British expat in Perth shares shock at how cold winter is

• UK expat in Perth is struggling with the winter weather
• She expected Australia to be sunny year-round 

A British woman living in Australia has shared her shock over how cold winters are Down Under. 

Gracie Jayne said she was expecting ‘sunshine and warmth’ when she relocated from the UK to Perth but has found herself leaving her coat on indoors because she’s so cold in the winter weather. 

The keen traveller has been living in Perth since March and is watching her friends back home on social media enjoy an unseasonably warm British summer in envy. 

She shared her dismay in an online video mocking TikTok’s ‘Put a Finger Down’ trend.    

‘Put a finger down if you moved across the world to Australia hoping for sunshine and warmth and days spent at the beach and now you’re here and it’s freezing cold,’ she said.  

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‘All your friends are at home in England at festivals and in the sunshine and it’s the hottest summer ever and you’re freezing to death and you’re still wearing your coat when you get into the house.’

Gracie said her house is ‘too cold’ because Australia ‘doesn’t really know how to do central heating’ and the houses are ‘freezing’ because they don’t have radiators before she put her finger down. 

The expat’s clip racked up thousands of views with many sympathising with Gracie’s dilemma and offering tips on how to cope in Australian winter. 

‘Our winter is for about two months. Not like 10 months a year in the UK,’ one woman said. 

‘I know right! It’s nuts – it’s sooooo cold in the house, brrrrrrr – invest in a heated blanket and hot water bottles!’ a second advised. 

‘Yeah, no idea why the houses are so cold with no double glazing or decent heating,’ a third sarcastically added.  

Others told Gracie to gear up for the scorching summer months.  

‘Wait until summer and your friends will be really freezing cold and you’ll be complaining about how hot it is, even hotter than Spain,’ one man laughed. 

‘Enjoy winter while you have it because summer is the humid depths of hell,’ another said.

This isn’t the first time a Brit has been caught off guard by Australia’s chilly winters. 

Tembie recently moved from the UK to Albury/Wodonga on the NSW/Victoria border and revealed ‘the biggest shock’ was how cold Australian winters are.

The nurse said she was taught to believe Australia was all ‘heatwaves and bushfires’ and that she had to go out and buy a coat after landing Down Under.  

‘Why is Australia so flipping cold? No one told me this, this has been a huge culture shock,’ she said in a video.

British expat: These are the ten realities of moving to Australia

1. You have to set up a bank account and get a tax code which can take a while before you can get a job 
2. For most jobs you need to pay to do a course eg RSA, white card etc
3. Everything is so expensive and it’s hard to balance working with exploring as you don’t want to spend too much money
4. Renting can be quite difficult as sometimes you’ll need renter’s history or huge deposits
5. Australia is so far away from family with big time differences 
6. Australia is huge and it’s hard to get to see everything
7. The housing crisis has been the ultimate pain! There’s no where to live! Finding places is so difficult and there are so many scammers 
8. Greyhound buses get booked up quickly so you need to plan trips in advance
9. Jobs are so over-saturated and hard to find! Even if you have good experience you might still struggle
10. It’s quite hard to make friends if you aren’t partying and staying in hostels 

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‘I’ve been here for a month now, I didn’t really research where I was going I was just told by my agency ‘this is a job, this is how much they’re paying you’,’ she added.

The agency nurse, who has also lived in New Zealand, said that she saw ‘dollar signs’ and ‘ran’ to the job.   

‘I didn’t do much research about the town I was going to be in or anything like that.

‘When I landed I was like ‘why is it cold?”

‘I know you guys have winter, but I just assume that it wouldn’t be cold.

‘I know that’s dumb but when you hear about Australia, you hear about bush fires, snakes, the extreme heat, the droughts.

‘No one ever tells you that it’s cold,’ she added in the TikTok video.

Tembie also explained she had to ‘go out and buy a coat’ because she was ‘so cold’ in 9C weather.

Many comments told her Australia was ‘huge’ with different parts having different climates.

While others warned that it was still autumn and set to get much colder.

‘We’re not yet in winter, so buckle up,’ wrote one.

‘Make the most of it because you will be singing a different song in six months time,’ said another.

‘It may not snow in the suburbs, cities but the wind comes from Antarctica so it’s freezing,’ commented a third.

‘Honestly, even coming from New Zealand I was still shocked by how cold it gets here in Australia,’ added another.

‘There is more snow in the Australian Alps then the Swedish Alps,’ informed another.

‘I live in Albury and it’s going to get colder, we’re only one hour from snow!’