydney.
As it happens, I thought of this thread earlier today as I drowned a rain-soaked Funnel Web in my kitchen with about half a can of bug spray. Sorry Lynne, I know you loves them but he had to offski this world.
Cheers,
G
They do, as bad or worse than deer in some US places (Michigan is the place I have experience with.)
I get nervous when I drive to Bathurst (as I will be doing more and more since my son is going to boarding school there) because there are a heap of 'roo carcasses everywhere by the road.
Disappointingly, there are also “Watch for Wombat” signs. I watch diligently, and I never see one. It makes me sad, cause I’d give almost anything to see a wombat outside a zoo!
Forgiven, but only because you told such a great story, and told it so wonderfully well.
Have none of you fools ever read In a Sunburned Country?
Even the locals in that barbarian land are deadly!
Shhhhhhhhh! We’re trying to lure fresh blood here, rather than just go on eating our own.
Awww…thanks. The funny part is that I then had to hide the dripping wet body from my husband who is terrified of them.
Terrified to the point that once, we had a huntsman spider on the outside of the front door as my husband approached the door to enter the house. Huntsmen are huge but mostly harmless and unagressive. Most people, even most arachnaphobic people, would get a very long stick and shoo it off the door so they could bear to come near the door and open it. They might do the Oogie Spider Too Close To Me Dance afterwards, perhaps with variations on the theme of Is It On Me? OMG Getitoffifitis! Getitoff! Getitioff! What It’s Not On Me? Nevermind.
MY beloved is not most people.
Unwilling to even move it with a stick - “They JUMP you know” - he got out his mobile phone, dialled 1234, got a number of an exterminator, and called them to remove the spider. I’m told that when the gentleman on the other side of the phone started having trouble breathing because he was laughing so hard, my dearest hung up.
Now, still stuck outside, he called our friend who, like Lynne, loves spiders. He came over and shooed it away. With a stick.
This is one of a long list of things that endears me to my husband while exasperating me at the same time. 
I’ve seen wombat carcasses by the side of the road when driving to the mountains from Melbourne. I’m also told that because they are so solidly built and have massively thick skulls, hitting one can make a real mess of your car.
In Australia and the UK the book was released as Down Under. For ages I thought Bill Bryson had written a book that I hadn’t read, so you can imagine my relief when I found out this wasn’t the case. 
I was actually lucky enough to see a wild wombat fairly close, a bunch of us were a few hours from Melbourne staying at a place, can’t remember the name of the nearest town but I know Bunyip was on the way.
It was pretty cool watching it lope off, like mini-animal pro wrestler or something because of the build.
The Lost Continent by Terry Pratchett was quite an entertaining read once I was there for awhile too.
Yeah, that’s why.
I still want to see one. Because wombats are cool. And also so I can avoid hitting one.
Sorry, I missed this before.
It’s not cheap when you’re married either. Easy depends on points and what professions they are looking for.
Easiest way seems to be to go to uni here. That’s expensive, but easier than points.
Very expensive. And once you’ve got your degree, you have to either get in line with the other skilled migrants or it’s back to your home country, from what people at uni have told me.
That is probably correct.
I suppose the other answer is “be from New Zealand”… 
I did it by getting married, and it was a factor in us deciding to actually be married as opposed to de facto. Obviously, it’s been nearly seven years so it wasn’t a sham marriage or anything, but we might not have done it as soon as we did. You can, in theory, do de facto but it’s very complicated and harder to prove.
Even the “Be from NZ” approach isn’t the carte-blanche backstage pass that it used to be.
Once upon a time, Kiwis could just up sticks and move to Australia. The country, that is. Swimming pools, movie stars! 
As soon as you stepped off the plane you were, for all intents and purposes, and Australian Citizen and could vote, get social security, and all that sort of thing. If you hung around long enough you could actually take out Australian citizenship, but most Kiwis never bothered because there wasn’t a lot of benefit for them to do so. (My entire family and I did take out Australian citizenship, though- and we’re very glad we did!)
The same was true of Australians going to NZ, but- and this should be a surprise to absolutely no-one- there weren’t many people going the other way (NZ Prime Minister Robert Muldoon once quipped that NZers moving to Australia improved the IQ of both countries).
Anyway, in 2002 they changed the laws so that simply fronting up at the airport not longer entitled you to anything more than the right to live in Australia and get a job. If you wanted social security or anything, you had to apply for permanent residency. And they changed the rules again recently so that NZers can’t even apply for permanent residency unless they meet the same criteria as everyone else. In short, NZers can move to Australia, stay there, work there, and live there as long as they like, but they can’t get social security or vote or work in many Government jobs or go to uni without paying obscene amounts of money like other Foreigners.
No need for permanent residency for my Kiwi friends, social security kicks in after six months for most benefits, there are meant to be some exceptions however I’m not sure what they are, most seem happy enougth to work hard.
Thanks. I may have some saving grace in the fact that I have a trade but last time I looked at the points thing it looked like it may be borderline but I’m going to see how this long distance relationship stuff works out first before I get to worried about it.
Would go in a heartbeat - in fact it’s a goal. BTW the wombat is one of my favourite animals. So cute and like a little tank.
18 of the top 20 poisonous snakes are in Australia. The male platypus is poisonous. They have the most lethal spiders in the world. They have crocs that will eat you. They have a tiny pretty colored octopus that will kill you . They have stone fish and jellyfish that will kill you. Just because the great white shark had a down season ,it is not time to flock to the continent of death.
Then the hole in the ozone layer will subject you to cancerous death rays of the Aussie sun.